REPORT OUT: “MAKE IT REAL” PART A

SAFEWAY MULTI-SERVICE CENTER

The assignment was to design, in an ideal way, the first floor of the Safeway Multi-services Center. DSHS is taking the second floor; the first floor available for other agencies and tenancies.

Background. DSHS is combining the Burien CSO and the West Seattle CSO. Leases are coming up. Two time lines are working: one for DSHS (to be up and running on the second floor by March 2004)—the second is for first-floor occupancy; the timeframe for that is less definite and there will be some flexibility.

Design factors. There will have to be some structural decisions made to assist engineers who need to design a two-story building that is now a single story. The location of rest rooms, stairwells, etc, needs to be decided. The exterior and interior of the building should be welcoming and non-governmental. DSHS requirements (for the second floor) are for 90% open areas (cubicles);10% fixed offices.

DSHS space. There will be a reception area (not a waiting room). The space will include a public area with public meeting rooms. CSO will have half of the space; employment security will have some space, and the children's administration space is uncertain. The range of cost is probably $19-22 per square foot.

First floor concepts:

What people liked in Fremont and San Mateo was the concept of a “welcome hub”—a central greeting place. There will be both internal and external entrances to various spaces. People would come into a central lobby—a giant atrium on second floor will light the first floor. The space will be flooded with light.

This building occupies the space between 14^th and 15^th on the north side of 98^th. Metro currently uses 98^th street as a bus stacking area. There will be no room for landscape relief on that side of the building. The developer will try to work with King County metro on this issue. This is a bus transfer location for at least seven routes. The bus stop will become a “transit hub.”

We envision two distinct zones on the first floor: (1) a perimeter zone on three sides of the building with a loading dock on the fourth side; this zone will house public and commercial applications with external access. (2) an internal zone will be more directed towards social service areas. The bottom floor at 37,000 sq ft. breaks out into four nice areas. DHSH will bring it's regional mail unit and maintenance shop to the first floor.

Possible services include a library branch, coffee shop, Internet café, bookstore, financial services, bill paying service, staffing service, child care, family resource center, refugee federation, and community college classrooms. If this facility rests in the middle of the community, we want to make it useful to individuals who are not receiving social services.

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PROCESS FLOW

Ngy's brain guided us through this process. In order to figure out the customer experience, we first outlined what the system could look like and then talked about what the experience would be like. We did this because the system must be allowed to respond in a number of ways.

We used the Multi-Services Center as our model. All of the natural supports surround the professional services. There are constant intersections. We focused very much on the nature of the client, for example TANF clients, youth, or seniors.

There is a point of entry and pre-screening at the MSC. The first person they meet finds out if they speak English. If they speak the language they are provided with a complete assessment. If not, the greeter arranges for an assessment with a person who speaks their language. This may be a professional or a community volunteer.

After assessment, the client would receive services in White Center/Boulevard Park facilities if available; otherwise he/she would be referred outside.

All people in the building must communicate with one another to ensure that the client receives the proper services. A lot of coordination and communication needs to go on not only with agencies located in the multi-service center but also those not co-located. We created access through a virtual community — at minimum a uniform database, at best a virtual communication system. Assessment can happen at any point of entry. Agreements are required for sharing data and for sharing assessment/intake. Our goal is for the client to tell his story only once. This process will meet another need around shortening the time that it takes to get access to needed services.

Results will be assessed on the basis of customer satisfaction, not on the agency perceptions. To ensure that the system can be reshaped, we learn from experience — we hold an annual focus group among customers and hear from them about the services and what should be added or changed.

What does the customer experience in this system?

Discussion. This model could apply to lots of the projects not just the multi-service center — the design could happen around schools, HOPE VI etc. The design might be different depending upon the mission of the agency, but the process would be very similar.

Where is the systems navigator? This happens on the second floor, not the first floor where it is impossible. Make the guide more visible in the flow chart. Also, you might need a separate flow chart for existing clients, a kind of retro fit for those clients. We need more elucidation of the ongoing relationship, the end of services etc. The “pre-screen” area needs to be constantly updated, so that greeters have the most current information and assessment of the ability of entities to perform their tasks. It can't be a static area. Greeters must be continually trained as navigators. [“Ghandi with a computer”]

What happens when a person goes into a school or some other non-organized system — how does that work? This needs to be worked out in more detail. You could use the Internet database for that purpose. Ideally, every formal and informal provider has to come into this system at least in the knowledge base. There would be integration of the natural and invented systems. There needs to be a great deal of training and information sharing across the service providers. Models from yesterday could be fit into this as well—for example, having a service provider at each of the schools.

 

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COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND FEEDBACK

Part A: Community Leadership 2	Part A: Community Leadership 2	Part A: Community Leadership Model

“All Voices”. We tried to identify the different voices that needed to be part of this. It would be resident leadership who could give the community feedback. We took a look at the groups as we know them now. One important group is the trusted advocate group, ethnic group representatives, who meet regularly every month. Some are residents, some are not — but they are trusted within those ethnic groups. Others include the resident council, unincorporated area council, White Center community development association, chamber of commerce, and faith-based organizations. These are the more formal participants. Informal voices of veterans, homeless, and seniors need to be heard as well.

As a model for coordinating the voice of the people, we looked to the evolution of the coalition for the community school. This started with a coalition of all agencies and people who had an interest in schools — from that they chose an advisory council to represent the community voice — that is a model that could work in a similar way for the integrated services facility. If we took that general model, we would have all of these groups form a loose coalition, and from them choose an advisory council to represent community and residents. They would meet periodically to discuss their interests, and their representatives would sit on the overall governance board for planning.

