Part 1: Human Services and Neighborhoods
Part 2: Establishing Institutional Partnerships
People turn first to family, friends, and neighbors when problems arise in their lives. This “informal helping” is voluntary, spontaneous, individualized, flexible, based on self-reliance, and is reciprocal in nature. Such helping breaks down barriers created by “provider” and “client” relationships and helps overcome the fragmentation and crisis orientation of social services. Informal helping is most effective when social networks have the greatest size, diversity, quality, and interconnectedness. This is the very definition of social capital. We need to identify, support, and enhance neighborhood helping networks, and establish collaborations between human service agencies and informal helping networks.
Introduction to neighborhood strategic planning. The second slide show (Part 2) in this topic deals with Establishing Institutional Partnerships. This slide show relates especially to established human service providers. It addresses issues of forging coordinated and effective program implementation. This slide show fits neatly with the need to begin strategic planning efforts with the neighborhood. Resources throughout this web site are related to conducting participatory strategic plans. The reader is referred especially to website Topic 4, Neighborhood Strategic Planning, Topic 7, Building Community with Land Use Planning and Zoning, and this topic 12. Of particular value are two neighborhood plans conducted for the O’Fallon neighborhood in St. Louis. Links to these neighborhood plans are found in Topics 4 and 7.
Reading List (pdf)
Informal Helping and Human Services
Subtopics inside:
Holistic development at Dudley Street
Formal social service provision
“Ecological” approach to social work practice
Informal helping networks
Neighborhood based social service planning and delivery
Human services consortiums
Facilities
Selected Readings:
Peter Medoff and Holly Sklar, Streets of Hope, The Fall and Rise of an Urban Neighborhood (Boston: South End Press, 1994), Chapter 7, “Holistic Development: Human, Economic, Environmental”, pp. 169-202.
Reading #1
Charles Froland, Diane Pancoast, Nancy Chapman, Priscilla Kimboko, Helping Networks and Human Services (Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1981), pp. 17-54, 137-149.
Reading #8 (pdf)
Atelia I Melaville and Martin J. Blank, What It Takes: Structuring Interagency Partnerships to Connect Children and Families with Comprehensive Services, Washington: Education and Human Services Consortium, 1991, “Part One: Where We Are – Where We Need to Be”, pp. 6-19.
Reading #18 (pdf)