Human Services gives aid to the people that are in need so they can become self-sufficient. There are different agencies for particular needs and the one I chose was the Graham Windham in Brooklyn, Ny.They believe in safety, literacy, permanency, education and self based services for poor and foster children. This agency developed in 1806 by a group of women which included Isabella Graham and and Elizabeth Hamilton who wanted to make sure that the vulnerable and poor children are served with their services.There a worker named Hannah Orta, she has a Bachelors in Human Services and had been doing this job for five years. She is well experienced in this field and was willing to give me more information about her job and the agency.
The first question I asked her was the mission, structure and funding sources for her agency. The missions of the Graham Windham is to place child who are in foster care with their biological parents and establish a good foundation in early childhood education, while promoting literacy and other fundamentals of education such as, social and emotional skills. Nearly one hundred kids are put into safe places that they will call come which encourages the staff to do the best they can to make sure this will happen. They are strongly for self-examination so there will always be improvements on how the people do their job to secure the missions. Graham Windham takes the extra time in the day to look at records to make sure everything is proper and well examined.
The structure of this agency is President,Vice President, Program Director, Assistant Program Director, Coordinator and case worker. Each job plays a big role to give a helping hand to the children that are in need, if any of these people slack on their job it can be harmful to the agency and its reputation. The man funding sources consist ACS which is the Administration for Children Services. ACS is known for taking care of children needs when it comes to education needs, and abusive situation. They fund this organization because it is one of the problems they deal with so Graham Windham is some what a part of helping ACS achieve their goals.
The job titles and job responsibilities of the professional staff are like vital. The President of the agency overseas the Head Executive of office while negotiating with the board of directors. The Vice President manages the program director and enforces the mission statement of the agency.The Program director oversees the Assistant director and Coordinator and ensures that the program is running smoothly. The Assistant director overseas caseworkers with daily operations of the program. The Case work manages the parent and the childrens’ provider record and visits child care providers on a monthly bases. These people take pride and their work and have something called the “The Rules of Engagement” which goes over whats being done, peoples opinions about the agency and what can they do to improve themselves.
The recipients of these services are parents and children of low income families who qualify for children subsidies. In her particular field she deals with the “The family child care network” which offer early childhood and childcare in homes that are register and our trained childcare providers. These childcare providers that the Graham Windham deal with are located in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. There are one hundred and fifty four provider homes which serves about five hundred and thirty children. Hannah’s job is to ensure that the provider is doing there job and that they meet the criteria of the agency. If not she will tell them what need to be fix so they will not close this provider. If their are any extra needs the agency are linked with other agencies just in case their is need for any extra assistance.
Everybody has different motives to why they choose a job. I asked Hannah what made her specifically choose this field and she replied that she “ wanted to ensure that children are receiving quality education while assisting parents in finding quality childcare ”(Hannah Orta). She started off as a parent service coordinator which worked with low income families who not only needed child care but other services such as, help with housing employment,assistance in immigration issues, and medical problems. As she was doing this she saw the great mood people had for her services. While she was getting further in her work she made structure for these parents to assist them on being independent and self -sufficient. These programs included going to shop at the local supermarket to teach how to buy healthy foods within a budget. Cooking demonstrations are also done from different organizations which gives employment. After working in that area she moved up to working with the child care providers. In this aspect she helped these people by developing curriculum and writing lesson plans for their childcare programs. She also assist parents with services such as Early intervention programs and the other community programs that are needed.
In every agency there is a certain academic preparation for doing the job. In this case you will need a Bachelor’s degree and a backround of Early childhood education. Hannah’s backround was working for an Headstart daycare center. To be the President or Vice President you will need you Masters plus and certificates. The different levels of job inquire different academic preparation. The more education you have in this field will lead you too higher responsibilities because you will have to oversee everyone thats under you and be more competent of these skills.
A typical day at work for Hannah consist of coming in at 8:45 am a little early from her 9 to 5 schedule just go get an head start on the day. She checks her messages voicemail and email then returns the call and emails. After that she starts to go on the field to her house visit appointments around 10:30 am throughout the day. Before going out to the appointment she re-reads the files of the clients she will be checking up on. While with the client she make up a service plan which consist of asking parents questions to see if they need any further service with the program. If the parent does need any services she does a referral for them and connects the services with the parent and make a day to day follow up with them. If no services are need at the time she will schedule another appointment with the parent six months later or sooner if services are needed. If needed there are constant follow ups with child care providers which includes visits and phone calls. This agencies mostly deals with Hispanic, African, African-American, Caribbean and very few chinese. Hannah goes throughout Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan but the Bronx parents usually come to her office. All her paperwork is done on Fridays so throughout the week she does not have to deal with paper work blues everyday instead only one day.
Some Challenges that she faces are to meet the parents needs because some are resistant for change. Parents sometimes refuse to take suggestions and decided to do their own thing. Also some parents my miss the appointments and constantly reschedule which is inconvenient for Hannah because than she has to fit her into another day where she has four appointments but now will have five which will give her extra work. She takes care of this by telling them she is here to help and that she is on their side. If the parent keeps complaining that she does not need the help it is Hannah’s job to still do follow ups on the parent.
The first statement for the standards states that “Human Service professional negotiate with clients purpose,goals and nature” which with the Graham Windham agency  because they make plans for these parents. If there is any other needs for the parent the agency makes sure they do a referral to another agency that will be convenient and helpful to the parent. It also states that the client will understand the limitations of relationship. In this case the parent understand that after the house visit appointments they cannot go out for drinks or be a personal babysitter for the parent. The agency and parents have a clear understanding on what kind of professional relationship they have, its just consist of check ups and plans to help better the child care provider.
Statement two consist of having respect for the client and have acceptance. This agency deal with only low income families therefore even though you may have more money than them you cannot treat them like dirt. Graham Windham gives all their clients the respect they deserve. Besides letting these families fall all they want to do is help. They have meetings with people to take criticism from anyone therefore if anything is wrong they will fix but respect to the client is not even a worry. All of the workers have experience dealing with people meaning they already have it in them to treat every client with respect.
The right to self-determination is mentioned in statement eight. As I stated early the client can refuse the services needed but there still has to be check ups every six months. While dealing with children you have to make sure that they are in a safe environment at all times. Even though the parent might refuse the services the agency must constantly tell them that they are on their side and their here to help. Everything checkup that is done is still put into the permanent file just to keep a check up.
Statement fourteen “Human Service professionals describe the effectiveness of programs,treatments and technique accurately”(Ethical Standards). During my visit to this agency I was constantly told how many children have been helped and how many providers they have. They recessively talk about their goals and missions and what they have accomplished over the past two hundred years. Foster children have good homes to live in and low income families are helped to provide for the children. This agency also had many meetings as i stated before to improve anything so they can also have the correct techniques for the constant social change.
All human services agencies has to deal with an diverse ethical groups in their community. Statement nineteen has tell you about precaution about any ethical dilemmas you may have on the field. This agency deals with African, Hispanics, Chinese and people from the Caribbean. The different nationalities makes it hard to work with the language barriers and beliefs upon different issues but the professional always negotiates and makes plans on what can be beneficial to them and make them independent. Many parents might disagree on some of the standards but the agency makes sure that their needs fit what can be giving to them.
The Graham Windham Human Service Agency has beenn upon New York City for more than two hundred years. If the ladies of this organization did not come about this agency who knows if education to low income families would be provided. Anything that helps the community is something that should be continued through out the state. I chose this agency in particularly become I personally want to deal child education and child care. I believe that quality education is extremely important for children to develop themselves because it will make them independent and self-sufficient which is the main goal of human services.
