Information is powerful: You must use it to your advantage.

    " We keep track of what we do. And we put that out for the whole community to see in a way they can understand," says the Mental Health Board Administrator in Stark County.

    " We knew early on that if we were asking people to invest in what we had going, they needed to know in no uncertain terms what the investment they were making was and what the return for the dollars would be. We originally started with our bettors or risk takers who were willing to say here's our money, where's your?"

    " Over time, we knew that our system wasn't made up solely of bettors. We had to pay attention to what we were producing and we had to market that in a way that would lead people to want to participate. We presented our information in a way that could be easily understood. Everything we market, we market in 7 bullet points plus or minus two. Anymore than that and it's just one more bureaucratic document."

Information is a critical ingredient to the success of the Stark County Family Council. The Council, while representing a set of clearly held values, realizes that participation in the Council is not enough. All of the activities pursued by the Council have to be backed up by data and outcomes for the level of buy-in to be sustained. The focus of evaluation activities in Stark County focus on two levels which are:

  1. Process: How are dollars being spent and what activities are being done?
  2. Outcome: What are the results of the investments made?

In order to answer these questions, the Council has built capacity at the staff level to gather and summarize data in a way which allows stakeholders to continue participation. More importantly, the Executive level participants on the Board of Trustees have the capacity to analyze that information and make policy decisions based on it. This ongoing data gathering function is critical to the successful ongoing functioning of the infrastructure. The Board of Trustees makes decisions based on this ongoing information rather than information they had when their collaborative adventures began.

One of the clear assumptions about data gathering within the Council framework is that data has got to be summarized simply in order to be effective. One rule which Council staff follow is that they attempt to summarize information with seven bullet points give or take two. Any collaborative effort runs the risk of confusing the field of care by providing too many information points. Within the management culture in Stark County, the expectation is that people will analyze the important things and make decisions based on these areas. When stakeholders can review a simple summary regarding outcomes and evaluation, they are more apt to continue to buy into the process. (Appendix BB)

The other reason to simply summarize system information involves a recognition that securing buy-in is an ongoing process. Marketing has become a key Council function over the past several years. While the ongoing mission and guiding principles do serve a purpose in securing that buy-in, the Council recognizes that nothing attracts like success. A sense of movement is as important to sustaining the infrastructure as the guiding principles themselves. As a result, the Council is continually looking for ways to represent their activities. Ways this is accomplished is by summarizing the following items:

  1. Identifying how new resources have been brought into the community. The collaborative resources has resulted in new federal, state and private dollars coming into the community.

  2. Data gathered about keeping families together. One accomplishment in Stark County involves the reduction of out of home placements by 30% and reducing psychiatric hospitalizations by 50%.

      Developing new services and redirecting old services for children and families. The Council keeps track of service changes and trends and summarizes this information to the community.

    This focus on marketing is critical to the ongoing viability of the infrastructure. In order to create a rich management culture of participation and validity, marketing efforts are part of the Family Council's daily activities. This allows new stakeholders to join the process in an ongoing fashion. It also allows stakeholders who are already participating to reassess their commitments in light of new information. This results in commitments changing over time. For example, schools who have participated began to substantially increase their financial participation in Council activities in 1996. This change in commitment was largely due to the ongoing information that educational participants received regarding the success of the pooled funding mechanism.

    The final value of information involves setting concrete goals across systems. Without a clear snapshot of where a system is, a collaborative infrastructure runs the risk of simply collaborating as an end unto itself. Since 1995, the Council has participated in the Family Stability Incentive Fund project through the state of Ohio. Using this approach, Council staff have summarized all out of home placements across systems and have entered into a contract in which they set clear goals for reductions of out of home care. (Appendix CC) This allows each system to see how their system is affected by their participation with the Family Council. It also allows the county as a whole to set goals around all children across systems.