David Roth Email & Phone Number

Lombard, Il

The DuPage Federation on Human Services Reform convenes leaders in the community to collaborate, so all of us in the community achieve our full potential. The Federation engages government, human services organizations, healthcare entities, civic associations, businesses, and education and religious institutions to plan, equip, and strengthen human services. A Council of Community Leaders guides our work. The Federation has strong capacities in language access, public benefits access and data analysis.

Chicago, Illinois

I supported ICOY during a time of growth and transition, as the association had just merged with the Child Care Association of Illinois, and faced urgency to remedy child welfare workforce and rates issues. I facilitated a time-limited Workforce Capacity and Resources Workgroup; its work became the basis of our legislative proposal, which I drafted. SB 2628 passed both houses with strong bipartisan support, and was signed into law on August 14, 2018. This Act makes the connection between workforce and child safety and timely permanency; it establishes a baseline of data to measure progress; it provides for information to reduce redundant, unnecessary and wasteful reporting tasks. I drafted SB2662, the Task Force on Human Services Contracting Act, after online research, reading and analysis to develop the concept. The Act takes a research-based approach: there is evidence that joint, collaborative government-nonprofit contracting reform task forces offer the promise of improved service quality; the quality of services provided by nonprofit service providers depends on the quality of nonprofit human services contract management by our state government managers--the task is to shift the focus to managing contracting relationships, rather than merely managing contracts. SB2662 passed both houses, was vetoed by the Governor of the and enacted by veto override. I drafted an analysis of the risks and opportunities for Illinois of the ground-breaking Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018; the Act has the potential to support families and prevent harm, but only if Illinois makes its own commitment to get organized and invest in prevention services. It was my great pleasure to work with ICOY interns, who supported the ICOY Policy Advisory Board and developed, distributed, did data analysis and reported on a Child Welfare Providers survey and the Child Welfare Workforce survey.

Northeast Illinois

Collaborating with deeply committed partners, I provided leadership for this association of disaster response agencies and our public entity partners, as we cooperated to provide the best possible preparedness, response and recovery to disaster in the six county Chicago Metropolitan Area. As a result, families impacted by the flood of 2013 were assisted with long term recovery, to replace broken appliances, damaged walls, and to clean out moldy living areas.

River Forest, Il

I used social work and organizing skills to plan and direct projects to build organization capacity to provide services. My last role, from 2012-2017, was Vice President for Church & Civic Engagement, with responsibility for marketing and communication, fund development, church relations, public policy advocacy and disaster response. I was fortunate to supervise talented professionals in fundraising, marketing and communications. My role was to listen and understand what they needed to succeed, diagnose our strengths, and identify the right strategy for growth. This resulted in a new sustainable funding initiative that raised $780,000 in new gifts and commitments in three years, a clear identity for the agency, and effective internal collaboration for marketing. From 2003-2011, my focus was public policy advocacy, disaster response, and program (and grant) development, as Director of Community Development (later, Director of Public Policy and then, Director of Advocacy & Civic Engagement). Thanks to hard-working colleagues inside and outside the agency, we established the annual LCFS stakeholder gathering, the annual interagency Lutheran Advocacy Day at the state capitol, and a revived Illinois Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster; in addition, I partnered with program directors to organize teams to raise $2.2 mil in grants and contracts for housing advocacy, vocational education, community building, financial education, family strengthening and mentoring youth in foster care. The most transformative grants project was Building Solid Kids, where we engaged neighborhood leaders, three internal program departments and the United Way to transform our Woodlawn community office into a welcoming hub for families, thanks to a four year $680,000 award. From 1997 to 2003, I was Director of Community Services, and supported capable community leaders to expand services to fathers, parents, youth, those who were food insecure, and those surviving disaster.

Chicago

It is 22 years since I departed The Night Ministry after partnering with four other organizations to start three youth shelters and establish a network. At the time I left, we had sheltered more than 1,000 youth on the South, West and North sides of Chicago. The lessons learned in establishing and operating the shelters are relevant today: every youth and her individual story is unique; helping youth achieve independent and interdependent lives requires years of commitment. In this job, I learned that resources make a difference: this project was supported by a grant that allowed us to purchase and rehabilitate property, build relationships with neighbors, and hire, train and support staff.

Master'S Degree, Social Work, Community Organizing

Bachelor'S Degree, Liberal Arts And Sciences/Liberal Studies