Reflection on Cultural Competency

 1.    Identify the major cultural and economic groups in your target community or focal area.

My community consists of low income families. Help Suffolk is a shelter for homeless families.

2.    Think about your own cultural history. Identify areas where your own cultural history will be an advantage to you.

I currently work at Head Start as a Family Educator. I go into shelters and low income houses to help families and their children. This history helps me understand what people are going to and it also gives me the opportunity to ask families what resources they need and what changes the shelters could do to help them better themselves.

3.    Identify places where you may be handicapped by your own ethnicity, class, skin color, political views or language.

May times going into these shelters I feel “handicapped” because I feel there isn’t much I could do to help make the changes I would like to see happen. Sometimes when I go into homes I feel like they think I can’t relate or I don’t understand what they are going through. Unfortunately I could relate but I think this gives me an advantage and more of an understanding on how I could help them.

4.    How will you practice cultural competence?

I will share my assignments with the faculty members are HELP Suffolk. I would like to see what they think about our ideas and I would like to see if they would like to work together to make this all happen.  

5.    What (if anything) scares you about working with different groups? What excites you?

Working within this community I get excited when families reach their goals and are able to better themselves. It’s nice seeing people taking advantage of the services available to them and working towards a better life.

6.    What do you wish you knew more about?

I wish I knew more about funding. I was able to speak with families and find out what could help them but unfortunately the community doesn’t have funding for these kinds of programs.

Policies Applied:

My goal is to get families back on their feet and be able to provide and take care of themselves and their family. Giving a helping hand and leading them in the right direction might help someone find a job and reach their goals. In the community HELP Suffolk I think families could benefit from having a computer room and counseling services on site. Having the computer room could help them find jobs, take online classes, research housing options etc. This also gives families resources that could help them in many different ways. I think the families and the workers at HELP would support these changes. The workers at HELP are advocates for these families and they want to see them do well in the world.

People that may oppose this project is the HELP USA Executive Leadership Team and Senior Management. There was once funding for the computer room but it got cut. Money was needed in other areas and this is where they choose to take it from. I think finding funding from private fundraising businesses is very hard and I think this might be why they might not agree with my target project.

Sharing my course work with the shelter I think might be a good start with increasing the demands and supports for my target project. Providing them with my thought out ideas might help show how much these services are needed. Getting families on board and having them support this mission might help convince the committee. Reaching out to computer companies and providing them with information about the shelter might help get some funding for the project.

If this fails I think HELP Suffolk would still recognize how important these changes are to have a successful turn out rite. Helping families reach their goals and get back on their feet will help make their mission happen. All the families in the community would benefit from these changes and and I think this course work would help support the cause.

 

Planning and Implementation

For HELP Suffolk I think advocacy planning would fit best. This type of planning is used to ensure that powerless groups have a say in long range planning. The families residing at HELP are considered homeless and they need to be taken seriously and their voice needs to be heard. It’s important that they have advocates to fight for them and to make sure their needs are being addressed. Each family has a case worker a HELP Suffolk that is there to help the families get back on their feet. They might need to help with DSS, housing, schooling, etc. These “advocates” need to help these families get the best help so they could reach their goals and get back on their feet.

Our mission is to help those who are homeless and others in need become and remain self-reliant. To make sure these families reach their goals HELP will assist in guiding the families in the right directions and help lead the way. HELP assists those in need by providing housing, offering health and safety services and teaching programs for building skill sets. By having collaborations with agencies in the community it will help these families achieve what they are currently working on.

 I would like to see counseling service on site for families to utilize. Having these families on site the counselors could work on the family’s goals with the case workers and help them in ways that would best fit that specific families. Recently funding was removed for there to be a computer room for families to use. This computer room helped families find jobs and housing. I would like to see funding being used towards having someone monitor the room because they already have all the computers and the location.

I currently work for Head Start as a Family Educator. I have many families at HELP and once a month we have meetings with the director to talk about the families to see if we could work together to help them. I will be printing out all of my assignments from this class and showing them to the director to see what we could do to make this ideas happen. Some factors blocking the actualization of the project is that the shelter had funding for the computer room and it was removed in November.

