This level serves as a foundation for efficient and effective delivery of programs that help individuals and families with near-term challenges. At this horizon, an individual human services organization is utilizing categorical funding and resource inputs in order to deliver discrete programs and services to customers and satisfy policy and compliance requirements of governing entities and stakeholders.

As the name of this horizon implies, management and operational processes, systems, and technology, are designed to deliver reliable transactions, benefits, and services that adhere to rigorous policy and program regulations. From an outcome growth perspective, a Regulative organization can provide measures of the inputs and outputs (such as program investment, number of individuals receiving services, percentage of cases closed in a given time period, etc.) that describe and quantify the activity and basic trends of human services programs over time. To maximize capacity, executives in the organization focus on addressing near-term needs of customers, strive to provide user-friendly service and timely case management, and improve reporting of outputs and completion measures.

The Regulative Horizon enables an organization to not only optimize operations, systems, and workforce capabilities that help stabilize individuals, families, and communities in need, but also builds a solid foundation for innovation and movement up the Human Services Value Curve.

While proficiency at this horizon is vital for performance and should be sustained, too much reliance on Regulative capabilities will limit an organization’s ability to meet more complex customer needs and deliver better social value to communities and stakeholders. When making the first moves beyond a Regulative Business Model, one should look to the mission of the organization and the outcomes desired from programs. Then, take a portfolio view by scanning programs to assess where collaborative connections can be made.

As a human services organization progresses to the Collaborative Horizon, policy and practice moves to a person-centric model and whole-family mindset and model, in which services are combined to improve the stability of an individual or family. From an outcome growth perspective, a Collaborative human services system recognizes that solving complex customer challenges often requires expanding beyond service and program “silos” and categorical management.

Coordinating with other operational units, departments, organizations, and sectors to align and co-deliver a mix of services is essential. This level of coordination and collaboration creates a platform for two-generation family solutions, as well as enables capacity growth through improved information sharing and streamlining of common customer information and referral, intake, eligibility, case management, and supporting technologies and infrastructure.

Furthermore, advancement in policy and practice can be gained by leveraging cross-organization data, insights, and evidence on service effectiveness and co-designing innovative future services and solutions. In sum, the Collaborative Horizon fosters the creativity and collaborative mindset that will be needed to affect system change over time and builds the capabilities and competencies necessary for a service-oriented system of care that can mature and scale for the future.

As a human services system moves to the Integrative Horizon, advancement is based on achieving sustainable social and economic mobility for individuals and families by helping them solve and overcome the root causes of challenges. To achieve these new levels of outcomes, the mission and operating model of the human services system is rigorously leveraging whole-person and family-centric service design. Underpinning this strategy is an intentional focus on applying social determinants of health to harmonize and customize services for customers.

Social and economic value at the Integrative Horizon is accelerated by digital platforms and information technologies that enable the seamless integration of multiple programs and services across organizational and sectoral boundaries. This integration amplifies efficiency and effectiveness in outcomes.

In practice, this integration not only helps improve customer co-creation and sustainable engagement, but also reorients activity to individualized client services focused on self-sufficiency, improved health and safety outcomes, and social inclusion. Importantly, the Integrative Horizon brings the ability to harness analytics across services to become predictive about customer needs and service transformation. This designs the evidence-led platform for achieving more impactful outcomes and value.

Thriving communities is the aim of the Generative Horizon. To realize this goal, health and human services expand to address multi-dimensional community-wide challenges and opportunities. At this horizon, social value is maximized by intentionally building equity for all people into the attributes of wellbeing, such as health, social capital and resilience, safety, dignity, and economic security and mobility.

Importantly, the deep integration of services accomplished in previous horizons enables the formation of an ecosystem for outcomes – a network of organizations, machines, and services that co-design and seamlessly deliver solutions to address and solve the root causes of individual, family, and community health and human services challenges. This ecosystem-driven strategy in turn aligns policy and practice that affect advancement and discovery of novel solutions based on social determinants of health by activating collaboration and integration with domains such as public safety, housing, education, and workforce development.

A vital capability of a Generative ecosystem and its broad outcomes orientation is the use of population data and insights to not only work upstream – by addressing key drivers of community wellness, but also become predictive and prescriptive – by synthesizing trends and co-designing policy, value-based practice models, and real-time innovation in response to community conditions.