TO: NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES FROM: Jon Cicirelli
AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE Director
SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: 10/24/2022
Approved Date
11/1/22
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON THE BRINGING EVERYONE’S STRENGTHS TOGETHER
GRANT PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
RECOMMENDATION
Accept the staff report on the status of the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together (BEST) Grant Program’s Request for Qualification (RFQ) requirements.
OUTCOME
The Neighborhood Services and Education Committee (“Committee”) will receive an update regarding the BEST Grant Program oversight and accountability efforts, as they pertain to the upcoming BEST Grant Program RFQ, as requested at the November 4, 2021 Committee meeting.
BACKGROUND
At the November 4, 2021 Committee meeting, the Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Department (Department) provided an update regarding the City’s next triennial BEST RFQ, including plans to defer the RFQ release date to January 2023, pending completion of the Mayor’s Gang Prevention Task Force (Task Force) strategic plan update. Staff was directed to return to the Committee in November 2022 to provide an updated status on BEST RFQ process in anticipation of the upcoming release, including oversight and accountability efforts that will be incorporated into the BEST RFQ process.
The BEST Grant Program is the funding arm of the Task Force. Typically, every three years the Department issues an RFQ to establish a pool of qualified service providers in several different Eligible Service Areas. Through this process, qualified providers are determined based on NSE AGENDA: 11/10/22
ITEM: (d) 2
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
proposal scores, agency capacities, and alignment with the Task Force’s strategic work plan.
This is done with a view towards making annual grant awards based on available funding and community needs, which vary in nature and location over time. The current qualified list of 27 agencies was established in 2019 and was set to expire in August 2022. However, due to several pending projects, including the incorporation of work related to staff’s responses to the City Auditor’s 2018 Task Force audit recommendations and the work needed to align the RFQ with the Task Force’s updated Strategic Work Plan, the Department delayed the release of the triennial RFQ to January 2023 and extended the current qualified pool term for one year. The additional year afforded staff the time to align services and criteria with the new, broader Task Force work plan scope (scheduled for Task Force Policy Team approval in October 2022). In addition, the extension provided staff with the time to complete various projects that will betterarticulate BEST Grant Program requirements, improve the program’s evaluation design, and achieve the intended outcomes, relative to youth development and violence mitigation.
ANALYSIS
To improve the BEST RFQ process, including the oversight and coordination of contracted agency engagement with the City’s youth programs, staff is writing the BEST service area descriptions and objectives to align with the updated Task Force Strategic Work Plan. In addition, staff is implementing a performance measurement framework that will improve the Department’s ability to provide quality, measurable programs that serve the highest need participants. These efforts have been a conglomeration of several individual projects and activities, which are summarized below.
Convened and Facilitated a BEST Partner Engagement Group To support the key performance measurement and accountability components of the upcoming BEST triennial period, the Department fostered greater engagement with BEST nonprofit partners by establishing the BEST Partner Engagement Group in the 2021-2022 program cycle.
Staff invited the 15 currently funded agencies as they already have a role in the administrative process of monitoring, compliance, and evaluation of the program. The group’s purpose was to identify and validate procedures, tools, and metrics that would be administratively feasible for both the City and its partners in improving program performance measurement, oversight, and accountability in the upcoming triennial period. The Department convened 11 of the 15 funded agencies to obtain a diversity of perspectives and discuss activity monitoring and performance measurement improvements that could prospectively impact future BEST agencies’ funded programs. The City worked in partnership with Resource Development Agency (RDA) to facilitate focus groups with the BEST Partner Engagement Group to gather input on the Performance Measurement Framework, including the participant risk screening tool. Focus groups were conducted from November 2021 to August 2022.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
Aligning BEST Grant Program with Strategic Work Plan Development The Task Force’s Strategic Work Plan informs the work that is done through the BEST Grant Program. The new 2023-2026 plan outlines a framework that includes outcomes and objectives that prioritize, align, and measure Task Force efforts to reduce violence in San José. The Strategic Work Plan will be presented for approval at the Task Force Policy Team on October 27, 2022. One of the key objectives of that work plan is to reduce youth risk factors in priority neighborhoods and schools. If approved, a key result will be the expansion of BEST Eligible Services to include youth-driven and whole-family place-based strategies. The BEST administrative staff has been working with key partners, including non-profit community-based organizations, Silicon Valley Council of Non-profits, the Task Force Tech Team, etc., to identify services that conform to the BEST Grant Program’s five Eligible Service Areas to the Task Force’s expanded objectives under the new Strategic Work Plan. BEST administrative staff is also working with the City Manager’s Office and Santa Clara County Office of Education to better understand the broader picture of resources provided to youth in San José to determine gaps and avoid duplication of services.
