Chapter 1: The Work Setting - Human Service Organizations PDF

**Chapter 1** ***The Work Setting:*** - - - ***Agency Roles for Social Workers:*** - - - ***What Do We Need to Know about Organization?*** - " Our society is an organizational society. We are born in organizations educated by organizations, and most of us spend much o...

**Chapter 1** ***The Work Setting:*** - - - ***Agency Roles for Social Workers:*** - - - ***What Do We Need to Know about Organization?*** - " Our society is an organizational society. We are born in organizations educated by organizations, and most of us spend much of our lives working for organizations. We spend much of our leisure time paying, playing, and praying in organizations. Most of us will die in an organization, and when the time comes for burial, the largest organization of all---the state---must grant official permission." - Positive: include the authority and mandate to provide services in the public interest. Negative: This includes sometimes burdensome paperwork and operating rules that may prevent providing timely or effective services to clients. - Social workers must understand the larger context in which an organization operates and how it affects its functioning. [They must simultaneously comply with organizational roles while also seeking to actualize their own professional and social justice values. ] ***Clarifying Terminology:* Page 7** 1. 2. 3. 4. ***Ethical Guidelines:*** **Ethical Dilemma:** According to Beckerman, an ethical dilemma is "that situation in which an action is required that reflects only one of two values or principles that are in opposition to one another." In consultation with their supervisors and with other social workers, social workers must often make difficult decisions to elevate one value over another. ca ***Social Work and Organizations: Historical Roots*** - - - Page 10 **Bureaucracy:** Huge public agencies, such as public welfare departments and child welfare agencies, have historically been linked with the bureaucratic form of organization. These organizations have been criticized for their cumbersome processes and inefficient and ineffective services. In addition, bureaucratic organizations can often feel impersonal and dehumanizing to both clients and workers. - ***Changing Conceptions of Organizations:*** In today's view, organizations are dynamic, evolving, and changing in interaction with external stimuli. [Strengths approach:] Practicing from a strength orientation means that everything you do as a social worker will be predicated, in some way, on helping to discover and embellish, explore and exploit clients' strengths and resources in assisting them to achieve their goals, realize their dreams, and shed the irons of their own inhibitions and misgivings. Sources of Information about Organizations: Factors in personal decision-making include the nature of the job itself---the problem situations presented by clients, the program of services designed to meet client needs, the types of intervention used, and so on. In addition, every organization has its own climate and unique environmental features. - **Chapter 2** **Distinguishing Features of Organizations** ***Defining Human Service Organizations:*** ***Organizations:*** Formalized groups of people who make coordinated use of resources and skills to accomplish given goals or purposes. It differs from other approaches in that it focuses on promoting and enhancing the well-being of the people it serves. 2 types: Picture of table on phone 1. 2. ***Theories:*** **Organizational Theory:** Max Weber - What an organization should look like: stressed the importance of uniformity and stability Smoothly running, machine-like attributes: authority based on clearly delineated rules, which trump informal social relationships; clearly defined hierarchies; well-developed and highly specific lines of responsibility; formalized rules and regulations; a high degree of specialization and technical competence; and promotion based on performance. In Weber's mechanistic organization, all rules and regulations should be written down, and all organization members should understand these rules. **Progressive/ Radical Approaches**: people are not the problem, but that systems are problems or, perhaps more correctly, structural dynamics embedded within systems are the problem. As such, radical perspectives of orga- organizational theories highlight the oppressive nature of social institutions and encourage the transformation of organizations to remove barriers of oppression. - **Evidence-based practice:** In EBP, practitioners select, if available, interventions validated by systematic research and evaluation. EBP movement began in the medical field. EBP leaders should engage in the following behaviors: 1. 2. 3. 4. Proponents of evidence-based practice say that wisdom and experience should not count but rather that appropriate quality evidence should be privileged over these important leadership skills. ***Type of Organization:*** 1. 2. 3. 