Waterloo Children & Youth Services Planning ... - Social Services

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June 2012 1. DESCRIPTION A project developed by a sub-committee of the Waterloo Region Children and Youth Services Planning Council (CYSPC) to complete a review of the process and experience of accessing services for vulnerable children and youth in Waterloo Region. The Council is made up of over 30 major service providers funded by the Ministry of Children and Youth Services. The Councils mission is to… “…plan for, promote and continually improve a local system of services and supports for vulnerable children, youth and their families” The overall objective of the project was to gather feedback on what is working for families and service providers in the area of access to services and seek out further feasible means to enhance the current strengths and build a system that is welcoming, easy to navigate, well-coordinated and efficient. Specifically the committee was interested in exploring the feasibility of developing a “single point screening” service (telephone line) that would serve as the information and screening gateway for parents seeking services for vulnerable children. 2. Management of the Project The project was managed by a two tiered committee consisting of the Integrated Access to Services Steering Committee and a smaller committee called the Integrated Access to Services Working Group. The Steering Committee The steering committee is made up of several members of the Council and several additional members recruited for this work. The Steering committee oversaw the project and made decisions on the final results and recommendations to go to the Council. The “Steering Committee” Membership Lesley Barraball, kidsLINK - lbarraball@kidslinkcares.com Barb Cardow, Region of Waterloo - bcardow@regionofwaterloo.ca Kevin Clouthier, kidsLINK - kclouthier@kidslinkcares.com Maria Deboer, Extend a Family - mdeboer@eafwr.on.ca Debbie Engel, kidsLINK - dengel@kidslinkcares.com Pamela Martindale-Niven, MCYS – pamela.martindale@ontario.ca Jayne Matzeg, KidsAbility - jmatzeg@KidsAbility.ca Kathy Payette, Lutherwood – kpayette@lutherwood.ca CHAIR Andrea Reist, Region of Waterloo - areist@regionofwaterloo.ca Esther Rhee, Autism services Waterloo Region – erhee@aswr.ca 6 | P a g e
June 2012 Sue Simpson, WR Family Network - suesimpson@waterlooregionfamilynetwork.com Karen Spencer, Family and Children’s Services - karen.spencer@facswaterloo.org Laura Thies, Developmental Services Resource Centre - l.thies@dscwr.com Denise Watson, KidsAbility - dwatson@kidsability.ca The “Working Group” Membership The “working group” consisted of Denise Watson, chair, (KidsAbility), Sue Simpson, (Waterloo Region Family Network), Randy Penney, (Lutherwood) and Laurie Robinson, (Consultant). Later in the project Kathy Payette, (Lutherwood) replaced Randy Penney on the working group. The Working Group met several times during the project to discuss and provide feedback on the design of the project, the choice of informants/participants, the data collection methods and the development of questions for the participants. Following the data collection phase the working group was expanded to include Andrea Riest, (Region of Waterloo), Esther Rhee, (Autism Services Waterloo Region) and Neil Butler (Developmental Services Resource Centre). The expanded working group met to discuss outcomes and develop initial recommendations to bring back to the Steering Committee. 3. PROJECT DESIGN This project was designed to gather information from participants about their experience accessing services and/or supporting a family’s efforts to access services for vulnerable children in Waterloo Region. The information was collected by in person interviews and focus groups with parents (Appendix 1- Parent Forum Poster), direct service providers (Appendix 2 – email invitation) and senior leadership for existing single points of access including Front Door, Developmental Services Resource Centre (DSRC), and Child Care Special Needs Access Point (SNAP) (Appendix 3 – email invitation). The Consultant also collected in person feedback from three community planning groups, including the Waterloo Catholic District School Board, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC), the Student Support Leadership Initiative (SSLI), and the Transitions Network Committee. Efforts were made to meet with the Waterloo Region Board of Education, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) however this could not be arranged. Never the less, many Waterloo Board SEAC members were aware of the review and had contributed to the information gathering in other forums. Electronic surveys were developed and distributed to 35 senior leaders from a variety of MCYS funded services that have their own “intake process” or access to service process (Appendix 4 – survey for service providers). An electronic survey was also developed and distributed to parents as an alternative to attending the “in person” Parent Forum (Appendix 5 – survey for parents). 7 | P a g e
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Waterloo Children & Youth Services Planning ... - Social Services

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