Kids Central Recognized by Governor’s Sterling Council
Kids Central was selected as one of six teams from across the state to compete for the state of Florida Team Showcase Championship during the Florida Sterling Council Annual Conference. The Governor’s Sterling Award and Sterling Management Model are based on the National Malcolm Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence. Since 1992, the Florida Sterling Council has assisted organizations to utilize proven standards of excellence as a guide to making improvements that generate better operations, customer value, and overall results. During this year’s annual conference from May 27th to May 30th, nearly 500 executives and professionals gathered to learn more about the organizations competing for the Governor’s Sterling Award and the performance improvement techniques and results. Kids Central, Inc. was awarded a Best Practice Award for Strategic Evidenced-Based Benchmarking by the Florida Sterling Council.
After receiving a grant from the Alliance for Children and Families Strategy Counts initiative to augment the social impact of nonprofit human service providers by enhancing strategic planning, Kids Central employed use of the Baldrige Criteria and Six Sigma processes to tackle some of the organization’s greatest barriers. Kids Central examined community engagement, recidivism, and foster home licensing time. Kids Central’s team, The Bucket Brigade, addressed the extended time it was taking to license foster homes in Circuit 5. By using data stratification, process mapping and other techniques, the team identified barriers slowing the process down and implemented new policies and procedures. The team successfully reduced the licensing time making more foster homes available for children who have been neglected and abused. Licensing time was reduced from 210 days to less than 100 days. Kids Central has seen impressive results, including licensing over 50 new foster homes this year.
John Cooper, Kids Central CEO, said, “The Alliance for Children and Families Strategy Counts Grant was a great opportunity for Kids Central. It allowed the organization to really focus on its strategic planning and process improvement. We will continue to apply the criteria learned and plan to seek the coveted Governor’s Sterling Award in 2015.”
During the Florida Sterling Council Annual Conference, Kids Central’s team presented in the showcase competition highlighting its results reducing foster home licensing time. Out of the six competing teams for Florida Sterling Team Showcase, Kids Central was the runner up in the team showcase competition. In addition, the Kids Central showcase presentation was recognized with an award for the Greatest Customer Impact.
