Request for Proposals Evaluation of the Respite Partnership Collaborative

Sierra Health Foundation: Center for Health Program Management Request for Proposals Evaluation of the Respite Partnership Collaborative DECEMBER 2012 Funding provided by the County of Sacramento, Mental Health Services Act Innovation Component

INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPLICANTS This instruction package includes: Proposal Checklist and Important Dates Page 2 Section I Background Page 3 Section II Evaluation Overview Page 4 Section III Proposal Narrative Guidelines Page 6 Section IV Budget and Budget Narrative Page 7 Section V Proposer Statement of Qualifications Page 7 Section VI Administrative Requirements Page 8 Review all sections carefully and follow all specific instructions. Submit proposal package electronically in accordance with instructions. DEADLINE No later than noon on Monday, JANUARY 14, 2013. LATE PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. You will receive a confirmation e-mail within three business days. SUBMIT PROPOSAL AND DIRECT ALL INQUIRIES TO: grants@sierrahealth.org For inquiries, use subject line: RPC Evaluation Questions For submitting the proposal, use subject line: RPC Evaluation Proposal INTENT TO APPLY By Thursday, December 20, 2012, potential proposers are requested to notify Dr. Cooksy via e-mail regarding their intention to propose so that they will receive any additional information to assist them with their proposal. Type in the Subject Line: RPC Evaluation RFP Intent to Apply and forward your contact information (name, title, organization, address, phone and e-mail) to grants@sierrahealth.org. Sierra Health Foundation will be closed from December 24, 2012, through January 1, 2013. Important Dates December 6, 2012 December 20, 2012 January 14, 2013 Early February 2013 February 25, 2013 No later than March 8, 2013 Release of RFP Intent to apply due Deadline for proposal submission noon PST Finalist interviews Award contract Selected contractor meeting with RPC partners in Sacramento Proposal Checklist The following list identifies all items that must be submitted in your proposal package. Proposal Narrative Must describe all areas listed in Section III Budget Information for Design and Implementation Phases listed in Section IV Proposer Statement of Qualifications Must describe all areas listed in Section V Applicant s Statements and Certification Download from www.sierrahealth.org/rpc

I. BACKGROUND A. Sierra Health Foundation: Center for Health Program Management Sierra Health Foundation: Center for Health Program Management, a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, serves in a leadership role to improve health and wellness in California. The Center secures resources from multiple funding sources and offers expertise in program management, evaluation and communications to support the capacity and reach of projects and programs. The Center enables stakeholders, organizations and larger funders to collaboratively improve health and wellness for all, while leveraging the expertise offered by Sierra Health Foundation. Sierra Health Foundation is a private philanthropy with a mission to invest in and serve as a catalyst for ideas, partnerships and programs that improve health and quality of life in Northern California. Sierra Health Foundation is committed to improving health outcomes and reducing health disparities in the region through convening, educating and strategic grantmaking. Since beginning grant funding in 1985, the foundation has awarded $85 million in cash grants to 893 nonprofit organizations. The foundation also provides in-kind meeting and event space for nonprofit organizations through its Conference and Convening Program. To learn more about Sierra Health Foundation, visit www.sierrahealth.org. B. County of Sacramento Division of Behavioral Health Services The County of Sacramento Division of Behavioral Health Services (DBHS) offers behavioral health services to Sacramento County residents by providing alcohol and drug treatment services, specialty mental health services and assistance for individuals unable to care for their personal needs or financial resources. The mission of DBHS is to provide a culturally competent system of care that promotes holistic recovery, optimum health and resiliency. DBHS recognizes that Sacramento County is one of the most ethnically and racially diverse counties in California and considers diversity while embedding cultural competence in all areas including operation, policies and structures to be responsive to the changing dynamics of our community and ensure high-quality services. C. Description of Initiative The Respite Partnership Collaborative (RPC) is a publicprivate partnership of DBHS, Sierra Health Foundation: Center for Health Program Management and the community at large. The goal of the RPC is to increase local mental health respite service options to offer alternatives to hospitalization for community members experiencing mental health crisis in Sacramento County. The RPC is funded through the Sacramento County Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Innovation component. MHSA is a California initiative passed by voters in 2004 to provide funding to help counties transform mental health services across all age groups and addresses a broad continuum of prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery needs. Innovation is one of five components within the MHSA and has the sole purpose of allowing counties to try new approaches in order to learn how to increase access to services for underserved groups, service quality and interagency collaboration. In November 2010, DBHS conducted a comprehensive community planning process to design an Innovation project. An Innovation Workgroup comprised of key stakeholders was formed to review numerous ideas from the community. The focus of the workgroup was on mental health crisis and ways to develop alternatives to hospitalization. The Innovation Workgroup proposed that funding be used to support the development of mental health crisis respite programs throughout Sacramento County in neighborhoods or home-like settings. The specific innovation was the use of a public-private partnership and community-driven process to achieve that goal. As a result of the community planning process, DBHS partnered with Sierra Health Foundation: Center for Health Program Management, which serves as the administrative entity for the initiative. After receiving nominations for members, the Center convened the RPC community partners, a group of 22 people representing service providers, people with lived experience with mental Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 3

