Putting ideas to work �� - food stamp program

Renee Raney and Alan DeJong are two people who would probably never think of themselves as particularly unusual. But they are. They are people who took tough jobs--jobs they felt reluctant about--and then slowly made those jobs work. The result in both cases is a better Food Stamp Program.

Renee Raney works with the Food Stamp Program in Saginaw County, Michigan. When caseworkers suspect fraud in a case, Raney checks it out and determines whether or not the case is prosecuted as fraud before an administrative review judge. If it is, Raney presents the evidence. A position nobody wanted

Her position as "designated staff person" is a new concept. "I didn't really want the job," Raney says. "No one wanted it because no one knew how to do it."

But Raney took the job anyway. She had 3 years' experience as a caseworker, had been a lead caseworker, and had a college degree in criminal justice. Ever since high school, she had been interested in working in a crime lab or on investigations.

This was a chance for her to take investigative work and see where she could go with it. It was a chance to present a case before a judge, on par with a defense lawyer, and see if she could with her case.

But figuring out where to start wasn't easy. "When I go this job, I didn't know the prosecutor or how to contact him, and the person in investigations didn't want to have anything to do with me," Raney says.

The judges were helpful. They gave her good guidance about how to present information and explained which information was useful to them in making a decision. But it still wasn't coming together.

"One day I was presenting a case that I had researched 3 or 4 months earlier, and I really got rattled," Raney recalls. "The judge asked me questions, and I felt like I didn't know what I was talking about. I couldn't get the evidence together, and I didn't present it well. After it was over I decided, "Well, I'm not going to do that again.'" Came up with new approach

Raney sat down and developed an "evidence sheet" for her next case. On it she detailed every piece of evidence she was going to present, along with a date, description, and short paragraph pinpointing the significance of the item. "This document tends to show. . ."

Her idea worked, and she began using the evidence sheet for every case. The administrative review judges were so pleased with the competence of her presentations, they instructed her to train all other designated staffers in the state.

"The evidence sheet helps you have that edge to knowledge, especially when the person countering you is a lawyer," Raney says.

Raney is meticulous in gathering information for her cases. "The judges want it all," she says. "They don't want to assume anything. All the evidence is in the case file, and it's up to you to get the information, understand its significance, and present it clearly to the judge.

"I figure it's better to anticipate all of the judge's questions and have all the answers figured out before the hearing rather than go back and get the information later."

Raney's investigations and her thoroughness in presenting evidence has paid off. In 1983, she presented cases at 125 administrative hearings. She won all of them, an unusual accomplishment anywhere.

Her work has not only been recognized by her own state, but by other states as well. This spring she was asked to make a special presentation at the state exchange conference hosted by Wisconsin in March. Helping staff manage time

Alan De Jong, who is director of assistance payments in Grand Rapids, Michigan, also made a special presentation at the March conference. Like Raney, De Jong has gotten results by trying something new--in this case, a time management system that carefully structures caseworkers' time.

The idea was a response to one of the first problems he encountered when he became director in 1976--how to deal with an increasing caseload and a declining staff.

At first, the idea flopped. "It came across like an attempt to pur people in a mold and stick them at their desks with a ball and chain," he says.

In retrospect, De Jong feels he didn't work well enough with the staff on identifying problems and coming up with solutions. He dropped the plan, but as time went by and work pressures continued to increase, he continued to offer solutions that involved elements of time management.

Eventually, one group decided to try the system, and finally the entire staff decided to give it a go. Now, everyone is sold on it. What they came up with is a system that breaks the working day into specific blocks of time:

* All of the caseworkers have 2 hours of "protected" time every morning when they are not interrupted by anything or anyone. They use this time to get ready for the day's cases, clear off work from the previous day, and do any research they need.

* For 4 hours of the day, they are involved in client meetings or other scheduled staff meetings.

* For 2 hours of the day, they are at the phone available to any client who calls.

During all other hours of the day, clients who call give their messages to an answering machine on their caseworker's desk. The caseworker screens those calls every hour, taking messages for files if necessary or returning the call. Clients like the system

According to De Jong, both caseworkers and clients are happy with the arrangement. "We had been receiving complaints from clients that they couldn't reach their caseworkers, and the caseworkers were stressed to the breaking point trying to process cases and deal with the jingle of phones," he says.

Clients are briefed on the telephone system and know exactly which 2 hours during the day they can speak to their caseworkers. They also know that if they just need to report some information, they can do it by leaving a message. The recording machines operate 22 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"One of the reasons why workers have been so enthusiastic about the system," De Jong says, "is that it has really helped them manage their time more efficiently.

"They can, for example, screen the calls on the recorder. The can then pull the case and get it ready for whatever action the client wants. When they return the call to the client, they can take action on it and complete it.

"Before, they could be working on one case when another call came in. Before they'd completed work on the first case, they'd be trying to deal with a second, and then a third. Soon the desk would be piled high with files and they'd be going nowhere.

"One thing we've built into our work plan is that once you start a task, finish it. If you've pulled a case file, complete the action on it before starting a new case. In the past, that wasn't really a possibility. Now it is." Change makes a difference

Although he doesn't have statistical documentation to prove it, De Jong feels that the time management system has been essential in maintaining the area's low error rate of 1.7 percent.

Traditionally, as he says, they have had low error rates. "But with caseloads up and staff down, I don't think we could have maintained this kind of error rate without some changes in how we worked," he says.

Before any positive changes can ever be made, somebody has to have the imagination to see what's needed. Both Raney and De Jong had that kind of Imagination.

For more information, contact: Alan De Jong Department of Social Services 415 Franklin S.E. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49507 Renee Raney Department of Social Services P.O. Box 5070 Saginaw, Michigan 48605

COPYRIGHT 1984 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group