Developing Opportunity Neighborhoods (previously known as “Hot Spot Areas”) The Department is in the process of updating the Task Force’s Hot Spot Areas which will now be called “Opportunity Neighborhoods.” Opportunity Neighborhoods are determined based on an assessment of where the highest youth development and violence mitigation needs are throughout the city. This assessment used qualitative data obtained through input sessions with the Task Force’s Technical Team members, including City of San José’s Youth Intervention Services staff, BEST funded Street Outreach Intervention agencies, and the San José Police Department. In addition, staff created a heat map utilizing San José Police Department youth crime and gang incident data and added two data overlays including the following: 1) Equity Priority Communities which are census tracts that have a high concentration of underserved populations, such a households with low incomes and people of color; and 2) The Health Places Index which is a tool that explores community characteristics like access to healthcare, housing, and education. The new Opportunity map will be used to determine how the City can optimize its allocation of grant resources, including BEST Street Outreach Intervention services, with the objective of maximizing the City’s positive programmatic impacts on youth with the greatest risk factors and need. The process used to define the new Opportunity Neighborhoods took place between September 2021 and September 2022, and is summarized below:
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
Table 1
Opportunity Neighborhoods Determination Process
Date Key Step Description
September 2021 Task Force Technical Team
prioritization activity
Technical Team members propose list of
neighborhoods during Division break out
session and vote to determine areas with
highest need based on climate and
experience
October 2021 Review of proposed neighborhoods BEST Administrative Staff and BEST funded agencies discussed proposed
neighborhoods for consideration, boundaries
and other considerations related to SJPD’s
reported crime data and observations,
including graffiti and neighborhood climate
checks
February –
September 2022
Data Collection and Mapping The Department worked with SJPD Research & Development Team to collect crime data
to create a heat map with an overlay of
Equity Priority Communities and Healthy
Places Index data.
July 2022 Review of proposed neighborhoods SJPD Captains, Technical Team members, and BEST Administrative Staff reviewed and
commented on proposed neighborhoods
September 2022 Review heat map and neighborhood
boundaries
SJPD Captains, Technical Team members,
and BEST Administrative Staff reviewed the
updated heat map with the overlay of
proposed neighborhoods and boundaries and
refined boundaries and/or proposed changes
based on input and review of heat map
October 2022 Finalize list of 18 Opportunity
Neighborhoods and boundaries
The Department is reviewing all information
collected and will determine the final
neighborhoods to present to Policy Team for
approval on October 27, 2022.
Developing Performance Measurement Framework and Output Performance Metrics The Department hired Resource Development Associates Consulting (RDA) to develop a performance measurement framework for the Task Force. The goal for this framework was to work within the BEST and the Youth Intervention Services programs’ current logic model, while considering local priorities, previous audit recommendations, and administrative capacities, to develop a data collection and analysis approach for assessing program performance and outcomes.
During focus group meetings with the BEST Partner Engagement Group, group participants were asked questions around data collection tools, challenges with reporting process, unit of
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
service formulae, and expected program outcomes. Overall, participants had positive input regarding current BEST Grant Program’s data collection tools, including the unit of service output tool and the quarterly report workbook. There was some input around changing the format to some of the quarterly report worksheets, but the Engagement Group generally confirmed the utility of the current data-collection systems and procedures that are already in place. With the Engagement Group’s feedback and RDA recommendations, BEST administrative staff is exploring how to implement format and content changes, including better tools for collecting and assessing agencies’ quarterly narrative responses about their respective programs’ status and performance. This will allow the staff to recognize program successes up front and identify and address performance shortfalls regarding contracted service activity levels in a timelier way.