4. ***Public Vs Private Organizations:*** Public: Legislative bodies at the local, state, and/or federal level create those concerned with social welfare and other agencies under government auspices. Public human service organizations are also known as governmental agencies. Some public organizations in human services are federally operated but have decentralized structures within local communities. Public agencies\' missions are described in legal codes and government regulations. Tax dollars fund them. Private: Non-profit and for-profit organizations. - Faith-Based Groups *Attributes of Nonprofit Organizations* - - - - - - - **For-Profit Organizations:** Their purpose is to sell services, and their operations reflect the goal of yielding a profit for investors and stockholders. The entrance of for-profits as providers of human services can largely be explained by changes in federal funding regulations that, in the late 1960s, began to allow for-profit organizations to apply for and receive contract funds**. Page 34** ***Boundary blurring:*** The substantial and growing overlap in the characteristics of all human service organizations is largely the byproduct of boundary blurring brought about by the public financing of many privately delivered human services. - **hybrid** - - **Self-Help Organizations:** Self-help organizations do not often employ social workers. In fact, "pure" types of self-help organizations may not have any employees at all. Nevertheless, they offer a parallel system of human service delivery, and they should be included. Alcohol Anonymous - **Organizational Mission: the organization\'s mission refers to why it exists and what it seeks to accomplish. Why does it exist?** **Non-profit:** Has its own governing body, which includes a charter, constitution, and bylaws. Has its own governing body &/or is organized as an identified organization of a religious body with legal status. **Public:** Authorized and established by statute or is a subunit of a public organization with which a clear administrative relationship exists. **For-Profit:** Organized as a legal entity as a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or association and has a charter, partnership agreement, or articles of association and a constitution and bylaws. **Program:** A relatively permanent organization and procedure designed to meet ongoing clients\' needs, as well as a plan and guideline about what is to be done. **Service:** An activity---what is done to carry out the program. It is the actual deployment of the organization's resources in a planned and systematic manner. **Structures:** Actual arrangement and levels of an organization in regard to power, authority, responsibilities, and mechanisms for carrying out functions and practices. Organization chart page 46 **[Chapter 3: Budgeting ]** **\ ** **[Chapter 4: Power and Supervision within the Organizational Setting ]** **Board of Directors**: In nonprofit organizations, the board of directors is responsible for devising and approving the organization\'s policies. Boards act on behalf of the interests and values of the community and the organization\'s constituents. **CEO**: The CEO, sometimes referred to as the executive director, maintains day-to-day managerial responsibility for the agency\'s work. The CEO is an organization employee and serves at the board\'s pleasure. - - - **What makes a good CEO?** It depends on the organizational culture, the status of the organization (financial and programmatic stability), the preferences and predilections of the board of directors, and the environmental influences impinging on the organization at any given period of time. ***Supervision:*** - - - - - [Functions of supervision: ] - - 1. 2. 3. - [The goals of supervision:] - - - [Difficulties: ] - - - [Clarifying Needs and Expectations: ] The assessment of a worker's performance implies that there is (1) a detailed job description, (2) a clear understanding of performance expectations, and (3) criteria for evaluation that are known from the outset of the evaluation period. - **Job Evaluation Process** Key concepts found within the standards include the notion that evaluations occur at least on an annual basis, that they begin at the point in time of the last evaluation (or at the time of hire), and that they are meant as a tool to improve performance, not to punish. Evaluation is not a replacement for regular supervision. It provides a formal process to review performance and progress during the past year and plan for the future. Should be interactional **Chapter 5:** ***Managerial Style:*** - - ***Use of part-time and temporary personnel:*** \- Cost savings \- From the vantage point of some social workers, contingency work offers flexibility, the chance to gain experience, diversity in assignments, and the possibility of future full-time employment. For some social workers, the dual demands of parenthood and work may make part-time work attractive. For others, temporary or contractual arrangements may offer less involvement in office politics and less stress associated with competition for raises and promotions. ***Volunteers:*** Generally limited to the nonprofit sector - - - ***The physical environment:*** \- These issues matter not only for efficiency but also for how social workers feel about their jobs. When the furnishings and equipment are of poor quality, employees will likely feel they are not valued. \- Generally, for-profit organizations tend to have more attractive offices, reflecting the corporate culture. \- less adequate, but it takes a more modest approach to using organizational funds for the facility. -The "cripping movement" suggests that the problem that people with disabilities have is not with their bodies ***Cultural and climate:*** Climate: An organization\'s climate is defined by employees' perceptions of their work environment. A positive work environment is perceived as nonthreatening, enhancing personal self-image and career-promoting. Shared psychological climates create organizational climates; employees have the same or similar perceptions of the work environment. Culture: Defines organizational culture as "a property of the collective social system. It comprises the norms and values of the social system that drive the way things are done in the organization" (p. 198). Culture is a component of the social system, while climate is a property of the individuals within the social system. ***Use of Teams:*** \- Most often, a team approach is sanctioned and formal. The use of teams also reflects the organization's culture and creates an open system. Teams can be used within the organization for a number of purposes, such as identifying, analyzing, and solving problems related to agency performance and promoting creativity and innovation ***Formal Communication:*** Verbal exchanges, written communication, internet emails. ***Informal Communication***: Informal communications are exchanges that are separate from and outside of the agency's codified, regular, and planned communication channels. Such informal communication systems can be effective and powerful. Rumors- Unwritten rules-Normative Behaviors [Low morale burnout.] Importance of having self-awareness ***Burnout:*** notes that burnout produces at least three outcomes: 1. 