Local Impact

The Centre helps agencies grow and expand their quality culture. Whether it’s a quick phone call to explore the possibilities, an in-person training or hands-on coaching session, we offer a continuum of services that are tailored to meet agency and/or community needs.

Children’s Centre Thunder Bay (CCTB) is ahead of the curve when it comes to organizational commitment to quality and performance, but it’s a long curve, and they know they have some work to do before implementing the quality management system they have designed.

Staff from the Centre travelled to Thunder Bay in fall 2016 to deliver a primer on performance measurement. Their discussions revealed the agency knew where they wanted to go, but needed help getting there.

“We realized there are lots of holes and gaps, and the quality of our existing data was weak,” says Fred Schmidt, associate director at CCTB. “We feel it is really important to get accurate information.”

Starting from square one, CCTB built a rock-solid data system that could be used as a foundation for ongoing performance measurement for the agency. Our Centre’s performance measurement coach has been and will be with them every step of the way as they identify what to measure, how to measure it, and what to do with the information to deliver meaningful results.

By improving how they track staff time, CCTB plans to establish benchmarks for future caseload guidelines. With this information, they hope to seek a healthy balance of providing effective services to the community while sustaining continuous quality improvement efforts. The project will soon expand to agencies across the Northern region, providing critical insights into what it takes to measure and manage performance in a community-based child and youth mental health agency.

“It makes a big difference to have someone to bounce ideas off,” says Schmidt. “When you’re caught up on internal things, it’s really easy to get bogged down. Having the Centre coach us really helped to keep us moving forward.”

Our Centre’s performance measurement coach has been and will be with them every step of the way as they identify what to measure, how to measure it, and what to do with the information to deliver meaningful results.

At Sarnia’s St. Clair Child and Youth Services, things have changed over the years – new software, new services, new tools and new needs.

With a request for quality improvement support, our specialists set out to learn everything they could about what St. Clair was doing, where they wanted to go and how we could help them achieve their goals.

We quickly learned that their staff of 65 across two sites had endured a seemingly endless onslaught of change since being named a lead agency. Fatigue was setting in, making it tough to generate enthusiasm about yet another improvement change.

The Centre encouraged the team at St. Clair to slow down, focus on something tangible, feasible and then build on that movement over time.

“Walk-in is the intake vehicle for the vast majority of our services, now,” says director of clinical services, Teri Thomas-Vanos. “We just started feeling this need for improvement. How could we do this better?”

With some deeper thinking, St. Clair decided to start their review and improvement effort at the front door. That first point of contact between the agency and a family is critically important, and can really set the stage for positive outcomes. With help from the Centre, they have since introduced lean methods to improve their intake processes and are on track towards a more efficient and effective in-take service.