Community Bright Spot: Fresno/Madera County CoC

Case Conferencing in California

Adopting New BNL Fields for Case Conferencing in Fresno/Madera County CoC, California

The veteran improvement team in Fresno/Madera County hit the ground running after the Learning Session, ready to take action on improving their case conferencing process. These changes are aimed at driving towards a 6-month goal to reduce the number of chronically homeless veterans on their by-name list. 

Here are a few changes they’ve made so far: 

• Added three new fields to their by-name list: 1.) Target move-in date, 2.) This week’s housing process barriers, 3.) Next step, by when.
• Met with outreach teams, case managers, and housing navigators working with chronic veterans to explain the reasons for the changes being made, get their input on how best to operationalize these, and connect the dots between this work and meeting their 6-month goal.
• Used case conferencing meetings to set target move-in dates and identify process barriers.

During case conferencing meetings, the Fresno team is using these new fields to identify barriers, overcome them as quickly as possible, and make permanent system changes based on what they learn.

In a couple weeks, we’ll feature a bright spot in a community who’s changing their facilitation to use these new fields. Thanks to Preston Yanez at the Fresno-Madera CoC for sharing this bright spot.

For example, when a client falls out of communication, the barrier they record in the by-name list notes is no longer something like “No communication.” Instead, they press to identify the root cause of that lapsed communication. Heather said, “They fell out of communication for a reason. Maybe we need to reestablish trust with that client, and that’s the next step… We’re not putting the blame on the client for being a client.”

The result of identifying clearer process barriers is that the team is picking more effective next steps—next steps that reach the core sticking points in their housing process. At last week’s meeting, case managers identified clear next steps for over 90% of the clients on the chronic by-name list. They’re now within six housing placements of chronic functional zero.

Community Bright Spots

Read about the excellent progress other BFZ Collaborative communities are making!