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Crosspost from my LJ: What is my actual job?
Question from my Ask Me Anything thread:
What is your actual job? I know you talk about it a lot, and I know it has something to do with CPS, and you seem to be training for some other aspect of your job, but I'm not sure what it is that you actually do at work on a day to day basis.
The trouble with answering this is that what I actually do varies quite a lot and still seems to be in flux. I work in the Rate Setting Unit of the Office of Children and Family Services. My official title is Senior Administrative Analyst, which is not terribly informative as to what I'm actually doing. (It's a fairly generic title that is often given to people who came in through the Public Management Institute program who aren't specifically doing State budget requests or human resources work.) I'm one of the few non-accountants in my department.
When I started working there, the first major ongoing responsibility I received was completing fiscal viability determinations for adoption agencies - this has to be done when they first apply to do business in New York State, two years after the initial approval, and periodically thereafter (reviews can be up to five years apart but shorter times are also allowed). As part of that process, I also started monitoring compliance with Charities Bureau registration requirements (because if a non-profit isn't in compliance, it's technically not allowed to accept money from any NYS resident for any reason) and the Hague Convention on international adoption (for those agencies that this applies to). Over time, I started doing fiscal viability reviews of other types of agencies - I did domestic violence programs for a while, but I pretty much don't anymore, and I do reviews for runaway/homeless youth programs and Supervised Independent Living Program apartments. (A SILP is an apartment for youth in foster care who are between 16 and 21, able to live independently with some help, and are not expected to return to their parents or be adopted. There are also SILP apartments for young parents meeting this description and their babies.)
I was the person who put together the initial rate package for service providers for the Bridges to Health program. This is a program that provides extra services to foster care youth (or youth in the juvenile justice system) who have a diagnosis of severe emotional disturbance, developmental disability, or medical fragility - it's a Medicaid-funded program with the goal of preventing institutionalization when possible. I have some related ongoing work - I'm part of a committee that regularly meets to discuss issues - and as part of the program I was hired through, I did what's called a "rotational assignment" at one of the local provider agencies, writing a handbook for paraprofessional provider staff and assisting with the training sessions for non-profit agencies that want to provide services under this program.
I'm also part of an ongoing committee on helping young people in foster care graduate from high school and go on to college or other post-secondary career training. I've done aggregation of survey results for a group of youth in college who are or were in foster care, and put together various resources related to the survey finding. (Apparently there are some serious instances of misinformation that are preventing these young people from accessing financial aid that they are entitled to, such as demanding FAFSA info from their biological parents, which is most decidedly NOT a requirement.)
In general, I'm one of two people who gets put on whatever random projects turn up. Sometimes this involves looking over endless sprawling spreadsheets of payments for juvenile justice facilities. Sometimes it involves writing procedures for something-or-other. Sometimes it involves, "What would be the fiscal impact of this legislative change?" Etc.
Because of the title I'm in, I find that I'm eligible for a lot of promotional exams, but always under the "B" option. Within civil service in this state, promotional interviews have to consider first the people on the "A" list from the agency, then people on the "B" list from the agency, then people on the "A" list from outside, and then people on the "B" list from outside. Sometimes this can be very frustrating.
I'm also in school for social work, and at some point I need to do fieldwork. I am looking at the possibility of getting an in-agency fieldwork, preferably re-vamping the antiquated system under which group homes and institutional programs for youth are classified based on the level of care need. (Seriously, the current tool makes extensive reference to the DSM-III. This makes for a lot of stuff that just plain doesn't make sense.)
So...that might not be everything I do, but it's a lot of it. Lately it's been more of the looking over spreadsheets and less of the adoption agency reviews, but soon it will be the other way around, and then it'll be something else. :)
What is your actual job? I know you talk about it a lot, and I know it has something to do with CPS, and you seem to be training for some other aspect of your job, but I'm not sure what it is that you actually do at work on a day to day basis.
The trouble with answering this is that what I actually do varies quite a lot and still seems to be in flux. I work in the Rate Setting Unit of the Office of Children and Family Services. My official title is Senior Administrative Analyst, which is not terribly informative as to what I'm actually doing. (It's a fairly generic title that is often given to people who came in through the Public Management Institute program who aren't specifically doing State budget requests or human resources work.) I'm one of the few non-accountants in my department.
When I started working there, the first major ongoing responsibility I received was completing fiscal viability determinations for adoption agencies - this has to be done when they first apply to do business in New York State, two years after the initial approval, and periodically thereafter (reviews can be up to five years apart but shorter times are also allowed). As part of that process, I also started monitoring compliance with Charities Bureau registration requirements (because if a non-profit isn't in compliance, it's technically not allowed to accept money from any NYS resident for any reason) and the Hague Convention on international adoption (for those agencies that this applies to). Over time, I started doing fiscal viability reviews of other types of agencies - I did domestic violence programs for a while, but I pretty much don't anymore, and I do reviews for runaway/homeless youth programs and Supervised Independent Living Program apartments. (A SILP is an apartment for youth in foster care who are between 16 and 21, able to live independently with some help, and are not expected to return to their parents or be adopted. There are also SILP apartments for young parents meeting this description and their babies.)
I was the person who put together the initial rate package for service providers for the Bridges to Health program. This is a program that provides extra services to foster care youth (or youth in the juvenile justice system) who have a diagnosis of severe emotional disturbance, developmental disability, or medical fragility - it's a Medicaid-funded program with the goal of preventing institutionalization when possible. I have some related ongoing work - I'm part of a committee that regularly meets to discuss issues - and as part of the program I was hired through, I did what's called a "rotational assignment" at one of the local provider agencies, writing a handbook for paraprofessional provider staff and assisting with the training sessions for non-profit agencies that want to provide services under this program.
I'm also part of an ongoing committee on helping young people in foster care graduate from high school and go on to college or other post-secondary career training. I've done aggregation of survey results for a group of youth in college who are or were in foster care, and put together various resources related to the survey finding. (Apparently there are some serious instances of misinformation that are preventing these young people from accessing financial aid that they are entitled to, such as demanding FAFSA info from their biological parents, which is most decidedly NOT a requirement.)
In general, I'm one of two people who gets put on whatever random projects turn up. Sometimes this involves looking over endless sprawling spreadsheets of payments for juvenile justice facilities. Sometimes it involves writing procedures for something-or-other. Sometimes it involves, "What would be the fiscal impact of this legislative change?" Etc.
Because of the title I'm in, I find that I'm eligible for a lot of promotional exams, but always under the "B" option. Within civil service in this state, promotional interviews have to consider first the people on the "A" list from the agency, then people on the "B" list from the agency, then people on the "A" list from outside, and then people on the "B" list from outside. Sometimes this can be very frustrating.
I'm also in school for social work, and at some point I need to do fieldwork. I am looking at the possibility of getting an in-agency fieldwork, preferably re-vamping the antiquated system under which group homes and institutional programs for youth are classified based on the level of care need. (Seriously, the current tool makes extensive reference to the DSM-III. This makes for a lot of stuff that just plain doesn't make sense.)
So...that might not be everything I do, but it's a lot of it. Lately it's been more of the looking over spreadsheets and less of the adoption agency reviews, but soon it will be the other way around, and then it'll be something else. :)