Application of business management tools to the PATHs to resilience program

Background: The Latin American Health Institute sponsors the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funded PATHs to Resilience Program. The program serves tens of thousands of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) who enter the U.S. each year and are detained and subsequently referred to ORR's Division of Unaccompanied Children Services. In collaboration with Children's Hospital Boston Center for Refugee Trauma and Project Joy, the program aims to 1) provide skill-building for staff members and tools for providers who work with UAC; 2) focus on provider self-care, systemic support for trauma-informed services, and effective crisis response; and 3) integrate playfulness into psychosocial group therapy with the children. This project's purpose was to implement Balanced Scorecard Designer (BSC) to align the program's primary goals with activities. BSC is comprised of software and web-service solutions that measure, control, and improve business performance. Methods: Program personnel were instructed how to utilize BSC to align organizational goals with specific processes within the PATHs to Resilience Program as well as part of a larger organizational capacity improvement effort. This required extensive brainstorming and focused group assessment of needs and capacities. Results / Outcomes: Adoption and implementation of BSC has streamlined the evaluation process as well as enabled the PATHs to Resilience Program to refine and organize strategic objectives required to achieve the program's primary goals. Conclusion: Successful integration of project management tools with business practices have the potential of increasing efficiency and maximizing organizational capacity to benefit public health promotion and programming.