Illinois Department of Human Services

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Illinois Department of Human Services

• Grace Hou,
• Assistant Secretary

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DHS Mission

• To assist Illinois residents to achieve
  self-sufficiency, independence and health to the
  maximum extent possible by providing integrated
  family-oriented services, promoting prevention
  and establishing measurable outcomes in
  partnership with communities.

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What is DHS?

• DHS has six program divisions Alcohol and
  Substance Abuse (ASA), Community Health and
  Prevention (CHP), Human Capital Development
  (HCD), Mental Health (MH), Developmental
  Disabilities (DD), and Rehabilitation Services
  (DRS).

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What is DHS?

• DHS fiscal year 2008 is approximately 5.4
  billion including other funds.
• DHS serves 1.5 million people annually
• Via approximately 1800 partner agencies, 9
  psychiatric hospitals, 9 centers for the
  developmentally disabled, 122 local offices, and
  46 local vocational rehabilitation offices.
• DHS budgeted headcount is 14,900 down from
  20,000 when DHS was first created.

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Illinois Interagency Task Force for New Americans
Making state government work for immigrants and
refugees
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13.6 of Illinois residentsare immigrants
26 are immigrants or children of immigrants
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Accelerating Integration
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New Americans Executive Order

• In November 2005, Governor Blagojevich declared a
  first in the nation Illinois New Americans
  Immigrant Policy Executive Order for Illinois
  State Government

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New Americans Executive Order 3 Components

• 1. Policy Council
• Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy
• Jose Luis Gutierrez, director
• 3. Interagency Task Force
• Two phases
• Healthcare, Education, and Human Services
• Workforce Development, Housing Home Ownership,
  and Police/Community Relations

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Interagency Task Force
How can Illinois better serve immigrants and
refugees?

• Convened by the Governors Office of New
  Americans Policy and Advocacy
• Comprised of high-level decision-makers
• Charged with identifying methods by which the
  state could modify the way it delivers services
  to immigrants and refugees

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Interagency Task Force

• The Department on Aging
• The Department of Children and Family Services
• The Department of Employment Security
• The Department of Healthcare and Family Services
• The Department of Human Services Co-Chair
• The Department of Public Health
• The Illinois State Board of Education
• The Illinois State Board of Higher Education
• The Illinois Community College Board

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Resource Impact
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Interagency Task Force Tasks

• Serve as a starting point for our standard,
  statewide response to addressing the needs of
  immigrants and refugees
• Develop and implement statewide recommendations
  for increasing access to services for immigrants
  and refugees
• Develop statewide standards for addressing
  language access issues

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1. Pilot an Immigrant Welcoming Center OPENED in
July 2007

• Establishing one place where immigrant families
  can go to access a wide array of information and
  services
• Individuals should not have to wait in many
  different lines to attain services for themselves
  and their families
• State and community-based services are critical
  immigrant integration and need to complement each
  others work
• Welcoming Centers are a hybrid of state and
  community and leverage the resources and
  expertise of each sector

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Before
Children and Family Services
Aging
Commerce Economic Opportunity
Employment Security
CBO
Community College Board
Healthcare Family Services
State Board of Education
Human Services
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After
Human Services State Board of Education Community
College Board Healthcare and Family
Services Employment Security Commerce Economic
Opportunity Aging Children and Family Services
CBO
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2. Ensure adequate language services are
available to all Illinois residents Replicating
DHS model for implementation in other state
agencies.

• State must ensure effective and quality
  communication with limited English proficient
  individuals.
• More bilingual and proficient staff
• Quality assurance
• Adequate interpretation resources

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3. Set and encourage high standards from agencies
that do business with the state Piloting a
peer-monitoring project to set CLAS standards.

• Institute an incentive-based peer monitoring
  pilot
• Contractors need to establish a plan to provide
  culturally and linguistically appropriate
  services

4. State staff need to understand and be
sensitive to the needs of immigrants and
refugees Beginning development.

• Develop a customized cultural competence training
  curriculum
• On-line training

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5. Vital documents need to be available in other
languages in a standardized way Developing
protocol.

• Identify vital documents specific to the mission
  of their organization
• Ensure immigrants and refugees are able to read
  and understand vital documents

6. Increase outreach efforts to immigrant and
refugee communities Resource manual, web
resource, and outreach material.

• Market/advertise programs and services in ethnic
  media outlets
• Agencies must diversity their advisory boards to
  reflect the ethnic diversity of the groups they
  serve
• Develop outreach plans and utilize data and
  translated materials

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• 7. Ensure programmatic and policy decisions are
  data-driven Launching data-mining initiative.

• Develop uniform standards for data collection
  within all state agencies
• Obtain standard language data on all state agency
  customers
• Require state agencies to submit annual
  demographic reports on LEP populations to measure
  the efficacy of outreach
• Analyze census and other data to assess whether
  agency programs adequately serve limited English
  proficient persons

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Interagency Task Force (Phase 2)

• Address the areas of housing, public safety,
  economic and workforce development
• Developing statewide recommendations for
  increasing access to services for immigrants and
  refugees
• Implementing changes based on these
  recommendations
• Developing statewide standards for addressing
  language access issues

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Phase 2 Agencies

• Department of Human Rights
• Illinois Housing Development Authority
• Department of Labor
• Department of Financial and Professional
  Regulation
• Illinois Emergency Management Agency
• Department of Corrections
• Illinois State Police
• Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity

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Keys to Successful Implementation

• True Partnership
• Representation
• Will
• Leadership

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True Partnership

• Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee
  Rights
• Illinois Department of Human Services
• Governors Office
• Foundation community support

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Representation

• Immigrant and refugee advocates in state
  government
• Advocate for bureaucratic representation vs.
  funding
• Avoid niche positions

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Will

• Eradicates bureaucracy
• Encourages innovation
• Mission-driven
• Overcomes barriers

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Leadership

• Executive
• Legislative
• Agency (oft forgotten)
• Advocacy

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Commitment to Systems Transformation

• Investing in changing state government
  Serving immigrants and refugees
  effectively