Residents' role is to be co-designers and co-service providers. They should build on existing community feedback and have an annual community feedback meeting.

What is necessary in order to achieve that level and quality of participation?

Discussion: When you say governance, what issues are you referring to? This is a model of governance of the multi-service center. Whatever governing body is put in place for decision-making relative to the management of this center, residents need to be represented on that body as equal partners. Someone has to organize this training and pay for this training so that people can serve on this board; for example, the Annie Casey Foundation or another nonprofit to support the advisory group. Is there a component built in to get information back to the communities? We thought of focus groups and “report cards” that go back to the community. The Report Card needs to be created.

 

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DETAILED MAP OF WHITE CENTER SERVICES

Enlargement or Interactive Map

Part A: Detailed Map 1	Part A: Detailed Map 2	Part A: Detailed Map 3

We focused narrowly on White Center but did not include Boulevard Park. We went from 4^th to 18^th/19^th Streets and listed all of the agencies — who they serve, how many people per time period, language capabilities, and funding sources.

Themes — most agencies are publicly funded which makes them tenuous. We have many languages, which is a great strength.

We mapped our languages , using a key to mark what languages each agency can accommodate The question is how to share the language capabilities that reside here.

What is missing from our map? — drug and alcohol education and treatment, Somali languages, mental health services, disability, financial literacy, other MAAs, recreation for adults and seniors, location ESL, and transportation. We are not sure if these are missing services or if our information is incomplete.

 

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AGREEMENTS FOR INTEGRATED SERVICES

Part A: Agreements 1	Part A: Agreements 2	Part A: Agreements 3

There were three assumptions that helped us:

(1)   The Safeway site is just one of many — it might be the best and most comprehensive or it might never happen. In either case, it can serve as a model for starters.

(2)   There will be any number of two or multi-party agreements — they will be complicated, involving leases etc. — we will not define all of these.

(3)   We will attempt to design the simplest universal agreement that all parties could agree on — a minimal commitment so that people could take a step in. It needs to be easy, simple, quick to execute and suitable for small and large organizations, formal and informal groups.

We defined the Universal Agreement as a Memorandum of Understanding, and we propose that we begin with four items that could be implemented right away. They are easy, inexpensive, and allow everyone to participate. Participants would agree to help design and carry out the following components:

1. “Glue” — a staff person hired through this agreement to coordinate all of the functions
2. An information kiosk located at each participating agency and staffed at least part-time, and including
1. consistent message, logo
2. picture of the contact person
3. some language capacity e.g. a form in many languages that asks you to point to the language you speak
4. materials and bulletin board
3. Cross training
1. train the kiosk representatives
2. guiding principles, how things work, feedback to your own agency
3. lots of people from an agency could participate — like this kind of process on a on-day or two-day basis
4. MOU would talk about participation in that training and in design and development of your agency
4. Multidisciplinary action team, meeting monthly, that would handle the most in-need families, and secondarily deal with technical components, mechanics, confidentiality waiver etc.
1. core group of people getting together monthly
2. each agency would identify the family or people with the greatest challenges
3. these would be brought to the action team, e.g. housing, schools
4. group would brainstorm to help as a team
5. outcomes — let's look at these families now and in 180 days — can we make a difference
6. there needs to be a coordinator of all of these activities

We discussed finances and the different levels of capacity. Institutional agencies may have more capacity to pay for the coordinator. The system will have to accommodate different levels of financial capacity. Grants or other subsidies may be necessary.

Discussion: Did you discuss “glue” in terms of agency commitments? The MOU is also a kind of “glue” — good will is the glue now — agencies would have to continue to be active and reflect that commitment.

 

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COMMUNITY COORDINATION

Part A: Community Coordination 1	Part A: Community Coordination 2	Part A: Community Coordination 3

This discussion follows on the universal agreements discussion.

We started with coordination between locations. We created a taxonomy of services to know what we are coordinating. We started with existing services and then identified ones that should be added. We looked at services and the populations being served. Services include health, employment, community colleges, workforce, public assistance, medical, child care, youth and recreation, tutor, mentoring, recreation and ongoing support for education, behavior, education pre and k-12, adult population education, seniors, child welfare, advocacy, foster care, continuum of housing services

There are two types of coordination: governance and service coordination.

Governance. What currently goes on? This is where decisions are made and agreements are agreed upon. There is cross-governance through partners and deputies groups.

Service coordination. We need to coordinate among and between services and between multidisciplinary teams within organizations. Services are blended as well as customer feedback. Since we are adding two new facilities in the next — Safeway and the community school — these are perfect examples of the ability to coordinate

We have several examples of coordinated services to use as models, including Work First, child welfare, CDC, and the ESL website

Next steps include

—agreeing to the principle that we would be respectful of language and cultural diversity.

—Coordination agreements—short and simple.

—“Trade Show” to involve all sites and front line people

—new protocols for the new sites

§       DSHS and public health could out-station workers at the new organizations

§       Information Brokers at the kiosk or welcome center; this would be a “greeter” who would be available to do initial screening at each location — know enough to direct someone to the full-blown assessment

§       Joint case staffing

§       Another level of MIS — how to share info electronically

§       Develop a way to have existing information put into a common user profile

§       Common initial screening and triage

§       Cross training

§       Public health needs to be added to partners and deputies group

§       Partners and deputies would provide a charge to all of the agencies and empower the operational folks, including community and informal supports, not only the agencies

Families are at the center of the model. There will be

—A community plan

—A governance plan

—Customer feedback

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