As directed by the Public Protection Committee at their March 8, 2013 meeting, a Request for Proposals (RFPs) for the AB 109 Community Programs was issued on March 15, 2013 for the following:
- Planning for Reentry Resource Centers $120,000 ($40k per region)
Three proposals were submitted for "Planning for (3) Reentry Resource Centers." The two proposals that were recommended for funding to the Board of Supervisors were provided by: "Further The Work" for West County and "Emerald HPC International, LLC" for East and Central County. Contracts were awarded by the Board of Supervisors to these two firms on May 21, 2013 in the amounts of $40,000 and $80,000, respectively.
Staff of the County Administrator then developed contracts with Further The Work and Emerald HPC International, which were executed mid-June 2013. Both contractors conducted their planning processes on budget and on schedule and submitted their proposed plans to the County Administrator’s Office on January 27, 2014.
After receiving additional input, the proposed plan for the East/Central Networked System of Service was revised, and the plan was distributed to the CCP at their February 14, 2014 meeting. The final plan for the West County Reentry Resource Center was also distributed to the CCP at their Feb. 14, 2014 meeting. The plans are available on the County’s website at: http://www.contracosta.ca.gov/index.aspx?nid=2366 |
"A Design and Implementation Plan For a West County Reentry Resource Center": The proposed plan was designed and managed by Further The Work, a company based in Richmond and founded by Rebecca Brown, over the course of seven months. Further The Work (FTW) provides capacity-building services and resources, direct technical assistance, and process design and management, offering subject-matter expertise on issues that disproportionately affect the formerly incarcerated.
In addition to the creation of a functional and actionable implementation plan for a West County Reentry Resource Center, including vision, mission, organizational host, governance structures, operating principles, MOU template, and a first-year work plan and budget, FTW identified three additional process outcomes of the project:
- Enhance community awareness, participation and ownership;
- Strengthen relationships through increased trust and better understanding of common goals;
- Encourage collective learning and technical capacity-building.
FTW employed multiple mechanisms to foster inclusion, learning, shared decision-making, and relationship building in the project, which included: a community-based participatory design process, positive group development, collective learning, clear and inclusive decision-making, consistent group structure, visual timelines and milestones, and graphic recording. The project provided consistent communication via multiple methods, including a webpage. The process was led by a 16-member Core Design Team of local stakeholders and was supported by the City of Richmond and Bay Area Local Initiatives Support Corporation/State Farm.
Implementation of the plan, as proposed, will require the establishment of the governing Steering Committee, which includes two members of the CCP Executive Committee (one representing a public safety agency and one representing health/behavioral health agency), and the issuance by the County Administrator’s Office of a Request for Qualifications to identify a "host organization." The Plan assumes that the County selects the Host and completes the contracting process for a host organization by June 2014. In order to facilitate this timeline, an RFQ will need to be issued in as soon as possible.
"Proposed Plan for an East & Central Networked System of Services for Returning Citizens": Managed by two principals, Iris and Keith Archuleta, Emerald HPC International is a comprehensive consulting firm in business since 1992 that utilizes their High Performing Communities framework to guide clients through the process of building and mobilizing a sustainable, outcomes-based team or collaborative effort. With more than 20 years of experience, Emerald HPC International has conducted large community outreach efforts such as the Youth Intervention Network in Antioch and the Richmond/North Richmond Economic Revitalization Initiative for the Chevron Corporation. Emerald HPC International has developed an award-winning process recognized by both the federal government and the United Nations for engaging and retaining stakeholder and project recipient voices. Emerald HPC International is headquartered in San Francisco, with a local office in Antioch.
Emerald HPC facilitated the development of a collaboration network using a systemic and inclusive approach that involved three phases:
- Phase 1: Planning, Fact Finding, and Issue Identification
- Phase 2: Collaborative Building and System Design
- Phase 3: Implementation Planning
Over 80 stakeholders were engaged in the core planning team since June 2013 and an even broader stakeholder group was involved in interviews and informational sessions throughout the process. Stakeholders included representatives from the faith community, returning citizens, all affected County departments, higher education, nonprofit service providers, the business community, and elected officials. |
1. ACCEPT the “Design and Implementation Plan For a West County Reentry Resource Center,” as recommended and amended by the Community Corrections Partnership (CCP) and as amended by Attachment D.
2. ACCEPT the “Proposed Plan for an East and Central County Networked System of Services for Returning Citizens,” as amended by Attachments B and C, as recommended by the CCP except with respect to the “sole sourcing” component of the Plan.
3. CONSIDER recommending the approval of the Plans to the Board of Supervisors (Mar. 25, 2014), and providing staff direction on the implementation of the plans. |