Background and Context
Introduction
The process of implementation is about people AND organizations. Too often, organizations fail to pay attention to their role to support the use of any program or practice model. Organizational Readiness describes a developmental point when an organization has the basic resources, abilities, and willingness to engage in implementing the CA Child Welfare Core Practice Model (CPM). It is not a pre-existing aspect of an organization that lasts on its own. Organizational readiness needs active support to be developed, nurtured, and sustained across stages of the implementation process. Organizations that do so are more likely to initiate change, exert greater effort, exhibit greater persistence, and display more cooperative behavior.
“If I am not directly serving children and families, what is my role in CPM implementation?” Leadership, teaming structures, communication processes, and using data to understand and improve implementation activities are all critical to support use of the CPM. The goal and intent of ORB is that people at multiple levels of an organization are specifically resourced and tasked to come together and attend to the day-to-day and ongoing leadership and management activities necessary for effective implementation. Teams of executive leaders, staff, and partners have functional roles, dedicated, on-the-job resources, and are supported by organizational and system practices that create an organizational climate to facilitate progress and problem-solve challenges of those delivering the practice model.
Goals for the ORB Toolkit
The ORB toolkit assists in assessing and guiding organizational efforts to support and sustain the CPM. Tools and resources focus on critical areas of leadership, organizational climate, teaming structures, communication, and using data to understand and improve implementation. By themselves, the ORB resources and tools do not necessarily advance CPM implementation. Instead, they can add value when you integrate them into your own local processes to understand how the organization can support CPM implementation planning. Wherever your county is in the process, these tools and resources will clarify and get concrete about how you can get more deliberate about your organization’s role to support the use of CPM!