health crisis and caregivers. The RPC community partners (which is also known as the RPC) was officially formed in April 2012 to support the development and provision of a continuum of mental health crisis respite services in Sacramento County. The mission of the RPC is to address mental health crisis by funding respite projects to help reduce the need for hospitalizations that could occur as a result of mental health crisis. The RPC will fund respite services that meet criteria including: wellness and recovery principles, the inclusion of peer/youth/family/caregiver support services, and locations in neighborhood or home-like settings. The projects that are funded may serve one or more of the following populations: 1) parents/caregivers of seriously emotionally disturbed children in crisis, 2) specialized or cultural or ethnic populations, 3) teens/transition age youth (16-24), 4) adults/older adults in crisis and 5) adults in crisis who have dependent children. Over the course of several meetings, the RPC developed a Request for Proposals (RFP) for mental health crisis respite services in Sacramento County. The RFP was released in August 2012 and four grantees were announced in mid-november. A second round of funding will be initiated in the first half of 2013 and a third round is expected in 2014. Overall, the project will distribute $5 million. The number of projects funded is dependent on the quality and scope of the proposals received. Recipients of funds will also participate in learning community meetings to build capacity and share experiences. Visit www.sierrahealth.org/rpc for more information on the Respite Partnership Collaborative, including the Sacramento County MHSA Innovation Plan, RPC meeting notes and materials and other documents. II. EVALUATION OVERVIEW The evaluation has two parts, each related to one of the two learning goals in the Sacramento County Innovation Plan. The first learning goal is to test whether a communitydriven process will promote stronger interagency and community collaboration. To respond to this goal, the evaluation should examine the process and outcomes of the public-private partnership. The second learning goal is to test the role of the RPC s community-driven process in improving the quality and outcomes of crisis respite services. For this learning goal, the evaluation will need to assess the respite services that are funded. Together the two parts of the evaluation are intended to generate information about the functioning of the publicprivate partnership, the community-driven collaborative strategy and the effects of the strategy on both the resources available for respite care and respite care quality and outcomes. This information will be used by DBHS to meet the learning goals of the Innovation Plan. In addition, it will be disseminated to other jurisdictions, organizations, policymakers and the mental health field to contribute to knowledge and to inform decisions about using this approach to providing mental health crisis respite care. Additional uses related to each part of the evaluation are identified below. A. Evaluation of the Public-Private Partnership The evaluation of the public-private partnership should address the following topics: The strengths and weaknesses of the partnership process, including communications and other key elements of effective partnerships The extent and nature of the public-private partnership s effect on interagency and community collaboration and the provision of a continuum of crisis respite services Findings related to the first topic should yield formative information that the RPC partners (Center for Health Program Management, DBHS and the RPC), as well as other community partners, can use to make mid-course corrections to improve their performance in their different roles. The findings on the second topic will be used in combination with the results of the evaluation of the funded services to test whether a public-private partnership is an effective strategy for providing mental health crisis respite services. The partners will also use the information from this part of the evaluation in their ongoing organizational learning and continuous improvement processes. Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 4