In addition, staff will be implementing a list of guiding questions for our partner agencies in the 2023-2024 program cycle, which will prompt agencies to identify and report out on data points such as the target participants being served; participating youths’ feelings of safety and security in their programs; youths’ feelings of being connected to school and/or work; and assessments about whether participating youth are more or less likely to engage in risky behavior as a result of the program. Staff will implement tools for collecting, aggregating and reporting metrics that correspond to the guiding questions. Prospectively, staff will work with RDA to pursue data sharing agreements with partners such as Santa Clara Office of Education and Santa Clara County Probation Department that will allow for ongoing sharing of data to monitor outcomes related to school engagement and involvement in the justice system.
Given that the Department and its contracted agencies will continue to provide an expanding range of violence prevention and intervention programs and services to youth residing in San José – including mentoring, arts, case management, information/referral services, etc. – consistently measuring program performance and community impacts remains a challenge among partners with varying scopes of service and levels of complexity. The framework RDA developed will provide a simpler, more consistent approach to program measurement that accommodates the current data collection capacities of both the City and its partner agencies; and, it will afford greater flexibility in accommodating creative, unique programs without significant customization. Table 2 below provides an overview of the framework.
Table 2
BEST Performance Measurement Framework
Implementation
Schedule
Guiding Question Corresponding Metric to
Guiding Question
Data Collection Tool to
Collect Metric
2023-2024 Who are programs
serving?
• Participant
Demographic Data
• Demographic
Workbook
• Intake Form
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
How much service is being
delivered?
• Units of Service • Grantee Workbook
How are Programs
impacting the youth and
effecting change?
• Survey Responses • New Exit Survey
2024-2026 For youth who are
currently justice involved,
did we reduce recidivism?
• Truancy Records
• New Arrests/Probation
Violation
*School Data
*Police and Probation Data
What were the risk factors
that were reduced?
• Risk Factors • Pre-post Participant
Risk Screener tool
*Contingent on all parties agreeing to share highly confidential data and determine how best to secure that data.
Developing a Participant Risk Screening Tool
The Department also worked with RDA to design and pilot a brief participant risk screener tool to identify BEST and Youth Intervention Services (YIS) program participants’ level of risk for gang involvement. This tool will be used to ensure that program services are being delivered to their target populations; identify areas of need/risk across program populations; and/or direct youth with higher risks for youth violence, including gang involvement, to programs that include case management services.
In November 2021, RDA began working with PRNS to refine and implement the draft screener tool with a select set of BEST-funded and YIS programs. RDA assembled all returned screener tools and ran analyses, including which agencies had higher versus lower risk client profiles.
RDA then conducted interviews and focus groups with staff from these agencies to gather their insights on the ease or difficulty of tool implementation, its potential value, and their best ideas for how to improve and best use the tool. RDA incorporated feedback and recommended the final version of the tool, which will be implemented in all BEST funded and Youth Intervention Services programs in the 2023-2024 program year. This will include incorporating a post participation risk screening assessment to compare with the initial intake risk screening assessment, which will help inform staff regarding the outcomes of individually BEST- funded programs.
Summary of Next Steps
Table 3 below provides the status and next steps for each project, followed by a BEST RFQ timeline, for reference.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
Table 3
Summary of Key RFQ Enhancements/Additions and Next Steps Project Key Deliverables that will inform
the new RFQ
Status/Next Steps
Implementation of updated
MGPTF Strategic Work Plan
Objectives
Expand scope of BEST Eligible
Service Area descriptions/criteria
including the incorporation of
youth-driven, whole family, placebased strategies.
