Strategy A: Maintain a state-level Support Team to advocate and facilitate collaboration among Partners at the state and local level.

Activity / Responsible Person/Entity / Measure of Success / Year 4 Outcomes
A.1 Designate a State-level person to serve on a Support Team to be available to their respective local offices and Regional Workforce Investment Boards. / Agreement Signors or their designees / Staff person for each Partner is assigned and listed in the Agreement attachment. / As of 9-30-07, members of the Support Team were Shan Sasser, Iowa Department for the Blind; Barbara Guy, Iowa Department of Education; Micheleen Maher, Iowa Vocational Rehabilitation Services, Iowa Department of Education; JohnTenPas, Iowa Department of Human Rights; Janet Shoeman and Jill Whitten, Iowa Department of Human Services; Becky Harker, Iowa Governor’s Developmental Disabilities Council; and Doug Keast, Iowa Workforce Development. The Agreement was updated April1, 2007 to add DHS members.
A.2 Review and adapt the membership of the Support Team so it has the resources it needs. / Agreement Signors or their designees / Record of Governance Group recommendations. / See minutes of Governance Group meetings. On FFY 2007, the Department of Human Services added a Support Team member to represent Medicaid programs.
A.3 Review the need for the Support Team Coordinator and as appropriate develop a 28E agreement between the Signors to fund the coordinator position. / Agreement Signors or their designees / Record of Governance Group recommendations. / Governance Group completed FFY 2007 28E for the Support Team Coordinator. Norma Hohlfeld of Hohlfeld Public Policy Consulting served as Support Team Coordinator.
A.4 Ensure that Support Team members are available to help with local objectives regarding collaborative service design. See Attachment A (Support Team.) / Support Team / Record of Support Team activity.
Minutes of Support Team meetings. Record of activities of SupportTeam designed to generate feedback. Reports of feedback information at Support Team Meetings, and Annual Partner meeting. Changes in the Agreement and attachments attributed to feedback. / The Support Team made a visit to Workforce Regions in FFY 2007: Workforce Region 3 & 4, Spencer, May 14, 2007, and a meeting washeld with Workforce Region 1 on November 16, 2007. The Support Team will use the feedback from these visits to determine what steps are needed to help local partners with collaborative service design in FFY 2008. See the IVRS website.**
A.5 Report to the Signors or their designees on an annual basis for purposes of communication, evaluation and modification of this Agreement. / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Minutes of annual and quarterly Partner meetings. / On behalf of the Support Team, the Support Team Coordinator reported on Support Team activities to the Governance Group at each of its meetings in FFY 2007. See the IVRS website.**

Strategy B:Identify and assess barriers to collaboration at all levels of service delivery.

Activity / Responsible Person/Entity / Measure of Success / Year 4Outcomes
B.1 Provide guidelines to deal with some barriers to collaboration that have already been identified. These will appear as Attachments to the Agreement. / Agreement Signors or designees / Staff person assigned and listed in the Agreement attachment. / During the renewal of the MOA for FFY 2008, the Support Team reviewed the Attachments and Appendices of the 2003 document. They deleted the Overlap Service Charts as out of date. All others were incorporated into the 2007 document, revised as needed. No new guidelines were necessary during FFY 2007.
B.2 Continue to identify and address barriers to collaboration.
  • Local offices provide information and recommendations to State-level Partners regarding policies and procedures that appear to hinder collaboration.
  • When appropriate, new guidelines will be shared with local offices through amendment to this Agreement or addition of Attachments to this Agreement.
/ Support Team / Record of Support Team activity. Minutes of Support Team meetings. Minutes of annual and quarterly Partner meetings. Published amendments and additions to the MOA. / See above regarding Support Team field visit in FFY 2007 and planned for FFY 2008.
In addition the Support Team issued five field Memosin FFY 2007.**
B.3 Maintain communication among State and local offices to solicit all-level input on issues, e.g.:
  • Strategies to strengthen collaboration, e.g., cross-training needs, multidisciplinary focus groups.
  • Evidence of increased collaboration among the local partners.
  • New or continuing barriers to increased collaboration.
  • Sharing information on new policies and procedures, best practices, and collaboration processes and their implementation across the Partner programs.
  • New needs for further study to resolve barriers to collaboration, improve the system or identify root causes.
/ Support Team / Record of activities of Support Team designed to generate feedback. . Minutes of
Support Team meetings. Minutes of annual and quarterly Partner meetings. / See above regarding Support Team field visits in FFY 2007 and planned in FFY 2008.
The Support Team is working with local partners in the Workforce Regions to complete a Collaboration Survey to help State and local partners to determine the current state of collaboration among local partners. The results are immediately available to a participating Region when they use the survey. The results are also used as a basis for conversations with Workforce Region partners during the field visits. The Support Team continues to recruit participants for this ongoing effort so that state-wide responses will be available in 2008.
In FFY 2007, the Support Team asked the Partners to develop and share their dissemination plans for MOA-related documents in order to ensure that all of the Partners can know which staff members among their local partners will have access to this information.
See the IVRS website.**

Strategy C: Resolve collaboration issues, promote innovative polices, procedures, and practices in service delivery and communicate those consistently statewide to local partners.