 

Reference:

McKnight, J. S., & Plummer, J. M. (2015). Community organizing: theory and practice. Boston: Pearson.

 

Sharing Insights and

What was the team or small group?  What was its purpose or mission?

The Community I choose was HELP Suffolk which is a homeless shelter for families. When it was becoming cold outside my mission was to find donations of winter clothing and jackets for the families I work with.

What was your role in the group?

Thinking back to this mission my role was to call different schools and churches to see if they have clothing/jacket drives. I reached out to organizations in the community to see if I could drop off boxes and flyers for them to hand out to their families. Unfortunately many schools already had different charities that they are affiliated with but I was able to find churches in the area who helped us out.

Trace the development of the group across time…Think about the form, storm, norm, perform stages…Tell the story of the group as it passed through them.

My group was new to this which made it hard to know who to reach out too. In this field everyone wants to help each other out and many organizations we called if they couldn’t help us out they gave us a number to someone else that might. After two weeks of many phone calls and traveling we were able to secure 5 drives which was given to our families at HELP.

What were the strengths of the group?  Or putting it another way, what did you learn from participation that you would definitely apply in a community organizing leadership group?

I learned that in a time of need people like to help each other out and share resources. Next time this is something that I am going to work on sooner to be able to have more time finding organizations that want to work with us.

What challenges do you anticipate in developing and maintaining a leadership group for your organizing venture?

A challenge that occurred was I wasn’t sure who else to call besides schools and churches.

Is there any way your fellow students or I could help you in developing your leadership team?

Maybe share other ways to organize a clothing/jacket drive for the people in my community.

 

Choosing an Organizing Variety

 

 HELP Suffolk is the largest housing facility for the homeless on Long Island. In order for you family to be qualified you need to be a family with children.  The complex sits on seven acres of property and consists of four residential buildings, a community building, two playgrounds and a baseball field. HELP Suffolk is a 76 unit transitional housing facility for homeless families housing a maximum of 100 adults and 200 children at any given time.  Units are available for people with disabilities.

An area I would like to see improvement in would be for the families to have more resources available to them. Most times you would find that families don’t know what’s offered and where they could reach out to for help in a specific area. I thought counseling being offered at the facility might be beneficial to the families. It’s hard for some families to open up, I think having someone they could talk to and confide in might make it easier for them. Most families at HELP don’t have their own transportation, having this program located on the premises might give them more of a drive to go see someone. At HELP each family has a case worker. Those case workers work with a case load of at least 20 families. Sometimes it hard for the case workers to get to know each family individually. Having counseling services might help the case workers gather information on how they could help each individual family and get them back on their feet.

Recently they closed down the computer room that the residents had access too. I would like to see that opened again because I think that was very useful. Having access to the computers will give families the opportunity’s to look for housing, and jobs on their own. This will give them responsibilities to look for ways to better their current situations. I am currently looking into ways you could receive funding for this because unfortunately it got cut in the first place because they couldn’t afford to have someone be in charge of the computer room. They already have computers and a location just getting funding to pay someone for the duration of the computer room hours is the only hold up.

For HELP Suffolk I chose the collaboration approach for my focus on community organizing. Collaborations help establish different agencies and organization working together to help those in the community. It’s important here at HELP Suffolk that they are connected with other programs that help families in the same situations. To help better families it’s important that everyone works together and shares resource information with each other. “Collaborations meet the goals of the collaborators and strengthen the quality of life in focal community systems. They enable communities and service organizations to do more with less by, sharing resources, developing creative but relatively inexpensive solutions to longstanding problems and help build networks for solving future issues” (McKnight, 70).  

My question for the class is when thinking of these ideas to better the chosen community who would be go to approve these ideas. And would we be the ones to find the funding for these programs?

 

Reference:

 

McKnight, J. S., & Plummer, J. M. (2015). Community organizing: theory and practice. Boston: Pearson.

