POST HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC

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Jun 062012
 
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:58 — 2.7MB) Welcome to today’s Latin lesson. “Post hoc ergo propter hoc” means “after it, therefore because of it”. It is the title of a West Wing episode from Season 1 (and you can watch the scene here where it is discussed). It also happens to be the sort of thing they teach you if you study logic and comes in handy if you love data and helping organizations improve services. In a nutshell, you can write up the formula like this: X happened, then Y happened Therefore, X caused Y You can also have people reverse elements of the equation. Let’s say it really sucks for Y to happen. In that case, if you avoid or prevent X then Y won’t occur. If you look just at the order of events rather than the influences on the events you can draw oodles of false conclusions. A temporal succession of events is not evidence of a causal relation. Does a rooster raising a cacophony just before the sun rises cause the sun to rise? A lot of times when engaged with people, there is a reliance on anecdotes to explain causation rather than examining influences independently. The problem with anecdotes (amongst many) is that they are open to subjective interpretation, have the bias of the anecdote teller, rely considerably on intuition and frequently ask the listener to believe based upon the existing relationship between anecdote-teller and anecdote-listener rather than facts. For [...]

The Difference Between That Which We Think and That Which We Know Is One of the Most Important Distinctions To Be Made

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May 232012
 

Kathryn Schulz is a “wrongologist”, with a stellar ability to explain why we shouldn’t regret regret and provides some very credible and compelling thoughts on being wrong. I am a fan. Her book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error is a terrific read and if you have never seen her TED talks, I recommend both. One of her quotes which I have used over and over again because of the brilliance of it is, “The miracle of your mind isn’t that you can see the world as it is. It’s that you can see the world as it isn’t.” People make mistakes. They should. Theories need to be tested and will frequently be wrong or prove something unintended. Being wrong doesn’t make someone a bad person. Being wrong, however, can hinder our ability to be better at our jobs and in our lives when we fail to make distinctions between what we think – sometimes are beliefs not backed up by facts – and what we know – things that can be proven. Over the past couple of decades being engaged with various social justice initiatives I have seen evidence over and over again that what we think is often different than what we know. The difference manifests itself in a couple of problematic ways. For one, there is a tendency to ignore knowledge when it flies in the face of what we think – on a personal, community or organizational level. For example, there is still a [...]

Helping Landlords Help You

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Nov 162011
 

PART FIVE: Helping Landlords Help You There should be a range of housing options for clients of your housing program to consider. In the best of circumstances this will include everything from permanent supportive housing to private market housing (with or without vouchers or rent supplements) and public/social housing. It will hopefully include a wide variety of units from multi-unit residential buildings to suites in the secondary market like basement suites or rented houses. It may also include the likes of well-maintained and managed rooming houses or boarding homes. And I could go on with the diverse types of housing. The key is to have a range of options that clients can CHOOSE from. Choice is fundamental to housing program success. If your organization does housing placements instead of offering housing choices, you are missing an important part of program success. In one research study it found that clients who felt that they had a choice in where they lived were most happy with their housing, whereas those who felt that had less choice were much less happy with their housing. The latter is also more likely to move and/or experience a return to homelessness. For the purpose of this blog, I want to focus attention on working with private market landlords – even if your organization does not have access to any type of financial assistance to provide to landlords. In a perfect world there would be an infinite number of subsidies to provide; immediate access to subsidized housing; [...]

The 5 Essential and Sequential Elements

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Nov 142011
 

In the fourth part of the series we look at the sequence of events that needs to occur for housing programs to be successful. PART FOUR: The 5 Essential and Sequential Elements Regardless of the presenting needs and complexity of issues, housing programs always function best when housing is the first task to focus on. Throughout my travels I have seen far too great an emphasis on trying to get a case plan in place prior to getting someone housed…or getting the client into treatment first…or getting the client compliant with medication first – and I could go on. It doesn’t matter if you are a fan of Housing First or not – what is critically clear through the evaluations we have performed and my years of professional practice is that housing has to be the first thing worked on or else the rest of the tasks are not going to be successful in helping people achieve housing stability. So, here are the 5 Essential and Sequential Elements of Successful housing programs. Focus on Housing Before Anything Else Create an Individualized Service Plan Increase Self Awareness Support Achievements in Self Management Allow the Client to Reframe/Rebuild One’s Life and Future Now let’s look at the critical components of each one: 1. Focus on Housing Before Anything Else We need to have a range of housing choices for people to consider. This will cover things like permanent supportive housing, scattered site market housing with supports, and perhaps things like well managed [...]

