Just in Case, Studies to Help You

Webb County Community Action Agency’s mission is to help their Texas Community achieve an improved quality of life through access to new opportunities, attainment of useful skills and knowledge, and achievement of economic self-sufficiency.

Upon their switch to CAP60, Webb County was given a solution that would help them to reach all three goals. CAP60 presented Webb County with the opportunity to replace their outdated data management process, gain new computer and data management related skills, and achieve economic self-sufficiency through easy monitoring and reporting of funds used and funds available.

Webb County’s process prior to CAP60 left a paper trail of confusion. Each case worker, spread between five centers, was to send their manually filled-out Excel Spreadsheets to the Community Social Services Manager. This process resulted in Webb County CAA facing tremendous verification and duplication problems. Often, appointments were either double-booked or cancelled without documentation. This frustrated clients and created long lines at their centers.

When Mayra Granados, the new Community Social Services Manager, came on board, she uncovered an egregious accounting error, finding a large discrepancy in their finances. Their agency had unknowingly over-spent by $80,000 for that fiscal year due to miscommunication of their program, funding and client data. The end result was cancellation of some client services for the last three months of the year.

They needed a fast and effective solution: CAP60. Working as a team, Webb County CAA and CAP60 developed a detailed project plan and were able to complete the implementation process in less than three weeks.

Granados explained that implementation is a very well-thought out process, emphasizing that the most important factor is “to consider the staff you currently have.” With that in mind, she created a training process which included a training schedule, a process for questions, and a user guide customized to meet her staff’s needs. These were coordinated with the CAP60 training schedule.

Granados trained with the CAP60 implementation team in the morning, and then would relay the information to the staff members the following afternoon. By centralizing all of the staff’s members at the main center and pairing them off in partners, they were able to practice back and forth until memorized. Within a few weeks, her team was proficient with the system and no longer needed to use the training material.

Further, Granados emphasized that when creating an implementation timeline, it’s important for an agency “to consider its different programs.” Webb County Community Action Agency has three programs, so that the case workers, on average, learned one program per week. Granados suggested that agencies be “realistic” with their timeline when considering the number of programs being implemented.

Upon switching to CAP60, the agency’s lines shortened, appointments were schedules without overlap, and funds were properly accounted for which increased the accuracy of the reporting. By addressing these problem areas which once impaired agency operations, Mayra Granados says that CAP60 alleviated the headaches” that once burdened her staff.

Webb County Community Action Agency, Laredo, Texas