At this level the focus of the human services organization expands to address multi-dimensional family problems, socioeconomic issues, and opportunities required to generate long-term individual and community success. The foundation of a Generative human services system and its broad outcomes orientation is the deep and wide use of cross-boundary data and information. In action, the culture, managerial and operational processes, and technology of the organization will likely be adaptive and modular, allowing multiple programs and institutions to build, share, and deploy information and services on an ongoing and evolving basis. Additionally, social networks and advanced information analytics will help organizations synthesize information and trends across the ecosystem of organizations, jurisdictions, and communities in order to become predictive in nature – enabling co-creation of policy, resource generation, and modification of programs in response to real-time conditions.
Diagnostic Metrics & Checkpoints:
- Outcomes & Impact Design: The enterprise is capturing community-wide and partner-wide outcome measures in order to predict service needs, forge new partnerships, generate new resources, and create new high-impact solutions.
- Organizational & Practice Design: The enterprise is “boundaryless” and able to evolve policy, governance, programs, and processes dynamically to meet changing community outcome needs and co-create solutions with all stakeholders.
- Systems & Technology Design: The enterprise is leveraging predictive analytics and social technologies to synthesize information community-wide, track service loads and metrics, predict service demand, and communicate impact measures.
For a glimpse into the potential of a Generative Business Model, look at progress in the State of Washington and San Diego County, California.
Washington State’s Department of Social and Health Services was struggling to serve 2 million people under tight budgets and surging demand. Concerned, officials adopted an “Impact Statement” stressing family centered case management with a special focus on the first 2,000 days of a child’s life. It was the beginning of generative work. Next, Washington integrated client databases to draw information from more than 30 data systems and adapted IT systems to synchronize processes across offices. This new model as enabled the state to conduct predictive modeling in order to identify clients who have costly needs or problematic outcomes and help caseworkers target interventions. Twitter and Facebook are used to communicate with the community and track service loads, and allow real-time responses.
San Diego County human services also took a Generative approach in order to respond to growing health and human services challenges. Leaders responded by creating an integrated agency comprising child welfare, behavioral and public health, and others in order to transform how the county approaches community security and health. The culmination of these efforts has brought forward “Live Well, San Diego!” – a 10-year plan to repurpose the county government’s $5 billion annual budget and engage community partners to help all citizens thrive. The effort synchronizes physical health, behavioral health, and social services, and together, an array of agencies and community partners are now deploying wrap-around services, engaging in issues like education, literacy and housing, and delivering completely new value and outcomes.