B. Evaluation of Funded Mental Health Crisis Respite Services The evaluation of the respite services should address the following topics: The extent to which grants have increased services offered by grantees (instead of supplanting existing services) The mix of community-based respite services in terms of populations served and types of respite care provided, including the extent to which they complement or duplicate existing services in the community and the nature of any gaps in services information about the use of resources and the mix and quality of services to inform decisions about the allocation of Round 2 and 3 funds. In addition, as noted above, the results from this part of the evaluation will be used in combination with the findings from the evaluation of the public-private partnership to test the effectiveness of the strategy to providing crisis respite care. C. Timeline and Reporting Expectations A timeline for the evaluation activities should be included in the proposal. As a general guide to the timeline, the project s annual milestones are listed below. The quality of the services in terms of the criteria identified in the Innovation Plan and carried forth by the RPC (including being located in neighborhood or home-like settings), relevance for culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and other criteria identified in the literature on effective respite care The extent to which the services are producing the intended outcomes, including reducing the use of the emergency department and psychiatric hospitalizations Month March-April May June Annual RPC Activities Respite providers submit proposals RPC conducts proposal review Funding decisions are made The grantees, other community partners and the RPC will use findings on these topics to learn what is going well and what areas of their work need improvement. Recommendations for improvement will be an essential element of this part of the evaluation. The RPC also needs July -June Funded projects implement services The evaluation activities vary somewhat from year to year, as indicated in the following table. Month Evaluation Activities, Evaluation Activities, Evaluation Activities, 2013 2014 and 2015 2016 March-April Refine evaluation design Implement evaluation Implement evaluation May Implement evaluation Submit draft of annual report for partners review and comment Submit draft of cumulative (multiple year) evaluation report June Submit final annual report Submit final cumulative report July -June Implement evaluation Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 5

D. Budget The total bid should not exceed $500,000, inclusive of an estimate for travel and expenses. The budget should cover a period of March 2013 June 2016. The budget should be broken out by design phase (March-April 2013) and implementation phase (May 2013-June 2016). E. Eligibility and Qualifications Eligible applicants are research institutions, universities, colleges, policy centers, private consulting firms and other entities or individuals qualified to propose. Given the interactive nature of this study between the evaluator, grantees and the partners, out-of-state applicants must include locally based (Northern California) individuals as key members of the proposed evaluation team. In the list of qualifications below, diverse populations, communities and organizations refers to cultural, racial, ethnic, linguistic, socioeconomic, geographic, disabled, refugee, immigrant and other forms of diversity. The evaluator or evaluation team responding to this Request for Proposals should have experience and/or expertise in the following: Evaluation design and implementation, including the capacity to collect and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data and experience evaluating complex interventions involving multiple entities and layers Designing and implementing evaluations that involve diverse communities and organizations Working with partnerships and collaboratives that include a diverse mix of public, nonprofit, communitybased organizations, consumers, family members and community leaders Knowledge of a range of human service delivery systems for diverse populations, including families with seriously emotionally disturbed children, cultural or ethnic populations, teens or transition age youth and adults Preparing effective evaluation reports Working knowledge of help-seeking strategies often used during times of crisis for diverse communities is also highly desirable. III. PROPOSAL NARRATIVE GUIDELINES The proposal narrative should be no longer than 15 pages and should include the following elements. A. Evaluation Questions Please identify the specific evaluation questions that the evaluation will address. Indicate the priority you will assign to different questions at different points in time. NOTE: Once the evaluator has been selected, the Center and representatives from DBHS and the RPC will negotiate the workplan, schedule and budget for this evaluation. During the first two and one half months (mid-march to the end of April 2013), the selected evaluator will refine the evaluation questions with the Center, assess and determine the data needs and sources, and complete the design specifications of the evaluation. B. Evaluation Design Please describe the proposed data collection sources and methods, sampling plans and analysis strategies, including the rationale and limitations of methodological choices. The rationale and limitations should specifically address the design s adherence to principles and practices described in the American Evaluation Association s Statement on Cultural Competence in Evaluation (www.eval.org/ccstatement.asp). Proposals are expected to indicate what data sources would be used to address specific evaluation questions. The proposal should describe in detail any potential limitations (for example, data quality, completeness and standardization) associated with the proposed data sources. In addition, since data will be expected to be acquired through multiple public and private sources, the proposal should note any potential challenges that might occur in accessing data and what strategies should be used to secure the cooperation and assistance from the various stakeholders. The proposal should also comment on the means by which the evaluators will solicit input on data analysis and reports from selected sources. C. Quality Control Strategies Describe the ways in which the evaluator or evaluation team will ensure the cultural competence of evaluation activities and the quality, relevance and credibility of the evaluation findings. Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 6

