Special Notice / Hearing: None
Vote Required: 4/5th
To: Honorable Board of Supervisors
From: Justin Mates, Deputy County Manager
Rocio Kiryczun, Human Resources Director
Subject: County of San Mateo FY 2018-19 STARS Awards
RECOMMENDATION:
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Recommendation to:
A) Adopt a resolution approving STARS Awards recipients; and
B) Approve an Appropriation Transfer Request in the amount of $50,000 by transferring $50,000 from Non-Departmental Services to STARS Award recipients in the General Fund.
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BACKGROUND:
The San Mateo County STARS Awards was established in 2006 to recognize programs for their outstanding contributions to the organization and our community. The program initially began with the Program Performance and Customer Service award categories. In 2008 the Green and Employee Suggestion award categories were added to recognize sustainability efforts and employees that offer innovative ideas that improve County services. In 2016, the Diversity award was added to recognize programs that promote inclusion and diversity.
DISCUSSION:
This year’s STARS Awards program was open during the fall of 2019. Twelve (12) program entries were submitted and all entries were evaluated by review teams based on established criteria. The programs with the highest score in each category are recommended to receive awards. (The Employee Suggestion award category will be offered in 2020 via an Employee Innovation Summit.)
The winning programs are listed below and a full description is attached.
|
Category |
Program Award Recipients |
|
Program Performance |
Bridges to Wellness County Health, Public Health, Planning and Policy |
|
Customer Service |
Case Management Programs (Multipurpose Senior Services Program and Partners for Independence) County Health, Aging and Adult Services |
|
Green |
Sustainability Academy / SPROUTS Office of Sustainability |
|
Diversity |
Save a Life Program Coroner’s Office |
County Counsel has reviewed and approved this resolution as to form.
FISCAL IMPACT:
Appropriations (in the amount of $50,000) are included in the current year Adopted Budget. This year’s STARS Awards total $50,000 ($30,000 Program Performance, $10,000 Customer Service, $5,000 Green, and $5,000 Diversity). The Appropriation Transfer Request (ATR) adjusts the budgets of the award-winning programs/departments, including Health, Office of Sustainability, and the Coroner’s Office.
Attachment: Description of 2018-19 STARS Awards
Bridges to Wellness - County Health, Public Health, Planning and Policy ($30,000)
Description: In 2017, the Public Health Policy and Planning (PHPP) division implemented the Bridges to Wellness Team (BWT), a program that provides intensive, field-based care navigation to the county’s most vulnerable Medi-Cal members. BWT clients are usually high utilizers of emergency departments (ED) who often experience multiple physical health, mental health, and substance use-related issues, compounded by social determinants of health, including poverty and homelessness. The primary goal of BWT is to improve health outcomes and quality of life for clients. This is achieved by providing care coordination, connecting clients to the appropriate levels of care, and connecting clients to a range of resources for behavioral health, mental health, housing, and social services.
BWT line staff, Care Navigators (CN), function as community health workers to facilitate cross-sector care coordination, patient advocacy, peer support, translation services, and transportation. Additionally, a medical team (Medical Director, Nurse Practitioner, and Registered Nurse) provides real-time clinical support for staff and clients. This integrated care for clients decrease inappropriate health system utilization through intensive, field-based intervention and increase connection to appropriate, coordinated person-centered care and addresses the social determinants of health by connecting clients to programs and services designed to meet these specific needs.
Results: In FY18-19, BWT improved clients’ health outcomes and quality of life through its intensive, field-based services. BWT clients who were enrolled in FY17-18 had a 29% decrease in the rate of ED visits (per 1000 member months) from FY17-18 to FY18-19. FY18-19 enrollees had an 11% decrease in ED visits (per 1000 member months) from FY17-18 to FY18-19. Additionally, in FY18-19, 51.7% of BWT clients had a primary care visit during the fiscal year compared to 41.9% of all WPC clients.
Based on the program indicator survey (described above), from January-June 2019, more than 30 clients were referred to the Coordinated Entry System (CES), and 13 were placed in temporary housing and/or received a permanent supportive housing voucher. During the same time period, nearly 70 clients were referred to other types of housing and 40 were placed in some type of housing service and/or received a housing voucher. CN regularly supported clients in accessing benefits such as General Assistance, Social Security Income, CalFresh, Lifeline cell phones, and emergency food assistance. Many clients began some type of community engagement (job, volunteer, education, social support group) due to the work of the Care Navigator and over 30 obtained treatment. Over 90% of clients shared feedback and overwhelmingly, the respondents described positive, impactful partnerships with their care navigators (92%). Respondents indicated an improvement in self-management skills (86%), access to services (79%), and perception of health and quality of life (80%). Participants described them as non-judgmental, professional, caring, and emotionally supportive. Clients talked about the care navigators’ relatability, and ability to connect with them personally.
“I tried to take my life. I woke up in the hospital, tubes in, and saw this person sitting there. "Who are you?" "I'm [name], your Care Navigator." They told me it's going to get better. My CN helped me get off the streets and obtain housing. What my CN has done, is a big deal. I am honored and blessed to have a care navigator.” - Bridges to Wellness client, 2018
Case Management Programs (Multipurpose Senior Services Program and Partners for Independence) - County Health, Aging and Adult Services ($10,000)
Description: The Multipurpose Senior Services Program (MSSP) and the Partners for Independence (PFI) are two intensive case management programs in Aging and Adult Services (AAS) that aim to optimize the quality of life for over 300 older adults and adults with disabilities with complex medical and psychosocial needs. By providing intensive case management and care coordination to this vulnerable population, AAS is preventing and reducing adverse health and psychological outcomes. Program goals include: preserving client self-determination to remain home for as long as possible, promote positive client outcomes through intensive case management, providing coordinated care using a collaborative approach with our health partners, and preventing or delaying out-of-home care. These AAS programs are client-centered and include clients in every aspect of case management, preserving their right to self-determination whenever possible. Social Workers and public health nurses make home visits and engage clients as active partners in their care. Through conducting Interdisciplinary Team Meetings, they strengthen the relationships with their partners to prevent fragmented care and ensure systems are working together to promote positive client outcomes and exceptional customer service.
