County of Riverside yields seven NACo Achievement Awards

NEWS RELEASE

May 19, 2022

The County of Riverside received seven distinguished achievement awards from the National Association of Counties (NACo) earlier this month. The awards honor innovative, effective programs that strengthen services for residents. Many of the county programs recognized were launched during the pandemic to facilitate access to care and services, especially for the county’s most vulnerable residents.

“These awards not only demonstrate our county employees’ commitment to public service, but their willingness to go above and beyond to implement new technology,” said Board Chair Jeff Hewitt, Fifth District Supervisor. “These essential programs provided basic necessities during the most unprecedented crisis of our time – the pandemic.”

The following county programs brought home achievement awards:

Department of Public Social Services: Adobe Sign as a Workflow Solution in the Provision of In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) – The pandemic accelerated the Department of Public Social Services’ efforts to offer online services that are efficient and increase access for all IHSS clients. In October 2020, the county moved from paper to paperless IHSS forms using Adobe Sign for departments.

Department of Public Social Services: Caregivers Matter, Innovative Strategies to Increase Caregiver Enrollment – IHSS-Public Authority (IHSS-PA) launched creative outreach strategies to recruit, train, and enroll caregivers to support the county’s elderly and disabled residents to remain safely in their homes. These efforts resulted in significant decreases in wait-times and significant increases in the number of caregivers.

Department of Public Social Services: Fast, Improving Outcomes & Efficiencies for Financial Abuse Investigations – The Financial Abuse Specialist Team (FAST) addresses investigations involving seniors and dependent adults victimized by financial exploitation and scams. FAST improves Adult Protective Services investigations to strengthen collaboration with law enforcement to address complex financial abuse cases, as well as improves cross reports to partner agencies.

RUHS-Behavioral Health: Arlington Recovery Community (ARC) & Sobering Center – The ARC and Sobering Center works to prevent incarceration, with the intent to break the cycle of re-offending and re-incarceration. The ARC program allows law enforcement and ambulance drop-offs, along with a fully integrated residential approach for treating serious mental health and substance use disorders.

Human Resources: Enterprise Data Portal – Human Resources deployed a secure scalable data portal single solution with insightful, and reliable data at the touch of a finger.

Office on Aging: Holistic Assessment, Resources and Transitions for Seniors (HARTS) – HARTS’ innovation is grounded on effectively weaving four core service approaches into one viable coordinated safety net for seniors. Adult Protective Services (APS) clients are referred to HARTS upon hospital admission to immediately serve prior to discharge.

Department of Child Support Services: Coffee Break Podcast – Currently in its fourth season, The Coffee Break podcast is the most listened to podcast focused on child support programs and services in the nation.