The Joint WAM Roadshow:
We thank staff, including regional leadership, for attending the joint WAM provincial roadshow from April to June 2016. We were able to connect with almost 800 frontline staff throughout the province. The intent of the roadshow was to provide information and clarification to staff on the proposed WAM benchmarks in the 5 child intervention roles (intake, assessor, case manager, generalist,and permanency)
To continue the dialogue during and after the roadshow, an email address for the WAM Team was established: . Please continue to use this email address for WAM related inquiries.
As part of our ongoing commitment to continue the conversations jointly, we established the GOA WAM intranet site with the following information: Question and Answer document, a roadshow map of the presentation sites, the time estimates of activities, the complexity rating document, and the PowerPoint presentation.
Please click here for the GOA intranet WAM site:
Please click here for the AUPE site:
Outcome from the Joint WAM Roadshow:
During the roadshow, we heard many comments regarding the permanency role so we agreed to establish another working committee to validate the benchmarks. The working committee had AUPE Local Sub 006 representation. The new proposed benchmark for the Permancy role has changed to reflect a benchmark range of 12-19 cases.
We also heard concerns around the data for the assessor role, so we had another analysis completed; this benchmark remains the same at 7-12.
Implementation of Application Sites:
A Child and Youth Services Advisory Working group with two AUPE Local Sub 006 representatives was established in June 2016 to discuss the next steps in bringing together application sites from across the province. We are very pleased to share with you that we have dates scheduled for training in anticipation to test the 5 benchmarked roles in Child Intervention. Please click here for the WAM Application Site Training schedule:
The Application site training will occur between September 13, 2016 and October 3, 2016. Additional dates may be added as needed.
We make our launch in Edmonton on September 13th with the Supervisor Training from the following Regions: Edmonton, Metis Settlements, North Central and North West. 17 supervisors will undergo a full day of training.
On September 19th, we will be in Calgary providing training to 10 Supervisors from the following Regions: Calgary, Central and South.
We have opened the invitation and highly encourage the application site Managers and Directors to attend one of the Supervisor training dates so they can better understand the model, provide support and to be a conduit to participate in solutions when issues arise regarding workload.
Approximately 200 staff including Supervisors will be participating in the application sites from across the province. We are testing 27 sites throughout the 8 regions (including Metis Settlements).
Staff at the application sites will undergo training with half day sessions across the province with the first one occurring in Edmonton on September 15th. Staff will be trained by the same trainer as the supervisor trainer but will be trained in their own regions to keep the class size low for better learning. This also allows staff to remain in their regions to continue their client work with least disruption.
Exemption from Application Site Testing:
The North East Region will not be part of the application sites given the recent fires and rebuild within their region. We are very sensitive to the impacts the recent tragic events have had on that region and would not want to add to the stress of staff and leadership however North East leadership has agreed to work towards the WAM benchmarks.
Assessment and Evaluations of Application Sites:
We are also collecting data from each application site very 2 weeks for the duration of the 6 month trial period to work out any issues and to learn from site to site before we move towards full provincial implementation. Benefits of having Supervisors trained with the same trainer include consistency of training and the Supervisor peer to peer support at the worksite.
How All Staff Can Be Involved:
We are also pleased to announce that a week before the launch we will be sending all staff a Child Intervention Workload Benchmarks Impact Assessment Survey through Opinio. The survey is brief, requiring about five minutes of your time. We want to collect data from those who are in the application sites as well as from those who are not in an application site.We will conduct the impact assessment survey at three different points in time; at the beginning, the mid- point and at the end of the trial period. We highly encourage all staff to take the time to answer the survey.
Next Steps in WAM:
In September and October, we will start the working committees for the following services: FosterCare, Kinship/Adoption and Child Care Licensing. We will also look at a best practices job profile for supervisors. The committee work takes 4-5 months commitment from staff to participate with one or two meetings a month. Each committee will have AUPE Local Sub 006 representatives. We hope to have all data collection completed by March 2017 to make a presentation on the proposed benchmarks to Leadership shortly thereafter.
Thank you,
Mark and Melanie
August 17, 2016
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