Working Toward Collaborative Problem Solving | Molly Millette, BFA ID 2018

To better understand where I’m working within the government, check out this handy, government-issued flow chart.

Age-Friendly DC is technically under the umbrella of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services’ office. Also within this office are the Department of Health, Department of Human Services, Child and Family Services Agency, Department of Disability Services, Department of Behavioral Health, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, Department of Health Care Finance and Office on Aging. Though Age-Friendly DC technically operates within this Executive Branch office, its government partners stretch far beyond the departments under the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

I feel many of my most valuable experiences working within this government body were the Age-Friendly DC Task Force meetings. These gatherings consisted of several representatives from different departments and agencies discussing progress, barriers and solutions pertaining to the goals of each of the ten Age-Friendly domains.

Though these meetings provided me the most insight for how cross agency communication can improve, each one continues to inform me of how most solutions to government problems are ineffective due to implementation timelines dictated by fiscal years. I continue to wonder, what would happen if departments consistently worked with each other instead of parallel to each other? What would happen if a timeline to solve a problem actually matched the scale of the problem and solution?