The environment in the nation’s capital has changed and that change is reflected in many of the policy debates surrounding issues such as reshaping the financing of the child welfare system, improving child care, oversight of SNAP, and budget cuts via sequestration. With new leadership in Congress, there are national debates shaping up over how best to deliver services. It is with that in mind that APHSA has put together an agenda to examine those debates and to help participants understand what is being discussed and the consequences of some of the decisions being made.  Join us June 8 – 10 to be part of the discussion. 

This year’s National Policy Forum theme is “Leading for Impact: Six Agents of Change.” The six agents of change are tools to help realize the vision of Pathways, our members’ agenda for the future of human services. Each of these agents is leading the way toward a family-centered, result-oriented, and modern system for our children and families. 

• Integrated Policy—Increasing efforts to leverage effective programs and resources to achieve better results with a resolute focus on sustainable population-based health and well-being.

• Investing in Outcomes—Using data and predictive analytics to understand what works and promoting the use of evidence-informed practices and alternative ways of financing to incentivize better, sustainable outcomes for children and families.

• Co-Creation for Collective Impact—Understanding the art and the science of true partnerships and the notion of force multipliers. 

• Modern Platforms—Recognizing the current role of technology, business process redesign, and overall modernization and what role they will play in the transformation efforts to reach a 21st century enterprise-wide vision for interoperable and integrated systems. 

• Innovation Labs—Creating opportunities to test new ideas and spark innovative approaches to human service delivery and impact.

• Science—Applying science to improve service delivery and impact, including the ever-increasing knowledge of brain development and its executive functioning, as well as the growing use of behavioral economics to drive desired outcomes.