2. 3. **Chapter 6:** ***Work challenges in host settings:* collaboration is essential is host settings** - ***Four challenges for social workers who practice as guests in host settings:*** 1. 2. 3. 4. **Role Incongruity**: In host settings, on the other hand, there may be a discrepancy between professionals' perceptions of their roles and those of significant others in the organization, a situation that has been termed. Social workers define themselves within the system and document their contributions to the host setting. ***Hospital Social Work***: Social work practice in the hospital organizational setting is oriented to facilitating good health, preventing illness, and aiding patients with physical illnesses and their families in addressing and resolving illness-related social, financial, and psychological problems. - The emphasis on efficiency and cost containment may be in direct conflict with social workers' obligation to focus on patient problems and service needs. In fulfilling professional obligations to the patient, social workers may find themselves in conflict with hospital administrators and even physicians. ***Criminal Justice:*** The majority of the institutions that comprise the criminal justice system are typically still based upon a philosophy of punishment more than rehabilitation or social justice, thereby leading to many value conflicts for social workers who work within the juvenile justice, the courts, prisons, probation and parole, and other areas of the system. - **Challenges: power, status and role** 1. 2. 3. 4. ***Chapter 7: Conditions of Work*** ***Organizational policies:*** Formal rules: Found in personnel policies and procedures handbook. Includes policies such as benefits, sick leave, etc. - **Equal employment opportunity**: - - **Affirmative Action**: Affirmative action rejects the notion that policies are sufficient if they simply prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of gender, race, or ethnic background. Inequities must be reduced and eliminated through active intervention. - action is reduce inequality despite these laws, people of color, people with disabilities, and women still face barriers to hiring, advancement, and equal pay ***Dress:*** - - - ***Unions:*** Way to improve working conditions - **Chapter 8: The Changing Environment of Organizations:** ***The Organization as an Open System:*** To survive and flourish, all human service organizations must be responsive to their environment. \- organizations that have open, collaborative systems of communication and management may be able to adapt more quickly to environmental changes ***Income Maintenence: 169*** Welfare reform has many implications for the work of human service organizations. *Entitlement* is no longer the operative word for the public welfare system. States are free to redesign their service systems to reflect local conditions and preferences. ***Child Welfare***: No definition was provided of ["reasonable effort"] to achieve permanency. This act substantially altered the way child welfare organizations provided services to children and families, with permanency planning replacing the more open-ended reunification goals of the past. Programs were redesigned to reflect this new emphasis. \- The new goal is the promotion of adoption of children in foster care; a main tenet of the law is the primacy of the child's health and safety. The change of goals once again created a need to change the focus of organizational programs. ASFA, like welfare reform, affords the states substantial latitude. For example, it is largely up to each state to define "reasonable efforts." The definition used by each state, in turn, affects the way in which organizations approach the scope of work involved in carrying out ASFA mandates. ***Managed Care: MCO*** Cost Containment is the major theme of MCO An organized system of care that attempts to balance access, quality, and cost-effectiveness by using intensive case management, provider selection, and cost containment methodologies. Managed care is an attempt to control what has come to be perceived as uncontrollable health care and service costs. New models contain increased emphasis on health system performance in an effort to encourage positive outcomes. - - ***Promoting competition:*** - - - - ***Consumerism:*** Over the past half century, a consumer orientation has become a potent force in the planning, providing, and evaluating human services. - - ***Accountability***: The emphasis on accountability can be seen in the increased importance that funding bodies are placing on demonstrating service outcomes. - ***Quality control: under accountability*** - The only certainty for human service organizations today is that the external environment will continue to change, with consequent pressure to adapt operating modes and program emphases. To adapt to external demands, the organization must operate as an open system, aware of and sensitive to the implications of legislative, judicial, and budgetary change, as well as changes in consumer needs and desires