New 2023-2025 Task Force
Strategic Work Plan with
expanded Eligible Services will be
presented to Task Force Policy
Team on October 27, 2022.
New Opportunity
Neighborhoods Criteria and
Map
Newly developed Opportunity
Neighborhoods will be included in
the RFQ to ensure that the BEST
program serves the areas in the City
with the highest needs.
New Opportunity Neighborhoods
are scheduled to be presented at
the next Task Force Policy Team
on October 27, 2022.
Performance Measurement
Framework and Output
Performance Metrics
Performance Measurement
Framework and tools will be
outlined in the RFQ document.
Performance Measurement
Framework is complete and will
be incorporated into the 2023-
2024 evaluation design.
Screener Tool Develop a program participant
Screener Tool process and tool to
assess participant risk levels and
incorporate into the RFQ document
as a mandatory component.
Screener Tool is complete. The
Department will continue to
evaluate process and tool to
identify changes with consultant
and agency feedback during and
following “real world”
deployment.
Recruit and select a new
Senior Analyst and Analyst to
develop/implement BEST
coordination and
accountability approaches.
Develop, implement and coordinate
new BEST Grant Program oversight
and accountability measures,
including data sharing agreements
and the use of improved data
collection tools.
The Senior Analyst was hired in
September 2022. The Department
is now conducting the Analyst
recruitment to find a qualified
applicant for the project. Analyst
interviews were held in late
October.
Selection of a new Client
Management System
Implement a Client Management
System to improve quality of
service documentation, streamline
data collection process, and create
efficiencies for program oversight
and accountability.
Strategic Procurement request was
reviewed by the Procurement
Prioritization Board on October
17, 2022 and Finance Department
is projected to release the bid
February2023.
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
BEST RFQ Timeline
CONCLUSION
To improve the BEST RFQ process, including the City’s oversight and coordination of contracted agency engagement, staff is re-working the BEST eligible service area descriptions and objectives. Staff is also updating related contract monitoring and accountability policies, procedures and tools. The objective has been to arrive at a performance measurement framework that will improve the Department’s ability to provide quality, measurable programs that serve the highest need participants. Staff has been working on a conglomeration of projects including Strategic Work Plan Development and Program Alignment; identifying new opportunity neighborhoods; and developing a participant risk screening tool. As these efforts are incorporated into the upcoming triennial period, the Department will continue to convene and facilitate the BEST Partner Engagement Group in 2022-2023. In doing so, staff will continue to engage grant funded agencies in discussions related to administrative changes and enhancements and their implementation as we collaboratively seek to make better-informed decisions that will improve BEST Grant Program performance and outcomes, relative to community impact. The BEST RFQ is expected to be released in January 2023 and services that will be provided by the newly-qualified list of agencies, as awarded, will start on September 1, 2023.
EVALUATION AND FOLLOW-UP
The Department will provide the Notice of Funding Opportunity and related documents once the RFQ is released in January 2023.
CLIMATE SMART SAN JOSE
The recommendation in this memo has no effect on Climate Smart San José energy, water, or mobility goals.
Timeline Action Item
January 2023 Release RFQ
March 2023 Application Deadline
May 2023 Awards Notices Released
May – August 2023 Contract Negotiations and Development September 1, 2023 Start of Services
NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES AND EDUCATION COMMITTEE
October 24, 2022
Subject: Update on the Bringing Everyone’s Strengths Together Grant Program
PUBLIC OUTREACH
This memorandum will be posted on the City’s Council Agenda website for the November 10, 2022 Neighborhood Services and Education Committee meeting.
COORDINATION
This memo was prepared in coordination with the City Attorney’s and Budget Office.
COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION/INPUT
No commission recommendation or input is associated with this action.
CEQA
Not a Project, File No. PP17-009, Staff Reports, Assessments, Annual Reports, and Informational Memos that involve no approvals of any City action. /s/
JON CICIRELLI
Director of Parks,
Recreation and Neighborhood Services
For questions, please contact David DeLong, Division Manager, at [email protected].