CEO Update: Responding to desperation

There has been a theme from our callers over the past year….people seeking help at the eleventh hour and help not being available.  It’s tough to hear desperation in people’s voices, and it’s tough for our call takers, who don’t want to be the one to have to lay out the reality for these desperate callers.  Given the cold spring and the decreasing resources in our community, we’re looking pretty hard at what roles we might play to enhance the quality of our response and to illuminate the tough straits our communities are in.  

If we look at our own work, we’ve identified a few areas where we can change our response.  If you’ve been following our new ideas the last few months, you’ll see that we’re piloting a texting program to meet the needs of folks who just don’t see the phone as a device for talking--trust me, I’m painfully in touch with this emerging reality as the parent of a 16- and 17-year-old!  We’ll continue to teach ourselves how to respond effectively with new tools.  

Along those lines, if you use our search function you’ll be pleasantly surprised that over the last few months the search function has drastically improved.  We can’t thank our partners at Multnomah ESD and Project Launch enough for their tactful criticism and funding for the improved functionality!

And, coming soon in our Community Information Center, we’ll have experts in housing issues, particularly information and guidance on the new foreclosure laws, health care, child development and maternal and child health.  What does this mean for callers?  It means you’ll get a bit more of our staff time helping you navigate the services that are available.  We’ll still be available for one-call questions.  However, our hope is that if we are able to spend more time with callers and if our staff is trained in depth on specific issues, that we’ll be moving well beyond traditional information and referral and into a higher level of customer service.
 
Give us some time to make the transition.  We hope to have the new options and services available by this fall.  In the meantime, we’ll be posting job opportunities in our about section over the summer to help us build skills and capacity.  See our current posting for a Chief of Staff.
 
We’re embracing the complexity of today’s landscape and seeking to ensure we’re working smarter to meet the needs of the people in Oregon and Southwest Washington.  Have ideas that you wish we’d be thinking about?  Fire away in the comment section.  We’re listening.