Trade Show: Multi-Services Center

Presenter: Greta Lent, Community Services Office

We are locating a community services office in White Center. We are merging two existing DSHS offices to the top floor of a Safeway building that will soon be renovated. We hope to move in March of next year. We will be co-locating a number of service organizations in that building with some planned to be on the first floor. The exact participants have not yet been decided. There will be 96 staff, training services and children's services.

Community Services Offices has been working to change our image from that of “the welfare office.” We are moving from that “welfare” image to the image of an employment and training center. One of our two largest programs provides stand-alone medical services for over 13,000 people in families who do not receive any other cash benefits. Our other big program is a child care program, also for families who do not receive other benefits. Increasingly, we are moving those services away from our office and out into the community. At the White Center Safeway location will be an intake office, case managers, and social workers. These are the core services delivered face-to-face there.

Children's services and rehabilitation may be there. Other DSHS divisions will be there. This represents new internal collaborations within DSHS as well as external collaborations with others.

Statewide, there are many initiatives trying to integrate services. DSHS has behaved like a kind of 'mother ship.' We need to get off the mother ship and get down into the community. How can we establish relationships directly with the people whom we serve? We will have a presence in that Safeway building, but we also want to be more out in the community. We are learning how to design our services so that whoever comes through whatever door can receive the services they need. Our goal would be “There is no wrong door.”

We have had a difficult relationship with communities. There is often resistance when we first come into a community. Yet once we are established, people do not want us to leave. Through our financial support to families, local merchants benefit. For example, last year we provided $1,080,000 which was spent locally for food.

This is very new territory for our agency. We have to get out of the “us/them” syndrome. This is a great opportunity to try new ways of working with people. The integration and co-location in White Center offers many new possibilities to improve our services and relationships. We will be working with the community on what core services should be provided in that building. We have a lot of work to do with our staff in this regard as well. We have a way to go, and it is a different way for us to go, but we are very excited about it.