Service Orientation

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Nov 092011
 

In this multi-part blog series we are examining the essential elements of successful housing programs that focus on ending homelessness. We pick up here in Part 2 looking at the Service Orientation that is necessary. PART TWO: Service Orientation The secret to a successful housing program? Meet people where they are at in their life journey. Don’t set up barriers or unattainable expectations. Accept the decisions that people have made in their life and how they became homeless at face value, help them achieve housing, and then provide the supports necessary to help them achieve long-term residential stability. In case you missed the subtlety – house people, then support them. If you put together an elaborate service plan or case plan prior to helping someone get housing you are doing it “bass ackwards”. House people then support them. The evidence is clear that people achieve better long-term housing outcomes and achieve a more positive quality of life when this is the sequence of evidence. While it remains popular for there to be life skills training, budgeting classes, skills upgrading, addiction treatment, etc prior to helping people achieve housing, the evidence would suggest that this is unwarranted and actually results in poorer housing outcomes long term. We shouldn’t have different standards of behavior for people who access human services compared to others in society generally. For example, sobriety is not a precondition for successful long-term housing. Statistically, most people who are alcoholics or who use other substances are housed, not homeless. [...]

A Sweet Suite Upgrade, A Fire Alarm, Resuming What I Am Doing & The Guy Who Knocked on My Door

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Jun 162011
 

When I do work in Detroit, I tend to stay at the Motorcity Casino Hotel. The main reasons: it is located close to the offices of the organization I am doing work for; and, it is the cheapest hotel in the area on Expedia by a lot. I stay in a lot of hotels. This is one of the best. Amazing staff. Clean. Fast WiFi. Oh, and the casino has a Star Wars slot machine (that only focuses on the original three movies, so it is cool – Jar Jar Binks free). Yesterday at check-in they asked me if I wanted a free upgrade. I wish these sorts of things happened more often. I said sure. Danielle – the super awesome check-in lady – wanted me to know that the suite they were providing me was on part of a floor where all of the suites are also accessible for people with physical disabilities. No problem to me, unless I would be taking it away from someone who needed an accessible suite. At around 3am, the fire alarm went off. This isn’t the first time that this has happened when I have stayed in a hotel. It is annoying to be sure. But I have never experienced a vibrating bed and pulsing strobe lights and ear splitting pitches that make fire engine sirens sound tame. After the first few minutes, I thought it might be a real fire. The alarm indicators (vibrations, lights, pitches) weren’t stopping. Then I did the [...]

Four Essential Elements of a Comprehensive Performance Measurement System

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May 242011
 

In human services delivery, there are several effective approaches to performance measurement. My leaning is towards an approach that is comprehensive and system-focused, while remaining client-centred. A comprehensive approach will have four essential elements: Identifying the chronically underperforming services. Identifying the services that can meet performance standards with a little coaching and/or technical assistance. Identifying outstanding services that not only exceed performance targets, but also have a unified commitment throughout the organization on performance excellence, use of evidence-based practices and a sincere commitment to continuous improvement. Emphasis on financial stewardship. Identifying chronically underperforming services to some may seem intuitive. “Haven’t we always known they weren’t very good at meeting the needs of the households they are funded to serve?” While true in some instances, it has also been my experience that a framework will show you that some of these seemingly chronic underperformers actually will do just fine with coaching and technical assistance (they aren’t as bad as you thought). And, it has also been my experience that there are some services that turn out to be chronic underperformers (but with a panache for spin) that you thought only needed a little coaching to operate well. In an era of limited resources, it is important that we put our emphasis on coaching and technical assistance with those organizations that would benefit from it the most.  Outstanding services will need training and professional development too, but not the sort of coaching and technical assistance that other lesser performing organizations will need. [...]