QUESTION
What training and retraining approaches are being implemented by the Department of Social Services?
1:31:30
·
155 sec
The Department of Social Services has been conducting retraining to update staff on policies, procedures, and escalation strategies.
- Retraining focuses on ensuring staff are up-to-date with existing policies and procedures.
- Special attention is given to reinforcing escalation strategy approaches in case of incidents.
- The retraining reflects a response to unprecedented emergency situations faced in July 2022.
- A centralized data management team at DSS is introduced to ensure efficient data collection and provide additional checks and balances.
- The department is actively reinforcing procedures for potential future escalations.
Diana I. Ayala
1:31:30
And there will be training.
Molly Wasow Park
1:31:32
Of course.
Shahana Hanif
1:31:32
Yes.
1:31:33
Okay.
Diana I. Ayala
1:31:33
Is it has there been any training retraining now?
Molly Wasow Park
1:31:36
We have certainly yes.
1:31:37
We have done retraining to make sure that people are fully up to date on on existing policies and procedures and reinforced escalation strategy approaches if there is an incident frankly, the fact that that there was some question about the escalation policies is in some ways a reflection of positive news because this hadn't happened in the past.
Diana I. Ayala
1:32:03
Yeah.
Molly Wasow Park
1:32:03
Right?
1:32:04
There weren't staff who had been through this before.
1:32:07
But in an unprecedented emergency.
1:32:10
And and really, I do wanna take us back to what was going on at Path in July of 2022.
1:32:16
At that point, this was before the response to the asylum seekers had become a whole of government effort.
1:32:21
Right?
1:32:22
So really DHS was it.
1:32:25
We were on the front lines, buses were dropping people off on random street corners, you know, hundreds of families were walking in.
1:32:33
We were getting, you know, double or more than double or number of of clients and sort of adding to that and really creating a perfect storm.
1:32:42
In that week in July when this was when families when we missed the standard, when families stayed past 4 AM, we were doing upgrades to care cares, which is our system of record.
1:32:53
So it was mandated.
1:32:55
Security upgrades, it were really important to happen, but it meant that placement work that normally gets done on an automated basis was getting done on paper and by phone call.
1:33:06
So you really had a perfect storm going on.
1:33:09
So, you know, And I'm so grateful to the frontline staff who actually really did manage that perfect storm and were able to serve families in that environment, but CERTAINLY WE ARE REINFORCING WHAT TO WHAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN IF THERE IS ANOTHER NEED FOR AN ESCALATION.
Diana I. Ayala
1:33:26
SO YOU SORT OF THIS TRAINING, THIS that's been retraining has is there an order process that's been put in place to ensure that the training is working and to catch the efficiencies in a timely manner?
Molly Wasow Park
1:33:37
So what we're doing is that we're moving this particular we're moving data points and data management away from from some of the frontline staff and moving it into our centralized data management team at DSS, they are reviewing methodology and locking methodology for how we collect data.
1:33:59
They will this is gonna provide some additional checks and balances, and then they'll be viewing data on a regular basis.
Diana I. Ayala
1:34:05
Perfect.