Children’s Home & Aid had its first Best Stat meeting in March 2015. The process was developed to systematically use data to improve program performance. Over the years, Best Stat has done a great deal to promote a data-driven culture in the agency, drive innovations in practice and improve agency and client outcomes.
Quarterly Best Stat meetings create an opportunity to have an honest and constructive conversation about how to achieve the best possible results for our clients. Children’s Home & Aid has seen the impact these meetings and strategic approaches have on children, their families, and the overall community.
The conversation in the crisis nursery Best Stat led us to rethink how we deliver our services to families. Our crisis nurseries were created to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing short-term child care and respite care for families experiencing crisis. Children’s Home & Aid has two nurseries, one in Bloomington and one in Rockford. After several Best Stat discussion crisis nursery staff realized we may not be reaching families most in need. Through Best Stat, new data was provided that led the program to modify their approach. They changed how clients are screened, oriented their work around the five protective factors to support the prevention of abuse and neglect, and created a system to track goals with families. Our crisis nursery in Rockford, Motherhouse, saw a significant increase in the percent of clients successfully completing their protective factor goals. Staff attributed this increase to setting more realistic goals with families
Programs across the agency have success stories like crisis nursery. This quarter we are highlighting the great work done at the Rice Center, which provides residential therapeutic treatment. Stay tuned as we will be publishing quarterly highlights from other Best Stats.
