Read: Woodside – Chapters 8 and 9
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT #4
REQUIREMENT for Assignment #4: Students must post this assignment as an attachment to a discussion (SEE MOODLE). Each student must do a peer critique on one (1) other classmate’s posted document.
Continue to identify, research, and interview an exemplary, progressive, human service organization and write up your findings to present at the last class. Address the issue of Diversity in a 5-7 page summary. Your focus group will be on the Magdalene House of which is officiated with Noisy Oyster (Rivers Avenue). The Magdalene House provides care to female offenders that were on drugs and incarcerated however the goal is to reduce recidivism and not return to the same life style.
NOTE: You may use any halfway house for female offenders to be reintegrated into society. What other human service organizations are in place to aid in this mission?
2) Interview a recipient, staff member and/or the director of an (or other conventional) agency, addressing the following areas:
A. Needs and Service Analysis: What are the needs and problems of people who have come into your agency for help? What are their underlying sources/causes? What kinds of help do they need? What is the agency able to offer them? What isn’t it able to do to truly help them? How are they hurt by agency policies or practices? What broader social changes would be necessary to meet their needs? What do you think about the adequacy of the agency’s responses to people’s needs?
B. Agency mission, vision and values analysis: What is the mission, vision, purposes and goals of the agency? What social and cultural values do they reflect? Are these shared by those being served? Is the agency committed to racial and cultural diversity? Are you completely comfortable with this mission and these goals? Is there something missing?
C. Power Analysis: How are decisions made at this agency? Democratically or hierarchically (top-down)? Who has the power to decide how people’s problems will be defined, what the helping responses will be, what values and principles will guide those responses, who is hired, what cultures they reflect, and what their roles will be, how the agency will interact with the community and larger political arena? The director? The board? The staff? The clients? The community? Higher-level officials and power brokers? How do fundamental system priorities, values, and policies constrain or limit agency choices?
In conclusion of the paper- Often times John Q Public denotes agencies mission by saying “it does not work” but your goal is not only to investigate the agency, the mission and the participants but envision improving the agency through the lens explained below:
a) Define and explain your own list of principles of progressive practice whether they are gleaned from the readings, your interviews, or created afresh by you and creatively apply these principles of progressive practice to your own service arena. What is your vision of what your human service organization should be doing? How might you redefine agency priorities, program goals and design, staff roles & activities, internal and external power relationships between managers, practitioners, clients, and the broader community? What will your definition of success be? How will you evaluate your effectiveness, politically, organizationally and personally?
b) What values, attitudes, skills, capacities, qualities, and knowledge will you need to cultivate in order to fulfill your vision of service and change? How do these differ from the skills and qualities required of more traditional or conventional service organizations? What skills, qualities, knowledge, etc., are needed to pursue individual, group, and social transformational/empowerment strategies? Where are you strong and where do, you want to grow? Where is your organization strong and where does it need to grow?
c) What positive and negative emotions does all this bring up for you? How will you work these through? How will you sustain your commitment as a service practitioner and change agent?