Comments for Tom Wolff and Associates

Comment on New Hospital Community Benefit Requirements: Who Will They Benefit? by Christina

Christina — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:28:47 +0000

Excellent post; excellent job summarizing the need (and opportunity) of the hour. Thank you, Tom.

Comment on Time to Transform our Health and Human Service System by Tom Wolff

Tom Wolff — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 17:09:15 +0000

Thanks for your comments Scot
I am in total agreement that we need to move the helping system in the directions you describe as SPEC and I describe in my blog
However the question is how we move the helping system to get there. i have been at this for over 35 years and I now believe that the top rpiority is to get government and funders to change their expectations in the direction of SPEC. I think we have to go beyond nudging or we’ll never get there. The helping system is deeply invested in remedial individual approaches. Getting a single agency to think, reflect and even change is something I have done often in my career but the agency then faces a community of providers and funders who not only do not understand what they do but can be hostile to the new way of proceeding. So I agree we have to help individual agencies change
BUT we ALSO must help change the whole system of funding. The recent national push for prevention in the new health care bill is an example (http://healthyamericans.org/assets/files/NPS%20Framework.pdf) Also I recently saw SMAHSA’s (Substance Abuse Mental Health Service Admin.)new priorities and prevention is at the top of the list as well.
(http://store.samhsa.gov/product/SMA11-4629)
These system change can only help our cause.
Glad to know we are in this together.
Tom

Comment on Time to Transform our Health and Human Service System by Scot Evans

Scot Evans — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 20:09:18 +0000

Tom, thanks for this post. Like you, I see current Human Service practice as an impediment, not a solution to, many of the complex issues individuals and communities face. As I see it, we have a system that, for many reasons, is experiencing “paradigm paralysis”: a way of doing things in that has become so ingrained in the culture that it limits the perspective of what human service could be (Proehl, 2001).

Our SPEC model and approach to working with organizations was our way of offering up an alternative framework for practice. More importantly I believe, is that the process of engaging organizations around a values-based framework such as SPEC gets people THINKING about and REFLECTING on their practice, rather than working on habitual auto-pilot.

That’s what I’ve been thinking and writing about lately as I continue working with community orgs. I think we have an obligation to nudge human service organizations and their funders to engage in critical practice that problematizes the dysfunctional characteristics you list above. Too often, I believe, we get co-opted into helping human service orgs find and implement what Schon calls technical-rational solutions that fall short of making any real impact – and may in fact make things worse.

Stay tuned for more from me on this…~Scot

Comment on About by jean dewitt

jean dewitt — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:17:13 +0000

I am anxious to join–to learn and be informed. Moreover, I need to be in the company of activists and visionaries. jean

Comment on The Power of Collaborative Solutions – Global applications by Steve Fawcett

Steve Fawcett — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:59:10 +0000

Tom, you do a beautiful job of conveying the richness of Out of the Box Prize finalists and contributors. As you note, they reflect key attributes of community work throughout the world–based on local strengths and resources, sustainable, and attempting to change the conditions that affect health and human development.

This blog is a terrific source of information and inspiration! Thank you.