Illinois Department of Human Services

1. Illinois Department of Human Services Grace Hou, Assistant Secretary

2. DHS Mission To assist Illinois residents to achieve self-sufficiency, independence and health to the maximum extent possible by providing integrated family-oriented services, promoting prevention and establishing measurable outcomes in partnership with communities.

3. What is DHS? DHS has six program divisions: Alcohol and Substance Abuse (ASA), Community Health and Prevention (CHP), Human Capital Development (HCD), Mental Health (MH), Developmental Disabilities (DD), and Rehabilitation Services (DRS).

4. What is DHS? DHS� fiscal year 2008 is approximately $5.4 billion including other funds. DHS serves 1.5 million people annually Via approximately 1800 partner agencies, 9 psychiatric hospitals, 9 centers for the developmentally disabled, 122 local offices, and 46 local vocational rehabilitation offices. DHS� budgeted headcount is 14,900 down from 20,000 when DHS was first created.

5. Illinois Interagency Task Force for New Americans

6. 13.6% of Illinois residentsare immigrants 26% are immigrants or children of immigrants

7. Accelerating Integration

8. New American�s Executive Order In November 2005, Governor Blagojevich declared a first in the nation �Illinois New Americans Immigrant Policy� Executive Order for Illinois State Government

9. New American�s Executive Order: 3 Components 1. Policy Council Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy: Jose Luis Gutierrez, director 3. Interagency Task Force Two phases Healthcare, Education, and Human Services Workforce Development, Housing & Home Ownership, and Police/Community Relations

10. Interagency Task Force Convened by the Governor�s Office of New Americans Policy and Advocacy Comprised of high-level decision-makers Charged with identifying methods by which the state could modify the way it delivers services to immigrants and refugees

11. Interagency Task Force The Department on Aging The Department of Children and Family Services The Department of Employment Security The Department of Healthcare and Family Services The Department of Human Services: Co-Chair The Department of Public Health The Illinois State Board of Education The Illinois State Board of Higher Education The Illinois Community College Board

12. Resource Impact

13. Interagency Task Force Tasks: Serve as a starting point for our standard, statewide response to addressing the needs of immigrants and refugees Develop and implement statewide recommendations for increasing access to services for immigrants and refugees Develop statewide standards for addressing language access issues

14. 1. Pilot an Immigrant Welcoming Center: OPENED in July 2007 Establishing one place where immigrant families can go to access a wide array of information and services Individuals should not have to wait in many different lines to attain services for themselves and their families State and community-based services are critical immigrant integration and need to complement each other�s work Welcoming Centers are a hybrid of state and community � and leverage the resources and expertise of each sector

15. Before

16. After

17. 2. Ensure adequate language services are available to all Illinois residents: Replicating DHS model for implementation in other state agencies. State must ensure effective and quality communication with limited English proficient individuals. More bilingual and proficient staff Quality assurance Adequate interpretation resources

18. 3. Set and encourage high standards from agencies that do business with the state: Piloting a peer-monitoring project to set CLAS standards. Institute an incentive-based peer monitoring pilot Contractors need to establish a plan to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services

19. 5. Vital documents need to be available in other languages in a standardized way: Developing protocol.

20. 7. Ensure programmatic and policy decisions are data-driven: Launching data-mining initiative.

21. Interagency Task Force (Phase 2) Address the areas of housing, public safety, economic and workforce development Developing statewide recommendations for increasing access to services for immigrants and refugees Implementing changes based on these recommendations Developing statewide standards for addressing language access issues

22. Phase 2 Agencies Department of Human Rights Illinois Housing Development Authority Department of Labor Department of Financial and Professional Regulation Illinois Emergency Management Agency Department of Corrections Illinois State Police Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity

23. Keys to Successful Implementation True Partnership Representation Will Leadership

24. True Partnership Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Illinois Department of Human Services Governor�s Office Foundation community support

25. Representation Immigrant and refugee advocates in state government Advocate for bureaucratic representation vs. funding Avoid �niche� positions

26. Will Eradicates bureaucracy Encourages innovation Mission-driven Overcomes barriers

27. Leadership Executive Legislative Agency (oft forgotten) Advocacy

28. Commitment to Systems Transformation Investing in changing state government: Serving immigrants and refugees effectively