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Chesapeake Helps (Queen Anne's County FY 20 and Beyond) Annual

Story Behind the Curve

FY 19: Chesapeake Helps! has had difficulty in locating clients for the transportation program, due to the lack of transportation options available in the county and the limited funding available for the voucher service. These limited funds were aquired from another source this fiscal year. Chesapeake Helps created a community transportation survey and distributed to determine actual needs of community residents. This helped to develop the plan for FY 20. It is apparent there is still a strong need for transportation services in Queen Anne's County, especially for the targeted populations. 

Chesapeake Helps has a more detailed marketing plan scheduled for FY 20, and will have less of an emphasis on attending community meetings, but instead meeting with local partners. Chesapeake Helps will meet with at least five new partners per month. They will create MOUs with partners to increase the amount of referrals to the program. The voucher system will expand in FY 20 to increase the assistance given to Opportunity Youth (at-risk) and Children/Families affected by incarceration. This will increase their client base. FY 20 will incorporate all new performance measures.

To increase transportation options in the County, Chesapeake Helps will research and create a program for ridesharing or volunteer based. This program will be ready for an organization to implement in the upcoming Fiscal Year. 

Action Plan

1st Half of Fiscal Year 19: Work with Community Affairs office with the Local Management Board for the Connect to Success campaign. Send out a transporation survey to collect data. Develope and print transportation information cards to distribute to the two populations.

2nd Half of Fiscal Year 20: This program had some success with providing transportation vouchers to clients, and has made marked improvements from FY 19. However, the program is still not as successful as the LMB would like to have seen. The Chesapeake Helps Program will not be funded in FY 21.

Program Summary

Detailed Program/Planning Description:

Chesapeake Helps Transportation Solutions program is shifting its priority to provide direct services to at-risk youth, disconnected youth and children and their parents/caregivers who have been affected by incarceration in Queen Anne’s County. Chesapeake Helps has been developing its transportation program for the past two years. This year the focus will be on providing mobility management, a voucher system model and planning/program development of a ride-sharing and/or volunteer model. The plan is to have a ride/share program developed the first half of the fiscal year and have an organization implement the program in the second. All of these models are developed from the “Promising Practices for Increasing Access to Transportation in Rural Communities” (2018).[1]

Individuals in Chesapeake Help’s targeted populations often have difficulty understanding and navigating the transportation systems in the area. Chesapeake Helps Mobility Manager will work as a transportation brokerage system and will assist them to create a transportation mobility management plan. This plan will help the individual in determining the best viable transportation option(s). The Mobility Manager will find creative solutions such as, navigating through public transportation, utilizing informal supports, or accessing private services to assist the clients in creating a sustainable plan. The Mobility Manager will act as a broker with outside agencies to schedule trips, which will alleviate the confusion often witnessed with public transportation. When there are no services currently available to assist the client, the Mobility Manager may use a voucher system.

Chesapeake Helps will provide vouchers for transportation assistance. Vouchers are considered any resources provided that has a monetary value. Vouchers will be determined when the Mobility Manager completes the plan with clients and there are no other viable options. Vouchers provided can include: bus tickets/monthly passes for County Ride (Queen Anne’s County Public Transportation Service), fees for driver’s education classes, driver’s licenses, car repairs, tags and title for vehicles, vehicle rentals and taxi services. The Mobility Manager will determine the eligibility guidelines for each specific voucher, such as income and maximum benefit allowed. The voucher model allows clients the ability to have services that are specifically tailored to their individualized transportation needs.

Additionally, Chesapeake Helps will develop a ridesharing model or volunteer model that is appropriate for Queen Anne’s County and develop partnerships in the community to execute a pilot in the second half of the fiscal year. A rideshare model is a demand response model that may involve sharing a vehicle for transportation, carpooling or using technology to arrange shared rides. Volunteer models have volunteers who provide demand response rides to others, which includes door-to-door assistance. Most often volunteers use their own vehicles to transport. Chesapeake Helps will determine if ridesharing, the volunteer model or a combination of the two is the best appropriate transportation solution. 

 
 

Target Population

Families affected by incarceration, at-risk youth, and disconnected youth in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. Their target to be served is 30.

Data Discussion

FY19 First Half of Fiscal Year: Marketing has increased dramatically this fiscal year, and Chesapeake Helps! is waiting to reap the benefits. They have participated in outreach days at state prisons, attended community meetings, posted information to social media websites and outreached to local churches. Due to the lack of transportation resources, clients may not want to engage with the Chesapeake Helps Transportation Brokerage systsem. Chesapeake Helps! will distribute the Semi-Annual Survey in January/February and will complete the Annual Survey in July, and this will provide some missing data. 

FY19 Second Half of Fiscal Year: Chesapeake Helps, despite the marketing plan, has not received more clients. This is why many of the performance measures are 1-0. There were little to no surveys distributed because of having limited clients. 

FY20 Second Half of Fiscal Year: Chesapeake Helps provided vouchers to many different clients; however, due to the Pandemic they were unsuccessful with collecting satisfaction surveys. 

Measures

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