 

Post: Systems Thinking and Kaleidoscopic Community

 

What is your focal community system? Define it as carefully as possible

My focal community project is going to be Help Suffolk located in Long Island. HELP Suffolk is a 76-unit transitional housing facility for homeless families. These units go up to two bed rooms with a kitchen bathroom and an eating area. If your family is more than four persons they will place you in a two bedroom unit. Many families like this shelter because you have your own living space and you don’t have to share and clean up after other people. The complex sits on seven acres of property and consists of four residential buildings, a community building, two playgrounds and a baseball field. Each building has its own case worker who helps with finding housing and jobs, DSS, SNAP, GED and etc. This community has one entrance and exit that is monitored by security that requires everyone to sign in and out.

What micro-systems are involved in your project?

This community is located at the end of a road at a dead end which has a parking lot for staff and residents. HELP is located right down the road from an elementary school. The buildings which contains the units for the residents are two floors with units on the first and second floor. To live here you need to have children otherwise you would be placed at a different shelter. HELP provides onsite activities throughout the month to help keep the residents busy.

What mezzo-systems impact your focal community system?

HELP Suffolk is located in Bellport, New York. This community is located near the local bus stop which helps residents get back and forth from where they need to go. About a half a mile away is a local food pantry for families to go to get a little extra help when their food stamp money is running low. This community is located off a main road which has a super market and other community stores for residents to walk too.

What meta-systems may impact your focal system?

HELP Suffolk is impacted by the department of social services (DSS). DSS places the families in different shelters all over Long Island. Having families placed at HELP gives us the opportunities to get families back on their feet and provide them with resources to do so.

How might these macro systems be affecting your focal community?

This community is in the middle of other towns which are located in Long Island. These towns have other shelters and other housing for other homeless families. This community might be affected because the shelter is located in a town with residents that owns homes. Not everyone in the town wants to live by a homeless shelter which makes HELP Suffolk get some complains by residents in the community.

Analyze your target system in terms of its history, present, and possible future as best you can based on information available.

This community is located in the middle of a larger community Bellport, New York. HELP Suffolk is a smaller community with low income families. HELP Suffolk remains the most cost-effective model for homeless housing in Suffolk County, costing approximately one third less than what it costs to house families in motels and other emergency housing facilities which offer few or no services.

What forces in or around your focal system might strengthen your goals?  What might threaten them?  What actions could you or the group take to strengthen opportunities and/or reduce threats?

Having families brought to the community with nothing helps these families realize that they want to help themselves be better. This gives them more of an opportunity to achieve their goals. Having other families in the same situation helps families realize their not being judged. Seeing how hard something might be to achieve like going back to school threatens these parents and gives them less of a drive to achieve these goals. Learning about other programs and resources there are in the community around them will help make it easier to strengthen their opportunities.

Part 2:

Take a “mental walk” around your focal community, begin to think about its assets and needs, talk with some others who share your interests or concerns.  Use the framework in Chapter 2 to list in writing:  individuals, primary groups, quasi-groups, associations, and formal organizations in your focal community that you anticipate will play a part in your evolving community organizing effort.

Local Food Pantries

Head Start

DSS

Churches

Clothing drives

Family Agencies

Part 3:

I choose this community because my passion is working with families and children. Helping others makes me feel good and I love being able to work with the children as well. I have my associates in early childhood and I love helping families in need so I feel like this is the best kind of community to work in.

 

Statuses:

 

Age. 26 – Working on my bachelors, I am the youngest worker at my job which helps with providing new ideas.

Born in Long Island- I know the area and no about different resources within the community.

Head Start Employee- I am going on a year working at Head Start as a home visitor and I’ve already learned so much about how to help families and work with them on educating their children.

Zumba- I am currently going to the gym and taking Zumba classes. With school and work it makes it hard to find time to fit it in.

 

Focal Community:

 

For my job I serve families that live in the HELP Suffolk Community. This is a family shelter that provides support and guidance. I am familiar with what they provide for the people living there but also have my own ideas on how I would improve it.

HELP Suffolk is a 76-unit transitional housing facility for homeless families. HELP Suffolk is the largest housing facility for the homeless on Long Island.  The complex sits on seven acres of property and consists of four residential buildings, a community building, two playgrounds and a baseball field.

