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The ICHH has scheduled a site visit to the Western Mass Network on August 26, 2009, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.  A proposed agenda for the day is attached.

The ICHH evaluation team wants to meet with the Leadership Council, the Convening Agency, the Network Coordinator, and members of the network that are working on Individual and Family initiatives.  This will be the funded providers (we should know who they are by this date) and the workgroups that have come together under Dave Modzelewski (for individuals) and Yasmin Otero (for families).

 Please hold the date available if you plan to participate.   The site visit team has provided the following information regarding the visit:

 Members of the ICHH Site Visit Team including Madeleine Taylor, Sue Beaton, Emily Cohen, Jennifer Fries, Joe Finn and Christine Araujo look forward to meeting with you and other members of your Network to get an updated picture of Network plans and progress.

 To help you prepare for the site visit, here is a list of topics and questions that we anticipate covering in the site visit meetings:

•  General update with Convening Agency and other key Leadership Council members on Network plans, priorities, and anticipated factors for success.   
• Focus on network organizing with key Leadership Council members, including Convening Agency and Network coordinator:
  • Network Structure and Composition.
    • Confirm connections in baseline Network map: Who’s connected to whom for what purpose?
    • What are challenges/facilitating factors in bringing together Network members in this way? Anticipated changes or adjustments
  • Network Governance: 
    • What are the Network’s decision making bodies, processes and decisions thus far?
    • What are challenges/facilitating factors, anticipated changes or adjustment
  • Network Management (Coordination, Communications)
    • What are current arrangements for Network coordination and communications (internal and external)?
    • What has been the Network’s experience to date?
    • Challenges/facilitating factors, anticipated changes or adjustments?
  • Network Health
    • What is the Network doing to build and strengthen connections between members?
    • What additional resources /connections has the Network leveraged, if any?
    • What are challenges/facilitating factors, anticipated changes or adjustments
• Focus on Family Innovations with family-focused sub-committee
  • Family Innovation questions will focus on the details of service provision in prevention, diversion and rapid re-housing
  • Staff structure
  • Policies and procedures for service delivery
  • What are challenges/facilitating factors, anticipated changes or adjustments?
•  Focus on Individual Innovations with individual-focused sub-committee
  • Your understanding of Housing First and low-threshold housing
  • Your use of the tier structure and program targeting
  • Your definition of chronic homelessness and programs targeting this population
  • Prioritization
  • Data
  • Service delivery models
  • What are challenges/facilitating factors, anticipated changes or adjustments?

In addition, we hope to schedule time during the site visit to go over what information the Network should be gathering on an on-going basis to ensure that a record of progress is available to share with other Networks, with ICHH, and the Site Visit Team.  The Network Coordinator and Convening Agency will need to participate in this portion of the discussion. 

If time allows, we will also provide technical assistance during the site visit related to network organizing, individual innovations, family innovations, and information management for the evaluation. If your Network has specific questions you would like to address in any of these areas, please forward them to the Site Visit Team no less than a week in advance of your scheduled visit.