Beginning July, 2000, the Minnesota Legislature made TANF funds available to local public health departments for public health nurse led home visiting services for three years. TANF funds are being used to serve families dependent on welfare for an extended time period and for teen parents. A collaborative plan with the local Social Services, Income Maintenance, and Workforce Center Departments has been established with Anoka County Public Health Department to promote coordinated services for the target population. The local public health department staff, in conjunction with other local county agencies, has worked with the Minnesota Department of Health to establish measurable objectives related to the broad goals identified by the Minnesota State Legislature for TANF home visiting programs. The challenges facing the local health department include: How to integrate current data collected from other existing home visiting programs; i.e., Maternal and Child Health (MCH), universal home visiting, etc., with the TANF program; How to collect data that has been traditionally social services and welfare to work information; How to meet the political and public policy expectations of measuring positive change in a short time frame with a high risk population. This session will present: Background information on how the TANF program was implemented in Anoka County; Explore the political process resulting in the TANF home visiting program; and Describe the local public health department's role in the development of the outcome measurement system.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to: 1) Describe the collaborative process utilized to establish measurable objectives for use locally and in a state-wide system; 2)Identify how to organize for meeting short-term, intermediate and long-term objectives used to measure public health nursing interventions; and 3)Identify where this process could be applied in a local public health department
Keywords: Outcome Measures, Special Populations
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.