Referencing the work of Gibelman (2005), the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) defines social service agencies as institutions at the local, state, federal or non-profit settings that provide services slanted towards resolution, improvement, or prevention of health, social, mental health or environmental issues that affect communities, specific groups, families, and to the basic settings individuals. Social service agencies achieve their objectives by constantly answering the challenges of the less fortunate in society. Therefore, there is a need for them to attain efficient cultural responsiveness if they are to attain efficiency in service rendering.
Chow and Austin (2008) give a clear outline of factors that social service agencies can use to gauge their level of efficiency with regard to cultural responsiveness. These include; level of responsiveness of their services, processes, continuous renewal, agency-community relations effectiveness, and policies and procedures. In connection to this, below is a case study determined to exemplify the level of cultural responsiveness of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families in relation to the five components.
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New Jersey Department of Children and Families is a social service agency that was founded in July 2006 by the government of New Jersey State. It is tasked with facilitating the security, success, and well-being of communities, families, youth, and children all over the New Jersey state ( State of New Jersey Department of Children and Families, 2018). The agency has evolved and grown over the years to be more inclusive of the voices of the community and individuals they serve. As a result, different sub-categories have been introduced such as child protection and permanency, women, children’s system of care, adolescent services, and family and community partnerships among others.
Component 1: Service Responsiveness
Service responsiveness refers to the ability of an organization to solve current and arising needs of customers in a timely and satisfactory means. For a social service agency, this involves coming up with a fresh method of contemplating how the set expertise will be systematized and provided to people intended (Chow & Austin, 2008). Consequently, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families has successfully achieved this objective. Initially, the agency was created to safeguard vulnerable children and families; however, it has developed over the years and updated its services to encompass the entire community in harmony with arising needs all across the state.
Currently, the agency handles issues to do with education, licensing, advocacy, adolescence services, family and community partnerships, women, institutional abuse investigation unit, children protection department, and strategic development ( State of New Jersey Department of Children and Families, 2018). All these divisions are meant to solve all social issues in the state. Additionally, the departments are served by more than 6,600 trained employees from different backgrounds who can blend and relate with the community issues, hence providing efficient services to those in need. Therefore, it is correct to conclude that this agency is culturally responsive concerning service responsiveness.
Component 2: Processes Responsiveness
Process responsiveness refers to the ability of an organization’s method of delivering services to respond to changing customer and environmental conditions quickly. In an effort to integrate this feature into its operations system, Department of Children and Families has recently embarked on putting into effect a multi-year tactical planning process. Its objective is to enable the agency to swiftly develop solutions to arising problems that need immediate improvement, while also building on its strengths as an agency.
Most of the resources and effort of achieving the strategic plan have been outlined to focus on organizational development, Performance management and accountability, communication, partnerships, and a seamless system of care. Although the program has not yet been implemented, there is a clear indication that the agency is making a lot of effort in achieving an excellent level of process responsiveness. Hopefully, this will be achieved soon once the program has been put into action.
Component 3: Responsive Policies and Procedures
New Jersey Department of Children and Families is a vast agency that it is guided by more than one policy and procedure. Each department has an individually tailored policy to fit the implementation of the different tasks. However, all the policies and procedures always remain consistent with the overall objectives of the agency as a whole.
This method of splitting policies and procedures has proven to be very efficient over the years as it enables the agency to achieve optimum flexibility in service delivery. Additionally, the splitting of the agency into different divisions has made it easy for the communities to report issues to the right department, therefore, significantly increasing its response rate. Moreover, the policies and procedures keep on getting regularly updated to stay in line with arising issues.
Component 4: Continuous Renewal
As Chow and Austin (2008) depict, there is a need for an agency to renew its processes, services, and procedures to remain updated with the changing demographics and service population changes. Comparatively, Department of Children and Families has successfully achieved this cultural responsiveness feature, thanks to its frequent changes in operations. As previously stated, the agency is embarking on implementing a new strategic plan to integrate the needed changes in its operations. Also, it keeps on frequently updating its procedures and policies, and introducing new divisions depending on the needs.
Component 5: Efficient Agency-Community Relations
This component is depicted as one of the most important and is measured by the extent to which a social service agency operates effectively with its community (Chow & Austin, 2008). However, social service agencies often face difficulties in achieving effective agency-community relations due to the difference that arises from what the agency can offer, and what the community needs.
New Jersey Department of Children and Families continuously endeavors to achieve effective agency-community relations by involving the community in its operations. For example, the agency works hand in hand with schools, parents and other grants foundations to support teen parenting. They also involve the public in program awareness programs and other educative programs to make their services known and how to access them (State of New Jersey Department of Children and Families, 2018).
Therefore, it would be correct to conclude that the New Jersey Department of Children and Families is an agency that has achieved cultural responsiveness. However, the agency still needs to keep on tweaking and improving its operations to stay updated with changing community needs. A proposed improvement is the introduction of more departments, in particular, a disaster management program. It also needs to make its services more accessible to the public by opening offices in more regions and educating the public of its different services.
References
Julian Chun-Chung Chow PhD & Michael J. Austin PhD (2008) The Culturally Responsive Social Service Agency: The Application of an Evolving Definition to a Case Study, Administration in Social Work, 32:4, 39-64, DOI: 10.1080/03643100802293832
NASW Center for Workforce Studies and Social Work Practice. (n.d.). Social Workers in Social Service Agencies . Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=cPGKXbFAxsw%3D&portalid=0
State of New Jersey Department of Children and Families. (2018). About Us. Retrieved from https://www.nj.gov/dcf/about/
