2019 - 2020 Community Action Plan Updates and Changes
The Community Action Plan (CAP) for the 2019-2020 program year will be due on May 1, 2019. Your CAP from 2018-2019 will be transferred over to the new program in CSBG Reporter year in the next few weeks. From there you will be able to edit the CAP as needed. There will be three minor changes for the 2019-2020 CAP:
- As discussed during the VACAP Board Meeting, we are emphasizing Summer Feeding programs moving forward. There will be a requirement to add information about what actions your agency is taking in regards to Summer Feeding in the programs section of the CAP.
- There will be a new text box under each program where you will need to describe the program. We are just looking for a few short sentences to help us understand the program you are reporting on.
- There will also be a new checkbox next to each program to identify the programs where your agency uses TANF Funds.
We will be hosting a webinar to review these new features and also review how to make changes in the Community Action Plan as soon as it is ready in CSBG Reporter. You will be notified by your Program Consultant in the coming weeks when a final date for the webinar is set.
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Agency Use of Consultants
As a reminder, if your agency has used or is currently using a consultant for your Needs Assessment Process or Strategic Planning Process please send us their name and any feedback you would like to provide. The CSBG Staff is working to compile a list of consultants and is also working to develop an RFP and Scope of Services for agencies to use when seeking consultants to complete the Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan.
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eVA Training
As discussed during the CSBG Roundtable, this years contracts will be going through the eVA procurement system. We have found a representative from our Agencies Procurement Office who will be able to provide a webinar training on eVA but before she puts together the training she would like to get some specific questions from agencies relating to the eVA system. If you have any specific question please send them to
CSBG@dss.virginia.gov
by February 15th. Once the webinar is scheduled we will send out the login information.
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The CSBG Team Welcomes Violet Peyton
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The CSBG Office is excited to welcome Violet Peyton to the team, Violet is our Senior Fiscal Officer and will be working out of the Richmond, VA office. Violet has served as Housing Program Administrator for Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) Homeless and Special Needs Housing unit where she administered the Livable Home Tax Credit program and was responsible for tracking allocation and disbursement of funds as well as meeting reporting requirements for the homeless and homeless prevention programs. Violet has also served as Program Analyst for DHCD’s Indoor Plumbing Rehabilitation Loan program which assists owners of substandard housing where indoor plumbing does not exist or the existing waste water disposal systems have failed.
Violet will be learning the programs and structures of all of our agencies, including setting up conversations with each primary Finance contact over the next two months. She will be working to develop an agency perspective for training and technical assistance and will be learning more about each agency prior to our next risk assessment and development of the monitoring schedule. Please help her to get acquainted with your agencies in this process by making yourself available for phone calls and sharing your insights on the items with which you most need resources/assistance. We will be working in the next few months to fully develop this new relationship between our office and agencies.
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2019-2020 VISTA Application
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We currently are getting ready to enter our fourth year with the Community Action AmeriCorps VISTA Program. We have had great results from the VISTA's that have completed their service year. Our VISTA's are building capacity within organizations by doing tasks such as coordinating agency strategic planning efforts, collecting and analyzing data for Comprehensive Needs Assessments, building volunteer programs, writing grants, creating fundraising materials and much more. A few VISTA Member highlights include: recruiting and managing volunteers to package food boxes to feed 150 children during winter break, soliciting silent auction items from local and national businesses which raised over $11,000 for the organization, developing materials for a board nomination packet which led to two new low income board members, and facilitating 23 listening sessions acr
oss the state to develop a plan to reduce the impact of addiction on Virginia families. These are just 4 highlights but we could go on sharing many more highlights of the incredible work our VISTA's are doing in Virginia.
The Application for the
2019-2020 Community Action VISTA
program is now
available
. Once reviewing the application if you are interested in applying please email the CSBG Office by
February 11, 2019
. There will be a webinar on
February 18, 2019
for those interested to learn more.
Applications are due on March 29, 2019.
If you have any questions, please contact the CSBG Office at
CSBG@dss.virginia.gov
or 804-726-7939.
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NEW! CSBG Annual Report Tools and Resources
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NASCSP recently released a
list of Other NPIs
that can be used when reporting in the CSBG Annual Report. This is a list of common indicators that the CSBG network said were missing from the Annual Report. NASCSP reviewed hundreds of indicators from the network and with the help of the CSBG DATA Task Force, narrowed them down to the most common indicators not already found in the Annual Report.
NASCSP has also recently released the
CSBG Lexicon
, a dictionary for terms used in relation to CSBG and the Annual Report, as well as updates to the Instruction Manuals for
Modules 2
and
Module 4
, the
Module 3 Review Checklist
and Module 3 SmartForms. These tools and resources were reviewed with significant input from the national partners (CAP, NCAF, and CAPLAW), theDATA Taskforce, OCS, and feedback from NASCSP trainings across the country. If you have a question or suggested edit for these documents, you can submit it
here
.
These tools can be used to guide your data collection as we begin the first reporting period of the CSBG Annual Report. For additional webinars, templates, an updated FAQ, and other tools to assist with data collection and reporting,
visit the NASCSP website
.
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A Message from the
National ROMA Peer to Peer Network
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The Virginia ROMA Peer Group had a successful session at the January VACAP conference. Now we’d like to have you consider the Organizational Culture in your agency. You got a draft of an assessment at the session (it is attached here) and we would really like you to try using it to get a sense of the culture in your agency – particularly as it pertains to your ability to influence the implementation of the full ROMA Cycle. We also shared it with a group of NCRIs at the national Management and Leadership Training Conference, and have a few initial ideas for tweaking it. Participants suggested: Add certifications-- what certifications, if any, does the organization value?, Add a question about the relationship with the state office -- Do the agency and state value the same things?, Add a question about the relationship with the Community Action Association -- Do the agency and association value the same things?
There are probably lots more things that you will find as you start to assess your organizational culture and consider how to build a ROMA culture at your agency and in the state of VA.
Our goal is to have sufficient feedback from the VA NCRIs and the others at the national meeting to revise the assessment document to use at the Spring In-service Continuing Education Program in April.
We would also like to have some of you join us on a panel about this work at the Region 3 Update Training (which will be July 10 and 11 in Morgantown, WV) to share with the rest of our Region.
We hope you will continue to engage with the National ROMA Peer to Peer Training Network. You can provide feedback directly to
csbg@dss.virginia.gov
and we can pass along to the ROMA Network.
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February and March At A Glance
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- February 11-15 - NASCSP Conference
- February 18 - State Offices Closed
- March 29 - VISTA Application Due
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Early Bird Registration NOW OPEN
Virginia Volunteerism and Service Conference - May 7-8, 2019
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Reserve your room today
.
The conference is the Commonwealth's leading event for organizations and individuals making a difference in their communities. Presented by the Virginia Office on Volunteerism and Community Services and the Virginia Service Foundation, this highly-interactive two-day conference will feature a diverse array of instructional workshops, networking events and opportunities for service.
The conference is open to the public and is ideal for volunteer service leaders, nonprofit executives, faith-based organization leaders, and government agency personnel.
Early Bird Registration is now open!! Registration is $135 until February 8, 2019.
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