Direct Service Providers

The practice of civic reflection has special value for those engaged in professional service to the public. In an era when social service providers must seek accreditation and continuing skills training in the midst of budget cutbacks and increasingly greater workloads, civic reflection can open up needed conversation about the profound experience and challenge of service to others. Further, because social service providers carry out the visions and hopes of foundation, nonprofit and government leaders, they bring fresh and needed perspectives to basic questions of service and philanthropy such as Whom do we serve in this work and to what end? What do we expect of those we serve and what happens when those expectations are not met? To whom are we accountable? What is the larger good toward which we are working?

Below are some examples of civic reflection for direct service providers:

Common Threads: Reflecting on the Work of Caring convened a varied group of social service and education professionals in Porter County, Indiana to explore the whys and wherefores of their work. The readings and conversations offered these participants a different kind of attention to day-to-day challenges of their work. Participants reported a variety of effects from the seminar including new and enlarged perspectives on the work of serving the public, improved ability to negotiate the social services system in Porter County on behalf of clients, and an enhanced sense of personal mission and professional identity as a social service provider.

All in a Day's Work: Reflecting on the Work of Family Service convened a small group of public and private nonprofit child and family social service providers in Northwest Pennsylvania over the course of six months to discuss basic questions about their activities. Child welfare and family services professionals are called upon to do some of the most important and demanding work in public service with relatively little societal recognition and support. The seminar honored these professionals as it provided them an opportunity to think deeply and in fresh ways about their difficult work.

Stewardship and Clinical Practice brought together a group of publicly funded mental health clinicians to consider questions of their work in the context of the broader community: What expectations accompany the investment of public dollars in our work? To whom are we responsible? What are our rights and responsibilities as primary stewards of our community's public mental health funds? The readings and conversations gave these participants fresh ways to talk about their work, as well as an opportunity to consider the implications of that work for broader policy questions of how we care for–and do not care for–others in our midst.

Connecting in Care was a program developed by the Educare Committee of the Step Ahead Council in Porter County, Indiana. The seminar convened a group of child care providers and leaders to talk about the challenges of developing and sustaining quality community-wide child care, using literature and essays as the basis for their conversation. As a result of the program, organizers found that members connected with one another on the basis of their commitments to quality child care as well as on the basis of the challenges and frustrations they face doing their work. The seminar also reinvigorated and expanded the Educare Committee leadership.

New Beginnings was developed by McKean County Human Services in Pennsylvania and convened staff of the newly reorganized McKean County, Pennsylvania Human Services Children and Youth division. Their goal was to reflect on their activities of protecting children who are "without essential parental care and control." Organizers believe the six-session lunchtime reading and conversation series helped the division develop a more open, productive culture of questioning; increase tolerance and respect among the staff, for clientele and for other professionals and publics with whom they interact; and enlarge and deepen perspectives for the agency's work and the profession. The group read pieces by authors ranging from Mary Wilkins Freeman to Kay Gibbons and Gwendolyn Brooks.