Blueprint Project Has Designs On Improving Case Management
If you or someone you care about receives developmental disability services in Oregon, then they have a case manager through a Brokerage, a Community Developmental Disability Program, or the state of Oregon Department of Human Services. And, chances are, you have some thoughts on how we can improve the process of connecting people to resources, advocating for their needs, supporting their goals, and helping them to navigate the service system in support of a good life.
The Blueprint Project is working to draft a plan for improving case management services for people with developmental disabilities in Oregon.
The Oregon Office of Developmental Disability Services (ODDS) has contracted with Health Management Associates (HMA) to make recommendations on how to improve Oregon's case management for all people with developmental disabilities. ODDS and HMA have gathered a group of representative stakeholders from around the system, including people with developmental disabilities, providers, family members of people with developmental disabilities, Community Developmental Disability staff, and Brokerage staff. HMA started by conducting an online survey, and holding focus groups around the state to find out important details about how case management is working for people right now. They found that, while it is working well for many people, our system is also failing to support many people. Where you fall on that spectrum of experience varies greatly depending on when you entered the system, your age, your spoken language, the availability of provider capacity in your area, where you are located geographically around the state, and the skills, training, and support of the individual who is your case manager. Case management is a human service--provided by humans, to humans, and that means that it will never be fully uniform. But, the surveys and focus group data showed that there are trends and patterns in people's satisfaction that may inform how we can make improvements for people who are hurting the most.
The Blueprint Stakeholder Work-group convened its first meeting in March of 2019, and has met for a total of eight sessions to date. The aim of the group is to evaluate the successes, failings, and structural details of the case management system in order to come up with a set of recommendations for improvement. These recommendations will go out for public comment for a 30-day period this fall, and then the group will come back together to make refinements to the recommendations based on public feedback. Once the recommendations are final, it will be up to the Office of Developmental Disabilities Services, the legislature, and all of us in the developmental disabilities community to make those recommendations a reality.
When the recommendations are available for public review and comment, we will be sure to post them here. We also hope to provide some contextual information, and an opportunity for questions and answers, to help you work through what is certain to be dense content. These are your services, and we hope that you will be encouraged and excited about the ways we can make them better.