Activity / Responsible Person/Entity / Measure of Success / Year 4 Outcomes
C.1 Resolve collaboration issues that affect more than one agency. / Support Team / Record of activities of Support Team. Minutes of Support Team meetings. Minutes of Partners quarterly or annual meetings. / No collaboration issues that would require Governance Group action were brought to the Support Team during FFY 2007. The Support Team continues to hold two field visits each calendar year. Beginning in FFY 2006, the Collaboration Survey described at B.3. has been administered to staff and managers before a field visit and the results were available for discussion during the site meetings. Highlights of barriers noted during the visits will be integrated into the field visits report.
During the field visits the Support Team continues to note that people in the field are not aware that there remains activity and discussion on the MOA. On the agenda for upcoming Support Team meetings is discussion on communication.
See the IVRS website.**
C.2 Seek direction from the Signors of this Agreement or their designees to address newly identified barriers as appropriate. / Support Team / Record of activities of Support Team. Minutes of Support Team meetings. Minutes of Partners quarterly or annual meetings. / See above.
See the IVRS website.**
C.3 Disseminate new policy and guidelines developed under this Agreement to all affected local offices through communication processes described in Attachment E (Communication). / Support Team / Record of activities of Support Team. Minutes of Support Team meetings. / See above.
See the IVRS website.**
C.4 Disseminate success stories across regions to demonstrate how barriers are addressed locally to make collaboration a reality. / Support Team / Record of activities of Support Team. Minutes of Support Team meetings. / Current method is using field memos that are posted on the website.
See the IVRS website.**

Strategy D: Evaluate the success of fostering and supporting collaboration in achieving employment outcomes for Iowans with disabilities when the Partners share customers, resources, and information.

Activity / Responsible Person/Entity / Measure of Success / Year 4Outcomes
D.1 Record incidents of contact and outcomes for State and local level barriers to collaboration that are reported and resolved / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Support Team records of incidents of contact and outcomes. /

None volunteered – only noted in site visits. Recommendation: Continue to address communication strategies this coming year. Results of site visits indicate that barriers are recognized.

D.2 Record instances of collaboration at the State and local level such as cross-training, multidisciplinary focus groups, etc. / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Support Team records of instances of collaboration at the State and local levels. /

Dissemination of Region 10 Cross-training experience with other regions through a “Promising Practice” MOA Field Memo.

In follow-up to last year’s site visit with Region 10 workforce partners, the Support Team has supported a Region 10 review of partner agencies’ status regarding comparable standards of confidentiality.
Offered regional One-Stop systems opportunity for review of collaboration and barriers through Collaboration Now survey and follow-up to Assistive Technology team reviews of several years ago. Three regions have followed up on this offer.
Joint SSA grant application for Work Incentive Planning and Assistance (WIPA)--Awarded and began 10/1/06.

Governance Group agency representatives and Support team implement the Navigator and WIPA initiatives through oversight meetings held quarterly. Next one is 12/5/07.

D.3 Record policy and procedural changes by the Partners that affect collaboration or were made to resolve barriers to collaboration. / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Support Team record of Partner policy and procedural changes that affect collaboration or were made to resolve barriers to collaboration. /

No procedural changes in any agency this year as a result of Support Team activity.

D.4 Identify and record information on other intermediate measures of collaboration that may serve as indicators of employment outcomes. / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Support Team record of plans and activities to identify and gather other intermediate measures.
Records of data obtained through intermediate measures. /

Three-year data developed on job seeker outcomes with three of the service agencies working through One-Stop workforce centers across Iowa. Data shared on a statewide level with agency representatives at Support Team meetings, and also local figures shared with local partner groups. Programs featured included VR services, Employment Services (ES) and Workforce Investment Act Services (WIA). Older Worker Services and PROMISE JOBS may be included this year. Program year 06 data has not been disseminated yet—and are likely to include information about Iowa Ticket to Work holders as well.

D.5 Seek sources of data or methods of measurement to lead to quantitative evaluation of employment outcomes for Iowans with disabilities. / Support Team / Minutes of Support Team meetings. Support Team record of plans and activities to seek data for quantitative evaluation of outcomes.
Records of quantitative data obtained from identified sources. / Support Team continues to seek additional sources of measurement from initiatives with the same mission. Examples: Medicaid Infrastructure Grant (MIG).
Expanded SSA beneficiary impact information is available to the Governance Group through its WIPA initiative. This coincides with Ticket to Work (TTW) information as several One-Stop Workforce Centers are investigating becoming Employment Networks under the TTW.
TTW information is now being reviewed and tracked, with agreements in place for the three key state level “Employment Networks” to continue supporting local systems in coordinating ticket outreach. While this focus is expected to support stronger coordination that will demonstrate better outcomes for all job seekers with disabilities, the tracking and reporting for TTW holders may be a bit clearer.

**for minutes of the Governance Group and Support Team meetings, for MOA Field Memos, for summaries and reports relevant to Support Team field visits (including the use of the Collaboration Survey) and other MOA-relevant documents.

Evaluation Report for FFY 2007, Year 4 of the MOA, May 23, 2008, 2008, page 1