Results: In recent years, AAS has focused on client satisfaction and partnered with UC Berkeley to evaluate the efficacy of their programs and to measure client engagement and satisfaction. Surveys are distributed on an annual basis to monitor clients’ satisfaction and make adjustments and quality improvements based on the survey responses. Annual client surveys have consistently shown that being part of the decision-making regarding one’s care was important to our clients (98%); client felt their SWs communicated with other professionals to coordinate their overall health needs (97%); clients felt better able to manage their health needs with the help of their SW (95%); and clients also felt that without this help, their health would be worse (92%). In 2019, the response rate was 44% with an average of 96.7% positive satisfaction rate overall. Amazingly, all clients reported having a good relationship with their social worker. They also asked clients to rate their overall health using a 5-point scale from Poor to Excellent.
Despite the majority (68.5%) of clients rating their health as “Fair” or “Poor,” the program helped clients feel more empowered to manage their health needs (97%) and the majority even felt their health would be worse without their social worker (92%). In 2017, they added the question, “I have more hope about my future since working with my social worker.” Surprisingly, the majority (92%) of clients felt more hopeful about their future since participating in the program which cannot be overstated given the complex health conditions they face.
Sustainability Academy/SPROUTS - Office of Sustainability ($5,000)
Description: San Mateo County’s returning citizens, or community members who are returning home from a period of incarceration, often experience difficulty finding gainful employment. Many employers do not hire individuals with a criminal record and returning citizens may not have ready access to the educational or job training programs that will help them develop the skills to succeed in the workplace. The challenges for returning citizens upon release are many. San Mateo County has a few programs in other departments like Behavioral Health and Recovery Services that help facilitate this kind of post-release support, but many individuals still struggle, and recidivism is not uncommon in this County. The Sustainability Academy program at the Maple Street Transitional Housing Program helps to meet this need by working alongside other job training programs in the jail to provide practical job training and resource conservation workshops and holistic wellness workshops to inmates.
Furthermore, the sustainability field nationally and locally has historically struggled to reflect diverse needs and interests. “Environmentalism” has been a term defined by and limited to a narrow demographic band of American society. Gradually, this is changing, and government-run “environmental” programs are gradually evolving as well. This program reflects this critical transformation in the way government staff is thinking about what environmental problems are and who else should be included in programmatic design. This program responds to this challenge by serving historically underserved populations, inmates and returning citizens.
Results: The program began in September 2018. It targets inmates at Maple Street Jail within the Transitional Housing Unit. The program funds staff from Planting Justice, a non-profit based in Oakland, to provide workshops twice a week on topics including resource conservation, waste reduction, garden installation and maintenance, water-smart irrigation, and holistic wellness lessons and exercises. One of the reasons Planting Justice has been so successful in designing and delivering learning environments for incarcerated populations is because they employ people who have experienced incarceration. Planting Justice trains and supports these individuals to teach workshops in jails and prisons throughout Northern California and they pay them a living wage. Participants learn practical ways to reduce waste at home and prepare and consume healthy foods that also tend to involve less packaging. They also learn about recycling and energy conservation at home. Participants planted, along with Planting Justice and OOS staff, an edible forest on a plot of land at the Maple Street Jail. Through this experience they also learned about native and less water intensive landscaping and gardening techniques as well as water-smart irrigation design. Newer participants will continue to learn about these topics in the teaching and learning space created by the new forest.
Save a Life Program - Coroner’s Office ($5,000)
Description: The San Mateo County Coroner Save A Life program is a course for youth deemed “at-risk” due to their demonstration of unsafe behaviors. The goal of the Save A Life program is to inspire change in behavior to prevent untimely death related to risky and reckless activities. The Save A Life program is able to achieve this goal by communicating to the students in a way that effectively describes the gravity and potentially fatal outcomes for themselves and others as a result of risky behaviors.
The Save a Life program began in April 2010, and classes have been offered on a quarterly basis since its inception. The program began as a court-ordered course and it has since expanded to include any youth referred by parents or school authorities. It is a three-hour course for youth who have demonstrated a disregard for their own safety and the safety of others by engaging in risky, reckless, or violent behavior (i.e. impaired driving, driving without a license, drug or alcohol abuse, theft and robbery, etc.).
Results: The sole purpose of the Save A Life program is to intervene in the lives of at-risk youth who have demonstrated reckless and dangerous behaviors. The youth who attend the Save A Life program disproportionately belong to racial and ethnic minorities. To increase the effectiveness and relatability of the program, the Save A Life team worked to introduce more current stories of youth belonging to racial and ethnic minorities. With the presentation incorporating more recent and diverse cases, students in the Save A Life program recognize the deceased youth from news reports they heard or through a personal connection. Now, the students identify with the youth not merely because they belong in the same age group, but they represent the same minority community. Additionally, the program previously offered forms and documents written in English. The forms are completed by students and guardians of the students, often individuals who speak English as a second language or are Spanish-speaking only. Spanish literate team members translated the forms and surveys from English to Spanish. Students and guardians are provided English and Spanish language documentation to bridge communication and decrease language gaps. Because of these program updates, Save a Life is more effective, powerful, and inclusive for the youth who participate.