Quad Projects // Update 11.08

The Quad’s Social Services Access Project team, pictured above with their faculty advisor Laura Eurich, is gearing up for their final presentation to the City of Colorado Springs and El Paso County in the next few weeks.

In the past few weeks, our El Paso County and City of Colorado Springs social service access team completed interviews with both with Maricopa County in Arizona, and San Diego County in California. Maricopa County is very similar in size to our own county of El Paso and proved to provide extremely relevant information. An interview with a training supervisor at Maricopa County Social Services was very enlightening, providing ideas for best practices as well as valuable insight into issues their county has overcome in regards to staffing and training. The social service access team also used assessment surveys to understand how employees of San Diego County who work in citizen-facing roles tackle barriers to social service access in their county.

Input from comparable counties facing similar social service access barriers has proved invaluable in the process of creating recommendations for El Paso County. Understanding how El Paso County and the City of Colorado Springs can bridge the gap between multiple social services departments and improve upon hiring and training practices is key. Data collected by the team supports cost-effective and impactful solutions for the project.

The team finished the rough draft of their final report for the project this week. The writing process went well, and their communication as a group is solid, with each member taking on specific roles having developed what is needed to execute this report successfully. Armed with research and financial data on comparable communities, the team is confident in their reasoning and recommendations. The team has done a great job in providing the city and county with ideas that are both innovative and sustainable. They are looking forward to discussing the project and receiving feedback from the city and county in regards to solutions favorites, as well as which solutions the city and county feel will be most effective. The team is nearing the end of their three-semester project and are confident they are delivering a final product that hosts obtainable and impactful solutions for the City of Colorado Springs and County of El Paso.