2016 Employee Recognition Awards - Human Services

GOLD - Trevor Davis, Human Services Department - Family and Children’s Services

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Trevor has been the Licensing Supervisor for Family and Children’s Services for over two years. During this short amount of time, Trevor has made a big impact on the division and the department. His main focus has been working with resource parents, including recruitment of new resource families, support and retention, and planning fun activities for foster children. Trevor has worked a lot with faith-based churches in the community, and has collaborated with them to secure and fingerprint volunteers, develop foster family events including movie nights and Halloween parties, games, and arts and crafts. All events also include resource parent’s biological children so as to not create a barrier to participation. Trevor’s commitment and dedication to the County of Santa Cruz should be celebrated, and it is fitting to recognize his hard work today with this award.

SILVER - Larry Caylor, Human Services Department

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As the Information Technology Manager for Human Services, Larry has been at the forefront of a program that is heavily utilized in Human Services known as Task Tracker 2. With an ever-changing workforce, as well as the drive and desire to create additional functionality, Larry began the process of rewriting this program to make it better than ever. Larry’s commitment to excellence, creativity, dedication, teamwork, customer service, and flexibility have made this program a gem within our agency. Larry has even become known in other agencies around the State of California for Task Tracker 2, and has shared his knowledge so that others can learn and utilize what he has done to better support their workforce. Larry’s perseverance and commitment to completing this project is to be commended.

BRONZE - TIED between James Carranco and Raunel Zavala of the Human Services Department

James Carranco, Human Services Department - Press Play to listen to audio. As a Benefits Representative for the Employment and Benefit Services Division, James has been instrumental in the implementation of a new way of filing CalFresh applications. James was a key player in an outreach event that took place at UCSC, and he was able to support the process with a high level of success. His technical skills allowed him to determine what was working and what needed to be changed. He really went above and beyond what was requested, as he was able to identify what changes should be made related to the processing of applications to improve student’s chances of approval while also reducing workload for Employment and Benefit Services staff. The work James performed on this project has been very valuable, and his work is truly appreciated.

Raunel Zavala, Human Services Department - Press Play to listen to audio. Raunel has shown an exceptional level of commitment to the Employment and Benefits Division of the Human Services Department, taking lead on several projects within the division. Most recently, Raunel oversaw end-user testing for the newly updated Task Tracker 2 program. He worked heavily with Staff Development to create training materials, and held training sessions as well as individual overviews of the updates. Due to his knowledge and understanding of this system, he really is a subject matter expert. In addition to accomplishing all of this, Raunel has continued to excel in his regular supervisor duties at the Phone Service Center, proving support to his staff. His go to attitude and willingness to help wherever is needed make him a valuable member of this team, and we commend him today for all that he has done for this department and for the County.