Overview of Community Reviews:

Do Our Efforts Make a Difference in People's Lives?

Montgomery County's Department of Health and Human Services has had a system in place to conduct Community Reviews since the fall of 1999. These reviews are conducted by teams of Montgomery County community members who have knowledge of the health and human service field are particularly sensitive to issues of ethnicity, economic and cultural diversity.

Community reviews provide a consistent mechanism for determining how well DHHS programs and contractors are contributing to the Department's outcomes of ensuring that Montgomery County's residents are safe, healthy, and self-sufficient. They are a crucial link in the Department’s commitment to continuous improvement. Reviews  indicate whether programs are moving in the right direction in delivering quality services. They also serve as an alert to identify programs that need a more formal evaluation.

Most reviews take three to four days and involve a team of three reviewers. In special circumstances, a review panel might consist of up to five members. Reviewers also attend an orientation and initial team meetings to prepare for the reviews, as well as follow-up meetings to summarize their findings in a written report. The reviewers present the final report at a meeting with the Department’s Director, the Chief of Accountability and Customer Services, the chief of the particular service area being reviewed and other appropriate department staff.

Reviewers rely on a questionnaire and rating scale to do their jobs. The questionnaire is divided into three sections: Achieving Outcomes, Providing Customer Service and Building an Effective Infrastructure. Panel members review a self-assessment and other program-related documents, observe program services, and interview staff, customers, volunteers, students and provider of services. The self-assessment, given to programs 60 days before the review, allows program staff to prepare for the review and begin to identify some program strengths and areas where work may be needed. Panel members also work with program staff to identify strengths and best practices, and recommend improvements to programs where they might be needed. Through these recommendations, a follow-up plan is identified for each program.

Staff support is provided for each review team. Current plans call for eventually reviewing all of the Department's programs. For more information about the Community Review program, please contact Abigail Hoffman at 240-777-1576.

Meet the Members: Community Reviewers

When it comes to asking whether programs and services really improve the daily lives of residents, Montgomery County's DHHS is taking the question straight to the source by asking community residents themselves. This innovative strategy of using Community Review Panels is already producing results, says Community Review Coordinator Abigail Hoffman.

The panels, which are made up of well-respected members of the community, look at department programs in terms of achieving results, providing excellent customer service and assessing what infrastructure is needed to make it all work. The work of the panels extends beyond the department's walls, as panels are also responsible for reviewing agencies that receive County funds.

 By informally reviewing DHHS programs, panel members also identify whether a particular effort needs to be fine-tuned to be more effective. A follow-up system is in place to make sure that recommendations made during the review process are carefully considered. Additionally, reviewers suggest a more formal program evaluation if necessary.

More information about our community review panel members

What They Found

Many of the recommendations made by the community panel reviewers are specific to the single program being reviewed. A few general findings, however, apply to many of the DHHS or Montgomery County-funded programs. They include such things as recruiting more bilingual staff, finding ways to better match computer software to the needs of specific programs, exploring new ways to gather customer feedback, refining ways in which we measure whether our programs are achieving the outcomes we seek for residents in our county.

How We Are Responding

We have continued to find creative ways to recruit bilingual staff, and are working hard to match existing computer software to the needs of specific programs, exploring ways to get better customer feedback and continually looking at how we can improve the ways in which we measure results.

View Community Review Panel final reports

ACS HOME PAGE