Technical Assistance
Our proven approach to designing, launching and maintaining technical assistance centers to support and improve workforce capabilities in primary health care programs and the underserved communities served by these programs to address some of the most pressing health issues and improve health outcomes.
At DSFederal, we provide and support federally and non-federally funded programs with expertise and tools to build or increase capacity to address gaps or areas of improvement in their own programs. From start to finish we work collaboratively with program recipients to design a plan which they can actually implement, monitor, adjust, and improve continuously until they achieve the outcomes they desire. Our services are supported by proven scientific evidence, that is geographically and culturally appropriate and is tailored to the organization in need.
NOTEWORTHY PROJECTS
Global Technical Assistance Procurement (GTAP)
For HRSA’s HIV AIDS Bureau (HAB), DSFederal provides direct technical assistance (TA) and conducts comprehensive and diagnostic site visits intended to enhance overall program performance/management and to provide support to the Office of Training & Capacity Development, Global Division staff responsible for a range of grant recipient activities that require extensive coordination and technical/ programmatic expertise. The TA provides grant recipients, host country ministries of health, ministries of education, training institutions, civil society organizations, planning groups, and other nongovernmental organizations with various TA interventions that have usefulness across multiple PEPFAR funded programs. To execute this program, DSFederal coordinates all communication and meeting support for the contract, supports the development of standard operating procedures for the site visit/assessment protocol, develops and delivers training for consultants who are new to the project, and reviews and updates the templates for the site visits. In addition, DSFederal recruits and maintains a roster of technical experts with programmatic and fiscal expertise in PEPFAR HIV/AIDS program delivery, located both within the continental United States and overseas, provides travel support for experts, plans all site visit logistics, and performs technical writing/editing for site visit reports.
Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), Division of Home Visiting and Early
Childhood Systems (DHVECS) On-Site Compliance Reviews
DSFederal, as the lead contractor, provides compliance review for 56 MCHB grantees by conducting a 3- or 4-day site visits, including a visit to the direct service provider (LocalImplementing Agency), to improve health and development outcomes for families from at-risk communities in every State and jurisdiction through the delivery of evidence-based home visiting programs. DSFederal implemented a suite of site visit tools to streamline and standardize the compliance review lifecycle, including a site visit assessment tool, document request lists for financial and programmatic documentation, agenda templates for site visits and all the planning calls, and email templates for key correspondence. The core tool is the assessment tool for subject matter reviewers, which helps reviewers review the grantee’s operation and performance against a full range of programmatic and financial requirements, assess the home visiting system’s capacity, and prioritize areas for improvement through a series of guiding questions. Underlying each is MCHB’s desire to strengthen the Nation’s infrastructure for meeting home visiting benchmarks, and delivering the high-quality, evidence-based home visiting services essential to improving maternal, infant, and early childhood health. By deploying experienced and knowledgeable experts to the site of service delivery, the DSFederal team identifies needs, identifies best practices, ensures fidelity of home visiting models, augments and enhances organizational supports, builds systems, and remediates factors that might impede grantee progress.
Building Futures: Supporting Youth Living with HIV Project
In fulfilling the program objectives for the Building Futures: Supporting Youth Living with HIV project, DSFederal designed a site visit protocol and data collection system, supported OMB clearance of nine data collection instruments, analyzed HAB RSR data to identify a sample of 20 programs that met criteria for high- performing and performance improvement recipient sites, and conducted 20 data collection/analytic site visits. DSFederal designed a toolkit reflecting the lessons learned from high-performing sites, and received concurrence from the sites on the recommended actions to improve youth outcomes. During the implementation period, DSFederal conducted a series of four webinars (one each month for four months) to provide TA on toolkit implementation and check the progress of participating RWHAP service providers. Seven service providers attended, sharing their experiences, challenges, and progress with the toolkit. After these webinars, a second round of site visits was conducted, targeting three service providers. These visits served as an “Implementation Test” pilot program to test the newly developed toolkit, specifically the TA strategies included in the toolkit. Each provider was coached in how to tailor the toolkit content to implement their program strategies. Feedback was gathered over the course of three months, and the findings folded back into the toolkit content in a continuous improvement cycle. Content that proved helpful was augmented, and less applicable content was removed. In the final stage of the project, DSFederal designed and delivered a series of four technical assistance webinars to all RWHAP providers around the country to introduce the toolkit and allow providers to hear directly from the implementation sites regarding the effectiveness of the toolkit guidance for improving youth outcomes. These webinars were recorded and made available on the TargetHIV web site, which has received more than 1,400 views in less than a year.