D. Data Management Plans Please describe the forms in which data will be kept, how they will be kept secure and for how long they will be retained. E. Schedule and Deliverables The proposal should indicate the likely nature of the content of deliverables to meet the objective of providing formative and summative results to grantees and the RPC partners. Also, it should lay out an overall schedule of key evaluation activities and deliverables. It is anticipated that throughout the evaluation, deliverables will fall into several broad categories: (1) regular briefings for RPC partners; (2) periodic briefings for the grantees (respite service providers); and (3) formal reports on findings and recommendations. IV. BUDGET AND BUDGET NARRATIVE A. Itemized Budget Attach an itemized budget. Provide an estimate of the costs, in spreadsheet format, associated with each of the identified components of the proposed evaluation design and implementation plan. A separate budget should be provided for the design phase and a separate budget for the implementation phase of the evaluation. B. Budget Narrative In no more than two pages, please describe the bases for the estimated costs for the design and the implementation phases. Include the hourly rates of each of the members of the evaluation team and their respective time requirements to this project, estimated travel expenses, and other operational expenses required to complete the proposed design and the implementation plan for the evaluation project. Note: The budget information/spreadsheets and narrative are not included in the 15-page design description limit. V. PROPOSER STATEMENT OF QUALIFICATIONS Applicants are requested to limit responses to this section to no more than five pages. A. Organizational Capacity Applicants should fully describe their qualifications to conduct this evaluation following, in order, the selection criteria stated in Section II, Part E. B. Applicant s Organizational Structure The content of this section must describe how the applicant proposes to organize the resources necessary to complete this contract. The content should demonstrate the applicant s readiness and ability to provide the services set forth in this RFP. The following information should be provided: Identify the evaluation project director or principal investigator who will serve as the main contact with the foundation s evaluation director and have overall responsibility for the project. Describe the proposed evaluation team, including a description of each member s role and areas of responsibility in the evaluation and the reporting relationship among team members. Please include a summary of each team member s qualifications. (For senior personnel, brief resumes of no more than three pages may be attached.) If sub-contractors are to be used, please explain the relationship of the sub-contractor to the lead organization. Describe the knowledge, training and experience of each team member in all pertinent areas required to complete the proposed project, and the percentage of time each will devote to the project. Please be explicit and complete in providing information about the breadth and depth of the team s experience and qualifications. Everything that is important to know about your organization and team should be included in this section. NOTE: If you currently are providing services to Sierra Health Foundation or have provided services to Sierra Health Foundation in the past, do not assume proposal reviewers will know of your previous experience. Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 7

C. References Provide brief descriptions of evaluation projects of similar nature, complexity and scope. If available, include links to evaluation reports that were produced for these projects. Include the name, title, organization, phone number and e-mail address of at least three individuals who would serve as references for such projects. D. Other Contracts The content of this section should describe any concurrent research projects or other efforts of the applicant that (1) may impact on the applicant s time commitment to this contract and/or (2) may reinforce work on this contract. B. Selection Process All proposals submitted to the Center for Health Program Management will be reviewed by a team with relevant experience and expertise. Finalists will be interviewed before a final selection is made. C. Questions Applicants should e-mail any questions regarding the proposal instructions and process to grants@sierrahealth.org. Please include RPC Evaluation Questions in the subject line and include your questions and contact information in the body of the e-mail. Responses to questions will be made available to all applicants via periodic FAQ updates. VI. ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS A. Proposal Submission The Proposal Narrative, Statement of Qualifications and Budget information must be submitted as a pdf document attached to an e-mail to: grants@sierrahealth. org. Information should fit on standard paper, 8-1/2 inches by 11 inches in size, 1.5 spacing in 10-12 point typeface or larger and margins not less than one inch in width, with each page clearly and consecutively numbered. Proposals should be as concise as possible, yet provide the required information. The Evaluation Plan should not exceed 15 pages; the Budget should not exceed two pages; and Proposer Qualifications should not exceed five pages. Each section should be clearly labeled. Download, complete and submit the Microsoft Word Applicant s Statements and Certification form posted at www.sierrahealth.org/rcp as a separate attachment to the e-mail transmitting the proposal. The budget spreadsheets and brief (no more than three pages) resumes of senior staff can be in excess of the 22-page limit. Proposals are due by noon on Monday, January 14, 2013. 1321 Garden Highway Sacramento, CA 95833 info@sierrahealth.org www.sierrahealth.org Respite Partnership Collaborative P a g e 8