The Story and Approach Behind ALNA

Mental health, social care, rehabilitation, community, and other human-service organizations hold deep professional knowledge, useful data, and committed people. In the middle of daily workload, it can still be difficult to understand what is disrupting a service pathway or which action would help.

ALNA connects information that already exists in the organization with professional knowledge from the field. This helps teams examine what may be affecting service delivery, choose an action that fits their context, support implementation, and review what changed.

Starting from frontline work

I'm Shani Shimshian, a social worker and therapist. Working inside care and human service systems exposed me to the gap between the large amount of information an organization already holds and its ability to turn that information into shared understanding and focused action.

Frontline staff, middle managers, and senior leaders often see different parts of the same process. ALNA was built to connect these perspectives with operational data and the service pathway, then examine what may explain a breakdown before the organization decides what to do.

Between professional knowledge and technology

ALNA connects behavioral-systems thinking, organizational information, and technology. The technology helps organize information, track evidence and possible explanations, and lay out the reasoning behind each recommendation.

As part of the process, ALNA and the analyst examine the findings and action options together. The decision stays with the organization and the professionals who know the service and the people it is meant to serve.

From understanding to organizational learning

The diagnostic is a starting point. After an action is chosen, we check whether it was implemented, what changed, and what can be learned. This keeps the thread connecting the breakdown that was identified, the explanation that was tested, the action that was chosen, and the outcome that was observed.

The larger goal is to help an organization improve its process in a way that supports the person's progress. What progress looks like differs from one organization to the next: continuity of care, a return to functioning, entry into employment, independence, stability, or expanded opportunity.