Stand Together Contra Costa, an interdisciplinary, multi-sector rapid response network, provides legal services, and community education to support safety and justice for immigrant families in Contra Costa County. Grounded in community-based leadership development, capacity building and community empowerment, Stand Together Contra Costa is a public-private partnership hosted and managed by Contra Costa County’s Public Defender’s Office. This unique structure, in stewardship with a multi- stakeholder Management Team and Steering Committee, ensures a level of expertise, capacity, and transparency that has fostered both excellence and accountability.
Since its launch in March 2018, Stand Together Contra Costa has successfully provided vital services and resources to immigrant communities in Contra Costa County in direct response to turbulent and often unpredictable times. To build on this initial success and continue to improve operations, consultants Mahvash Hassan and Hang Tran (henceforth, the consultants) conducted a review of Stand Together Contra Costa’s operations, procedures, and protocols. Based on our research, this report includes key findings on what’s working well and operational challenges and recommends operational adjustments for the 2018-2019 fiscal year. (attached)
The recommendation that should address the operational challenges identified is to add an Administrative Services Assistant III - Project position in the Public Defender’s Office to coordinate across the Community Response and Legal Services Units, host agency, lead agency and partner agencies. Some of the functions including: budget management for the project, facilitating steering committee meetings and managing communications are already being performed by staff in the Public Defender’s office. Placing this position in the Public Defender’s office will address concerns about unexpected and uncompensated management staff time at each partner agency, streamline communications across the different components and relieve the burden on the project coordinator allowing that role to focus on community outreach which was identified as an area for improvement.
Placing this position in the Public Defender’s office demonstrates the county’s commitment to support immigrant community members and will allow the overburdened partner agencies to focus on the community outreach and legal services pledged by the Stand Together Contra Costa team.
If this action is not approved, the project could not proceed with the key recommendations of the operational review and will not allow the project to continue to build on its original success and improve it's operations.