Health and Human Services Supervision Initiative

About the Program

Category: Personnel Management, Employment and Training (Best in Category)

Year: 2021

A New Hanover County Health and Human Services Supervision Initiative was successfully developed and implemented to create cohesion in the unification for agency consolidation. In March of 2019 the New Hanover County Commissioners unanimously voted to consolidate the Public Health and Social Services departments into one human services agency. This historic move meant that two of the county’s largest agencies which had been operating under the state’s personnel act as well as under direct supervision of commissioner-appointed governance boards would now operate as part of a unified department. The governance of this newly unified group would still have an advisory board, however, the agency itself would have a Health and Human Services Director in direct line to the New Hanover County Manager and all members of the agency’s staff would be subject to the county’s personnel policies and procedures. The need for a way forward to unify the agency, develop understanding of county policy, and instill awareness about ways in which the areas that were being consolidated, intersected, related, and would be working together was paramount.