ASHLAND STRATEGIC PLAN
SOCIAL AND HUMAN SERVICES ELEMENT

Mission Statement

To ensure that all people in Ashland live in a safe, strong, and caring community, the City of Ashland seeks to enhance the quality of life and promote the self-reliance, growth, and development of people. To these ends, the City of Ashland will strive to provide resources and services to meet basic human needs.

Overview and Philosophy

Central to the attainment of this mission are a series of commitments and strategies to ensure that the City of Ashland will be characterized as a safe and healthy community. We value a community in which citizens are free to grow, to be safe within their person and family, and to join forces in the collaborative caring for one another.

The City of Ashland, as a government institution, is charged with promoting the general welfare. The status of the general welfare is severely diminished when there are those in the community who are ill with treatable conditions, but for the price of treatment, remain untreated; those who lack food and shelter, but for the price such necessities, who remain homeless and hungry. Every such circumstance diminishes the strength and functionality of the community, and erodes the ability of children to learn, of adults to work, parents to parent and seniors to remain independent.

Critical first steps toward the attainment of a safe and healthy community reside in the creation and support of a collaborative community wide safety net. When one thinks of providing a safety net one thinks first of any critical, life-or-death needs which might be provided to a person to protect against undue suffering or an inhumane response from neighbors. Specifically, a safe and healthy community:

· Offers its residents drug-free schools, workplaces, and community centers, while creating capacities for the prevention and treatment of chemical dependency;
· Is characterized by citizens who are not afraid to venture from their homes at night, and parents who are assured that their children are safe from negative influences that promote crime, substance abuse, or violence;
· Is characterized by the affordable and accessible presence of primary and preventative health care services which in turn support a healthy workforce and reduce adolescent pregnancies, infant mortality, disability, and the spread of communicable diseases;
· Is one that provides an essential safety net of effective and responsible emergency assistance to those who are unable to feed or shelter their families and who are confronted with situations they cannot alleviate by themselves;
· Supports the development of families through such programs as parenting education, affordable housing, quality childcare, crisis intervention, victims' assistance, and senior services;
· Is one that affords justice, and equal access to justice, to each of its members in a continuous effort to break the cycle of poverty, stabilize and strengthen the ability of parents to care for their children, obtain safe and affordable housing, facilitate safe working conditions, defend against consumer fraud, and protect the frail and vulnerable from abuse.

As the City of Ashland moves along a continuum which focuses on self-sufficiency, the tools for self-sufficiency must be included within the context of the community's safety net. There is no person who will achieve true self-sufficiency if denied timely, continuous, and affordable access to needed treatments, interventions, advocacy, and skill-building. For these reasons, beneficiaries of the community's safety net hold ethical obligations for personal advancement along a progressive continuum toward self-sufficiency (unless otherwise constrained by disability or vulnerability).

The Role of the City of Ashland

The City of Ashland plays a strategic and pro-active role in facilitating a safe and healthy community by:

· Providing leadership in community forums in which safety, health, livability, and quality of life are discussed or debated.
· Enacting a responsible public policy that:

1) Safeguards strategic partnerships with charitable providers of safety net services;
2) Remains mindful of potential negative or unintended outcomes;
3) Invites the counsel of community professionals who are actively involved in the delivery of safety net services when contemplating relevant public policy.

· Encouraging true collaboration, rewarding a dedication to and focus on mission, and discouraging unnecessary duplication of service or effort;
· Establishing clear definitions and priorities for safety net services and allocating public resources in accordance with those priorities;

GOAL # 1:

PROVIDE A COMPREHENSIVE AND COORDINATED SYSTEM OF SERVICES TO ADDRESS PEOPLE IN NEED

POLICIES:

(1-1) Identify opportunities to achieve a broad spectrum of integrated community services that provides for all residents by helping eliminate identified barriers associated with collaboration such as liability insurance, ways to mitigate obstacles to information exchange among agencies, ways to overcome "turfdom" and fears of budget invasion and the creation of a streamlined, performance based contracting system that rapidly identifies changes in the community and responds with innovative projects.

(1-2) Create a consistent database of information on local service needs, successful program solutions to human and social service problems, and sources of funding for human and social service programs.

(1-3) Assist older Ashlanders, through the Senior Program, in achieving an opportunity for employment free from discriminatory practices because of age; suitable housing; an appropriate level of physical and mental health services; ready access to effective social services; appropriate institutional care when required; information about available supportive services; and supportive services which enable elderly persons to remain in their homes.

(1-4) Ensure that the needs of low income individuals are considered in the planning for public housing, community services, and fees for development.

(1-5) Identify opportunities to develop creative partnerships with service organizations that could include technical assistance, staff development, co-sponsorship of programs and development of new revenue sources.

(1-6) Play a leadership role in the creation of a "City of Ashland Operating Foundation for a Safe and Healthy Community."

GOAL # 2:

ENSURE THAT THE ALLOCATION OF PROGRAM FUNDING IS FAIR, OBJECTIVE AND CONSISTENT.

POLICIES:

(2-1) Allocate public resources, from within the City's general fund, in an amount set by resolution, for the direct support of essential safety net services.

In recognition of the reality that the costs associated with the provision of essential safety net services increase on an annual basis, give due consideration in the City's budget process to matters pertaining to inflation indexes, environmental factors which may contribute to increased demand for services, and compensation rates (livable wages) paid to social service employees.

(2-2) Allocate, as permissible by the CDBG Block Grant process, on an annual basis, fifteen percent (15%) of categorical CDBG resources for the direct support of qualifying safety net services.

(2-3) Expend through the City's budget process, resources allocated from the City's General Fund and the proportional share of CDBG funds, in the charitable, private not-for-profit sector for the provision of safety net services such as:

(A) Temporary, emergency food and shelter;
(B) Substance abuse education, prevention and treatment;
(C) The preservation of dignity and equal access to justice;
(D) Primary and preventive health care services;
(E) Critical supportive services for families, seniors and victims.

GOAL #3:

ENSURE THAT FUNDED PROGRAMS DIRECTLY ADDRESS CHANGING PRIORITIES AND ARE ADMINISTERED IN AN EFFECTIVE AND COST-EFFICIENT MANNER

POLICIES:

(3-1) Ensure that the City consults with local agency officials in the design, delivery and evaluation of services, by establishing an Ad Hoc Human Services Task Force with its primary focus on working on the implementation of Policies 1-2, 3-2 and 3-3 and related human services planning and management issues.

(3-2) Develop and adopt techniques for analyzing and measuring the equity of outcomes and benefits of services delivery which can be integrated into planning, evaluation and budgeting components. Programs should be evaluated on the basis of well defined performance standards that relate to program administration and participant development, in addition to the basis of numbers served or placed.

(3-3) Develop a format for presentations to the Budget Committee, to be made every 3-4 years, which utilize the results of the monitoring framework outlined in Policy 3-2.

Back to Top