Adoption Recrutiment Event on Saturday

If you’re thinking about adopting, HCJFS is hosting an adoption recruitment event at the Colerain Bowling Alley this Saturday Feb. 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you have a completed home study on file or letter from your agency, you may attend this event and meet some of our children available for adoption. Make sure to RSVP! To learn more, check out the flier. http://ow.ly/d/1S9F

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Choose Your Partner Carefully

Choose Your Partner Carefully

I was very happy to see this editorial in today’s Enquirer. We launched that campaign a few years ago, but it is an extremely important topic that we should come back to on a regular basis. We need to update the numbers, but as you will see from the Choose Your Partner Carefully website linked above and the Enquirer editorial, we have traditionally outpaced the nation when it comes to boyfriends harming children. Mothers need to understand that just because he loves you, doesn’t mean he will love your child. Please visit the website and educate yourself, and thanks again to the Enquirer for a wonderful editorial.

New Year’s Resolutions

In case you missed it, here is my latest column in Update, our community newsletter. It lays out some of our agency goals for 2014. If you are not an update Subscriber, here’s a link to the latest issue, where you can sign up to receive the monthly newsletter: http://www.hcjfs.hamilton-co.org/UpdateNew2014/January/Cover.htm

 

Like everyone else, I like to make New Year’s resolutions. There is no better time to take stock of your life and set new goals for yourself.

I do the same with our organization. While we are constantly looking at ways to improve how we serve the public, the annual turning of the calendar is a great time to publicize our plans for organizational improvement.

This year, the number one goal at JFS will be to improve the customer experience. We want to make the experience with us as quick and simple as possible. I realize that with the volume we serve – we serve more than half a million people in this community annually – “quick and simple” is a relative term. Still, I would like it to be less cumbersome.

Therefore, we will be working on doing all of the following:

• Emphasizing answering/solving consumer contacts at the initial contact, thereby reducing the need for follow up contacts
• Reducing hold times in our busy call center
• Maintaining statewide metropolitan county leadership in food stamp timeliness and work participation rates
• Matching or passing our next closest metropolitan county in Child Support incentive categories
• Increasing our mobile/web presence, making it easier to conduct business with the agency
• Increasing our social media presence to educate the public about JFS
• Examining current-day best practices in customer service and implementing the best

Another major goal is to oversee the expansion of Medicaid and the implementation of the Ohio Integrated Eligibility System (the computer system used to process public assistance applications). The expansion of Medicaid is expected to add 42,000 more people to our caseloads, pushing us to over 200,000 recipients, which is one fourth of all county residents. These two projects together will take up much agency time and effort in 2014.

Finally, we are going to embark on an education campaign with the community that details the work we do and how we help this community. I worry sometimes that message gets lost. We are an agency that helps, whether it is protecting abused children and the elderly, ensuring children receive the financial support they deserve, providing a lifeline during times of trouble, assisting with the cost of child care so a parent can work or aiding in a job search. We do good work here and I want the public to know that.

That is our plan for 2014. Let’s make it a great year! 

 

Happy Holidays

Our offices will close at noon tomorrow and reopen Thursday morning. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

We were very fortunate this year to have much support from the community. Toys for Tots once again donated hundreds of toys to our abused and neglected children. The U.S. Marine Corps Reserves does a fantastic job and helps so many people in this community and around the country.

Two churches, the Peoples Church in Clifton and Montgomery Community Church, held holiday parties for our children. It is so nice to be able to give them a sense of normalcy around the holidays and to see smiles on their faces!

Numerous other people donated gifts to our children. I wish I could name them all. The generosity of this community always amazes me.

Thank you and may your holidays be warm and filled with family and friends.

 

 

 

 

I came across this video and thought I would share. It shows, in a powerful way, the danger of leaving your children alone in a hot car, even for a few minutes.

Thanksgiving Hours

Please remember our office is not only closed on Thanksgiving Day, but also the day after. If you have business to conduct, we are open during normal business hours today and tomorrow.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have much to be thankful for, not only this time of year, but all year. Every day on this job exposes me to a number of people whose lives have been turned upside down in some way, perhaps through the ugliness of child abuse or the randomness of a job layoff. It puts life into perspective.

 

A Thank You to This Agency’s Important Partners

For my most recent column in Update, our community e-newsletter, I expanded on my last blog post. My goal was to thank all of those who partner with us and ask nothing in return. I could not mention everyone, but I picked some of our most prominent partners, who really help us provide services that make this community a better place to live.

Also, check out some of the other stories in the newsletter, which comes out monthly. We would love to have you as a subscriber.

Thank you!

http://www.hcjfs.hamilton-co.org/UpdateNew2013/February/Cover.htm

Hamilton County Child Welfare Partnerships to be Highlighted

I am very honored to be asked to speak at The Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Leadership, Evidence, Analysis, Debate (LEAD) Conference on Jan. 25. The subject is policy and collaboration in child welfare.

My presentation will focus on several partnerships we have that result in better outcomes for foster children, including the Crossover Youth Project, Journey, HOPE, Kids in School Rule and more.

We have tremendous partnerships that produce wonderful results for foster children. This speaks well of the cooperation and creativity of child-serving agencies in Hamilton County. They share in this honor and I will be sure to highlight their contributions to that success.

Closed for MLK Day

Our offices will be closed Monday for Martin Luther King Day. We will open again on Tuesday. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend.

Special Edition of Update Tells You How to do Business with Us

We produced a special edition of our Update community newsletter that details the best and fastest ways to do business with us. You can also read my column on our renewed commitment to customer service.

Here’s the link. While you are there, please sign up to regularly receive our newsletter via email.

http://www.hcjfs.hamilton-co.org/UpdateNew2013/January/Letter.htm