Since its inception in 1990, HELP Suffolk has served over 4,000 families and places approximately 60 percent of families into permanent housing. In 1995 HELP Suffolk, with funding from Housing and Urban Development, established an Employment Readiness Program. Since its launch, approximately 500 individuals have secured employment in over 120 companies throughout Suffolk County.(2016 HELP Suffolk)

HELP Suffolk remains the most cost-effective model for homeless housing in Suffolk County, costing approximately one third less than what it costs to house families in motels and other emergency housing facilities which offer few or no services.(2016 HELP Suffolk)

This “Community” has programs that helps family’s get back on their feet. Some programs that they provide for the residents that are living there are medical services, employment services, mental health services, housing placement assistance, day care, after school programs, homework help/tutoring, and client case management.

When talking with the residents many of them would like to see more programs put together to help them achieve. I would like to see programs set up for the families to be able to get back into school. I think these programs should take place on site because many that live here don’t have their own transportation. I think if the adults have an education it will help them get a better paying job which will help them afford housing. It’s important that HELP Suffolk organizes these kinds of programs because I think that’s what the families need to be able to provide on their own without having to rely on the state.

Recently they closed down the computer room that the residents had access too. I would like to see that opened again because I think that was very useful. Having access to the computers will give families the opportunity’s to look for housing, and jobs on their own. This will give them responsibilities to look for ways to better their current situations.

Reference:

HELP Suffolk. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.helpusa.org/help-suffolk/

 

Icebreaker:

My name is Christina woods I am 25 years old and I live in Patchogue, New York. I am new to the blogging world and each day I come on I’ve been able to navigate it better. My one worry so far for this course is being able to help fellow classmates, I want to teach them something as they read my blogs because I feel that we all learn from each other. After this semester I will be receiving my Bachelors in Community and Human Services concentration in Children and Families. I eventually want to work with children and families within a community. When thinking about my future career I see many different opportunities. I’ve learned that my degree is very broad which gives me different options to choose from when deciding on exactly field to work in. I am hoping that this course might lead me in the right direction.

I’ve lived in Long Island my entire life but spent most of my summers Upstate. This made me familiar with different communities. I have come to realize over the years that each community is different and everyone needs help in different ways. “Communities are comprised of people who share common bonds, often feel responsible for the well-being of one another, and work together for the betterment of life for all. There are several types of communities but most community organizing is done in geographic communities”(McKnight, Pg.1). Geographic communities are going to be my focus for this semester in this course. I like how these communities have all the services in one place for residents. This would make it easier for a families that I would work with in the future to get all the resources that they might need.

I am looking forward to organizing different tasks and creating our own “community”. I choose this course because since I want to work with families in the community I wanted to gain knowledge on how I could learn different strategies on how to help the families better their lives. Communities have different needs and assets and I want to learn ways I could help contribute. A dream of mine is to be able to give families the motivation to be able to better their lives for their families. I believe that this all starts in the community because when having support it helps guide the families in the right direction.

I work for CPC Head Start in Port Jefferson, New York. Here they have many food drives and in the winter we organize coat drives. I’ve made a point to help organize and share with the families in the community. We would send out letters and post posters in local stores for families to learn where and when these drops are taking place. Working with families is beneficial because every time I am able to help them in some way feel accomplished. Every day I learn about new resources in the community that are available to the families that I work with. I’ve come to realize that many of my families don’t realize what resources are available to them. This is information that I collect for my families and we go over together to see which resources might be needed.

I tend to be very organized, this has helped me for school, work and just for life. I think this trait would help me be able to organize a good setting for families in my community. I’ve learned over the years how important it is to be able to show documentation for everything when it comes to running something. I think this would be a good asset to programs in the community. When deciding on what the community needs it’s important to listen to the people that are in it. Listening to one another would help organize the right programs to help the families in the right ways.

Reference:

McKnight, J. S., & Plummer, J. M. (2015). Community organizing: theory and practice. Boston: Pearson.