The Performance Management Division (PMD) created the County Performance Unit (CPU) in 2013 to better support county performance efforts across the Department and county human/social service departments as a state-supervised, county-administered system. The CPU seeks to accomplish this with a three-pronged performance strategy — County C-Stat reports and dashboards, the Performance and Partnerships Exchange, and county-facing staff workshops — as well as a number of related efforts.
County C-Stat reports and dashboards
CPU developed the County C-Stat reports and dashboards, which transfer performance data from departmental databases and disseminate that data to counties.
By compiling all county performance data into one reporting tool, county human/social services directors and commissioners can more easily assess their performance across all the human services programs. This enables counties to manage to their performance.
The CPU distributes County C-Stat reports and dashboards to all 64 Colorado county human/social services directors on a monthly basis. Of the 17 measures reported continuously from 2014 to March 2018, the state of Colorado has improved performance on 14 measures.
Each County C-Stat report and dashboard contains:
- Approximately 24 measures across seven CDHS programs
- Twelve months of data per measure
- Graphic comparisons of county performance, their like-sized peers, and themselves over time
Counties are consumers of their own performance data. Counties closely follow their performance and are very sensitive to policy or technology changes that might affect their performance and how it appears in their monthly county C-Stat dashboard and report.
Performance and Partnerships Exchange
Performance and Partnerships Exchanges (PPE) are how we identify and share best practices among counties.
The Performance and Partnerships Exchanges are county peer-to-peer exchanges focused on improving performance on county-facing C-Stat measures. The purpose is to create an opportunity for counties to learn from one another and to highlight successful practices that may work in other counties.
In addition to learning, these exchanges generate goodwill between the state and counties. They also generate increased attention to performance in medium-sized and small counties in rural Colorado.
To date, CPU has completed six exchanges covering 12 measures. These webinars and lessons-learned materials are available on the Performance Management unit page. CPU also facilitates regional workshops to further disseminate best practices across counties. In addition to learning, these exchanges generate goodwill between the state and counties. They also generate increased attention to performance in medium and small counties in rural Colorado.
PMD has documented performance improvement in 10 out of the 12 measures covered by PPE between the time of the PPE and today. Learn more about PPE here.
County-facing staff workshops
The county-facing staff workshops are how we collaborate within CDHS to share best practices and refine county performance.
The purpose is for CDHS program staff to develop relationships with their counterparts in other programs. The workshops also work to discuss common issues that arise with county partners, share lessons learned from other county-facing programs, reduce silos across programs, and enhance program interactions with counties.
The CPU manages these workshops twice per year, and they typically involve approximately 70 CDHS county-facing staff. They result in better understanding of county issues at a macro level and across programs.