Boulder County Housing & Human Services director to receive prestigious child welfare award

 

Frank Alexander honored for his relentless work to improve the child welfare system

 

Boulder County, Colo. – Frank Alexander, Director of Boulder County’s Department of Housing and Human Services, is being honored with an Excellence for Children Award by Casey Family Programs, one of the nation’s leading advocates for improving the child welfare system.

 

Alexander will receive a Jurisdiction Award on Jan. 19 in Seattle, recognizing his record of significantly improving outcomes for Boulder County’s children and families, his leadership with the Colorado Human Services Directors Association, and his successful collaboration with other county, state and judicial partners.

 

“As much as anything else, this is a recognition of how our community and our state have come together to make sure those who need help are getting it,” Alexander said. “I am honored to work with so many incredible partners as we focus on building an innovative foundation of support for our neighbors.”

  

Under Alexander’s leadership, the Department of Housing and Human Services (BCDHHS) is moving toward a model of “permanency” for children that includes family preservation and kin support by helping young people locate loved ones or family friends who will care for them. As a result, Boulder County has seen a 40 percent reduction in out-of-home child placements since 2009, and now has the lowest foster care rate in Colorado.

 

He has worked with Casey Family Programs on a number of successful initiatives. These include No Time to Lose, the statewide expansion of permanency roundtables, strengthening the partnership with the Annie E. Casey assessment, and focusing on child welfare financing reform.

 

Susan Kelly, senior director of strategic consulting for Casey Family Programs, nominated Alexander for the Excellence for Children Award. “Frank has shown himself to be an outstanding leader in Boulder County and amongst his peers in the state and across the country,” Kelly said. “He is creative and innovative, and he excels in promoting the well-being of families.”

 

Background: Alexander’s vision has led to positive, rapid change

 

In three years as director, Frank Alexander has led a comprehensive redesign of the housing and human services system. Among other things, this has helped expand the numbers of people served by benefits by up to 140 percent, with much of this growth focused on front-end prevention that has reduced the need for more intensive and expensive down-the-line services and helped stabilize families. This prevention focus has led to reductions in evictions, foreclosures, homelessness, hospitalizations, detentions, and out-of-home placements of children.

 

Alexander has also helped drive partnerships across county and state divisions, including with community services, mental health, and public health agencies. Through these collaborations, he has developed an array of award-winning creative programs for Boulder County, including:

•           the Housing Stabilization Program,

•           the Foreclosure Prevention Program,

•           the Boulder County Healthy Kids initiative,

•           the Medical Home Initiative,

•           An Early Intervention Program focused on connecting people earlier with needed services,

•           the Colorado PEAK Statewide Training and Toolkit Initiative,

•           comprehensive work internships and  green-collar jobs development programs, and

•           housing development programs and partnerships in the county’s Human Services/Housing Master Planning processes.

 

In 2010, Alexander was a key advocate for the passage of Boulder County Initiative 1A, also known as the Temporary Human Services Safety Net (TSN). This 0.9 mill levy increase on property taxes is designed to backfill state budget cuts and address increased caseloads. In 2011, the TSN provided over $5 million in funding for emergency services for Boulder County, which along with boosting access to food assistance and medical care, also helped address a child care assistance waiting list that had grown to 650 children. Details on the TSN and its impacts are available at www.bouldercountyTSN.org.

 

Alexander was elected president of the Colorado Human Services Directors Association (CHSDA) in 2010, and has been instrumental in both its reorganization and in the redesign of the state’s human services system.