Matrix Human Services’ program Transition To Success (TTS) would play an integral role in this new model. The program began by changing the framework for understanding poverty as a treatable condition. Like alcoholism or obesity, they approached poverty as a disease – one that decreases the cognitive development of children, increases mental health issues, and produces developmental delays and hospitalizations. Like a disease, poverty is treatable and needs to be addressed using a system of care based on research. Recognizing this TTS integrated four primary therapeutic interventions identified in the research: comprehensive care management, volunteerism, life coaching and financial literacy.

TTS trained providers to incorporate comprehensive care management with direct care professionals across health, faith-based, education, government and human services agencies to coordinate existing, already funded services into logical, step by step processes creating a CARE (Coordinating all Resources Effectively) plan. With assistance, clients created a “Map of My Dreams” including volunteerism and financial literacy. Peer mentors and human services professionals then supported clients’ execution of their Map.

Using a “train the trainer” model, TTS began to expand, providing curriculums and tools to train others and measure results. As Wilson explains, “TTS is a new business model. It is not about any single organization, it’s about a tapestry. We train trainers, providing them with curriculum and tools to train others and measure results and create their own social enterprise.”

The results speak for themselves. Ninety percent of TTS children have increased their grades and 100 percent are up-to-date on immunizations and hearing and vision screenings. Clients have increased their household income by an average of 85 percent and experienced substantial increases in credit scores.

The TTS training tools and CARE plan have also become an integral part of the Governor’s broader initiative. Like TTS, Michigan’s new client-centered human services model is holistic and integrates public programs, private partners and informal networks. It also takes the services to where people need them.

For example, DHS has partnered in opening 21 “Community Schools” in Detroit and looking to open more across the state. These schools are open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, to offer citizens success coaches and agency staff providing assistance with academics, health, social services, community development and community engagement. The state’s economic development corporation, department of community health, department of education, community ventures and Matrix TTS have all been key partners in this effort.

In Detroit and across Michigan human services leaders have dealt with the poverty crisis by creating their own productive disruptions. Starting with a bold vision, they were willing to reframe poverty, breakdown silos and initiate a new way of doing business that brought services where people need them and created a coordinated system that was easier to navigate.