by Veronica Alvarez, Management Analyst
The Santa Barbara County Department of Social Services is being recognized with an award nomination, and the opportunity to present an hour-long seminar, at this year's CalFresh Forum in Sacramento on February 1. The Forum, hosted annually by the California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA), attracts attendees from federal, state and local government, advocacy organizations, and community based organizations, to share information and best practices.
Our own Dennis
Tivey has been nominated to receive an award at the Forum. The CFPA presents “Freshy” Awards to honor
the actions of individual Californians and organizations that have worked
diligently in the last year to improve CalFresh. Dennis was nominated as Innovative Outreach Leader of the Year for developing, implementing and managing the Public
Outreach Planning, Tracking, and Reporting Tool, or POPTaRT. This shared online application optimizes collaboration among DSS and the numerous community based organizations that partner with us for CalFresh outreach, to maximize our collective resources and target the populations in greatest need.
We will also be presenting an hour-long seminar at the Forum. This is the result of a visit we received from the state CalFresh Branch
Chief, Kim McCoy Wade, in December. She was inspired by our
comprehensive, data-driven approach to improving CalFresh utilization across multiple domains including inreach, outreach, retention, quality assurance, and data, and arranged for us to present the seminar on "innovative strategies to increase
participation” at the CalFresh Forum. We are the only County to be offered such a session.
You can preview the
brochure here: http://cfpa.net/CalFresh/Events/Forum2017/CFPA-CalFreshForum-Program-2017-2.pdf.