Writing a Performance Improvement Plan for local RFP

1. Writing a Performance Improvement Plan for local RFP Workshop by EveryOne Home December 11, 2012 224 W. Winton Ave, Hayward, Room 160, 1:00-3:00 pm

2. Make Your Performance Improvement Plan SMART • Specific • Measureable • Attainable • Relevant • TimeBound S M A R T

3. Make Your Performance Improvement Plan SMART • Specific—Be very clear about what you are trying to achieve • Measureable— Identify what will be measured to determine progress • Attainable—Include realistic strategies that can be implemented • Relevant—Choose strategies that will have a direct impact on the situation • Time—Have a deadline for achievement SMART goals can be harder to write than they sound. Fortunately, the PIP template has done some of the work for you.

4. Performance Improvement Plan Template in RFP

5. Performance Improvement Plan Template Column 1 for Outcomes Column 1 lists the specific goal you are trying to achieve • Obtaining or Retaining Permanent Housing, • Exiting with earned income or exiting with some income, • Exits to know destinations, • Fully expending the grant, • Achieving a passing grade on data completeness.

6. Performance Improvement Plan Far Right Columns for Outcomes The two right hand columns identify what is to be measured: • For the Outcome measures, you must hit the community benchmark or improve your performance by 10 percentage points over your current level. • For Spending, you can propose to reduce unspent funds by 50%. • In HMIS you must get a grade of C or better on the data completeness report card. • The methods of measuring your results are generated out of HMIS and the APR’s, which you must run yourselves and include with your local application.

7. Performance Improvement Plan Far Right Columns Continued.. The two right hand columns also identify the time boundaries for the PIP: • Your plan has to include the rate of progress you will have achieved by June 30, 2013 and then by September 30, 2012.

8. Performance Improvement Plan Middle Column for Outcomes Complete the middle column with Attainable and Relevant actions you will take. Reviewers will be instructed to evaluate whether the actions you propose are likely to achieve the results you intend. They will be accessing how realistic and relevant your action steps are.

9. Improving Outcomes • Is your program housing-focused? Do consumers hear right away that a primary purpose is to get them permanently housed as quickly as possible. In TH do you talk about the permanent housing plan in first formal Case Management meeting, at orientation, even earlier as part of the program application. SSO and drop-in centers are all staff trained to ask about housing encourage people to work on it. In permanent housing there can be a disconnect between property management and services, wherein property management can be rushing to evict rather engaging services staff in solving problems so persons stay housed. Actions to impact that dynamic can improve housing retention. • Do rules and policies support housing? Does your program have a lot of exits back to homelessness because people don’t comply with program rules or expectation. If the answer is yes, that is a great place to look for changes. Are people being exited for rule violations like curfew, rudeness to staff, failing a drug test or not meeting with their case manager or going to all the required groups. These practices are going to lower your exits to permanent housing.

10. Improving Outcomes continued.. • Is your team of staff engaged in the goal of housing? What do your staff see as their primary job, maintaining order, providing clinical services or helping people to obtain or retain housing. Action steps here can include revising job descriptions, offering trainings in housing first and harm reduction, change the staff evaluation and supervision tools so that they are evaluated on how many people they helped to obtain permanent housing. Bring housing up at every staff meeting. • Should your program convert to a different program type? Finally, TH and SSO not tied to permanent housing may want to look at conversion to permanent housing. For TH programs, this makes sense if you have a primarily or exclusively disabled population. Exploring that or preparing to do that are legitimate actions to propose taking in your plan. SSO programs may want try negotiating with mainstream resources such as SSA or BHCS to cover the cost of the services and convert the HUD grant into a rehousing or PSH subsidy pool. Those are things EH can help with as well.

11. Spending • Getting TA from jurisdictional grantee • Requesting budget changes from HUD • Conversion • Reallocation—can still be done this year! It is still possible to reallocate this year to the common pool for new projects. You will get 10 pts of credit on this and not have to write a spending PIP. This makes sense if you have a line item or portion of a line item that you can’t spend over multiple years and HUD won’t let you reallocate within the project.

12. Data Accuracy • How frequently are you monitoring for data quality and completeness? Are you running reports on a regular basis? • Do the people who collect the data and/or enter the data into HMIS understand how their work contributes to the program’s outcomes? • Do staff value their role in ensuring the program’s work is accurately reflected in HMIS data? Is data quality and accuracy included in the job descriptions of any staff who collect or enter data?

13. A Few Things to Keep In Mind • EH staff are not scoring the Performance Improvement Plans nor doing the rating and ranking. The Review Panel will be looking for strategies that fit with the areas for improvement identified by the project and that are likely to result in improvement. Copying examples from today may not result in success if the actions are not attainable and relevant for your project. • In next year's NOFA the project will be evaluated on the outcomes and improvement achieved, not the efforts undertaken. All projects will be expected to meet performance goals.