In prior strategic planning cycles, LCCS used outside consultants to guide the majority of the process. For the 2019–2023 cycle, Reese, the executive director, asked Jackson to lead the planning and implementation of the strategic planning process. Outside consultants were still a part of the process and served as facilitators to bring neutrality to the brainstorming, strategic ideation and board engagement aspects of the planning process.
As a CPA and seasoned leader, Jackson brought expertise grounded in finance management and enterprise-wide operations. Her responsibility included several LCCS departments: Fiscal, IT, HR, Training & Development, Clerical and Building & Operations. As the leader of these departments, she was uniquely qualified to understand change management around leading the plan creation and integration. Jackson was also the liaison for two LCCS board committees, Personnel (HR) and Finance. In her role as a liaison, she had many opportunities to discuss strategic planning and financial processes with the board and obtain director input. Before joining LCCS, Jackson gained significant strategic planning experience in industry when she worked for Owens Corning and when she served as CFO for a local government housing authority.
In appointing Jackson to lead the process, Reese, as executive director, wanted to change the traditional way the agency conducted strategic planning and use an interactive and inclusive approach. The goal was to ensure that the LCCS stakeholders' voices were heard and reflected in the plan. Reese also placed significant emphasis on ensuring board alignment with the strategic priorities that emerged from the plan as well as accountability. Reese envisioned the plan to be a living document; transparent and easy to communicate to the public. This was especially important because LCCS is a public levy-funded agency that receives more than 50% of its support from taxpayer dollars. LCCS leaders place significant value on transparency and ensuring that taxpayers are knowledgeable about how tax dollars are spent.
Reese was confident that her leadership team could develop a plan that was adaptable to the new FFPSA legislation. She ensured that her team had access to timely and relevant information to integrate into the strategic plan and provided the time and resources for them to attend meetings and trainings at the state level. Participation in state trainings also helped to ensure that the LCCS leadership team was in alignment with its state advocacy organisation, the Public Children Services Association of Ohio (PCSAO). With a fresh approach to strategic planning underway and with the leadership and oversight provided by Jackson, the future never looked brighter for LCCS.
Validating mission, vision and values
In launching the strategic planning process, Jackson engaged the LCCS management team to validate the agency's mission, vision and practice model. In working through this stage, it was critical to ensure that the agency was fully aligned with the state's mandate to investigate allegations of child abuse and neglect and provide protective services to children. The management team validated the existing mission statement and found that no changes were necessary, and it remained as:
Mission: To lead the community in the protection of children at risk of abuse and neglect. This is accomplished by working with families, service providers and community members to assess risk and coordinate community-based services resulting in safe, stable and permanent families for children.
The management team next revised its vision statement to reflect alignment with FFPSA.
LCCS uses a practice model to put its mission into action and guide employee values in conducting their work and presenting themselves to children, families, community members, external partners and regulators. The practice model defines how the employees put the agency's values in motion. Before the 2019–2023 strategic planning cycle, the model included three values. During the cycle, two values were added to align with the agency's equity vision and the FFPSA legislation: culturally competent and child-focused.
Values in old practice model: strength-based, family-centered, trauma-informed. Values in new practice model: culturally competent, strength-based, family-centered, child-focused and trauma-informed.
The mission, vision and values-based practice model were well communicated by the LCCS leadership team, and are now embedded in the agency's culture.
Conduct an environmental scan and engage stakeholders
After the mission, vision and practice model were validated, Jackson and her team led the management team through an environmental scanning process. This phase of the strategic planning cycle was critical to obtain input to share with LCCS leaders and the board of directors, and to ensure a solid understanding of the agency’s current and potential operating conditions. FFPSA is intended to overhaul all aspects of child welfare practice and financing, so a broad-based approach was critical at this stage of the strategic planning process. As LCCS is a county agency, the scan needed to include factors that affected local, state and federal agencies. Other elements of the scan included examining how LCCS could engage with the local community, service providers and legislators to implement the equity-based FFPSA approach. The scan enabled the LCCS management team to obtain success and have a positive impact on the community.
Key questions addressed during this stage:
How will FFPSA affect the child welfare practice and financing for services at the local, state and federal levels? (Figure 1 shows the alignment of local, state, and federal funding priorities.)
Where do local, state and federal practice mandates and funding intersect? Where are they aligned?
What are the possibilities for LCCS to work with the community, legislators and service providers to properly implement services in the spirit of FFPSA?
The management team used the results of the scan to develop five strategic themes:
Reduce childhood fatalities
Strengthen families
Develop community partners
Make everyone a change agent
Make LCCS a great place to work
Engaging stakeholders
After the environmental scan was complete, it was time to engage the following stakeholders: employees, board of directors, community partners, families and foster parents. About half of the LCCS employees attended strategic ideation and visioning sessions. Jackson was careful not to rush the employee feedback opportunities and ensure inclusive conversation. As a result, about half of the employees participated in extensive discussions, with 20 sessions occurring over two months.
LCCS surveyed of all stakeholders. The survey asked respondents to provide feedback and prioritise the five strategic themes (listed in previous section) that were developed after the environmental scan. Over 800 external surveys were distributed with a 12% response rate. The employee response rate was much higher with 32% responding. Both the employee and stakeholder groups ranked the goal of reducing childhood fatalities as a top priority, followed by strengthening families. Using the results of the stakeholder survey, the five strategic themes were condensed into four strategic objectives:
Safety with a focus on prevention, intervention and crisis services
Reduction of disproportionally through equity-driven decision-making
Strategic positioning
Operational excellence
The board then reviewed and approved the four strategic objectives, and the management team met again to develop Core Strategic Priorities. These priorities were focused and ensured that the LCCS leaders would clearly assess and communicate the progress on the broader four objectives.
Setting the Core Strategic Priorities also ensured that LCCS would have built-in flexibility within its plan. If a strategic priority was met earlier than expected, a new one could be added without changing the four overarching objectives. Conversely, since LCCS is heavily dependent on federal and state legislation and funding, if a fundamental change occurred with a funding stream, a mechanism is in place to quickly update the agency's strategic plan. As a result, LCCS aligned its objectives with five Core Strategic Priorities.
The last step in the strategic planning process was to establish metrics for strategic priorities. In setting the targets, the team worked backward. It created teams led by internal leaders who volunteered for this stage. The teams examined ways to implement operational, strategic priorities, and it created timelines and planning documentation to determine if the goals were achievable. This process provided a preview of the way that strategic progress could be measured. The LCCS data team leaders established the measurement baselines and targets in Figure 2.