Human Service Development Policy in Allegheny County - Case Study Example

CASE STUDY ANALYSES OF THE EXPANSION OF HUMAN SERVICES IN ALLEGHENY COUNTY ABSTRACT This research paper is a comprehensive analysis of the case study of the expansion of the human services in Allegheny County. Basically the paper explains how the case study offered support for and against the rational, political and policy process models; moreover it provides the elements of the three stage Cobb and Elder model on agenda that could be identified in thne case study. The final and last part of the paper explains Kingdon’s ‘three streams’ model of the policy process and how it played part in the human service development policy in Allegheny County. Generally, Allegheny County, as from the case study was facing a lot of problems in leadership which was the main expediter for the rest of challenges that people faced and the human services that they did not receive. Keywords: Allegheny County, Case study, Human Services Explain how the case study offered support for or against the: a) Rational model Basically, in the rational model concept the government is treated as the primary factor; additionally, it has the responsibility of examining a set of goals, evaluating them according to their utility and then picking the one that has the highest result. As from the case study, matters seem to be out of hand at first; essentially the rational model process is inflexible in the Allegheny County (Morgan 2014). Additionally, through an extensive range of information exchange, prevention, early intervention, case management, crisis intervention and after-care services; however, there was a high rise in child abuse and neglect, rising poverty, the continued dissolution of the family and the introduction of crack cocaine that affects the Allegheny County dearly. Furthermore, there existed a series of public hearings calling for sweeping child welfare reforms following the tragic death of a child in care resulted in the resignation of the Department of Children and Youth Services (CYS) director leading to a nation-wide such for a new doctor (Tranter 2008). However, the case study to a particular extent had a big positive impact since the problems are established and identified which would make it easier for the solving process; additionally, there were some prospective leaders like Tom Foerester and David Lawrence who held a philosophy for helping Allegheny County people. Fortunately, it led to the formation of the Allegheny County’s department of Human Services later on which offered even more services that included mental health, older adults and drug and alcohol services, child protective services, emergency shelters and housing for the homeless, and services for people with a diagnosis of intellectual disability among others. b) Political Model The political model is based on particular principles that dictate that a nation's actions are best understood as the result of politics and negotiation by its top leaders, and even if they share a goal, leaders differ in how to achieve it because of such factors as personal interests and background. Additionally, if a leader holds absolute power they must gain a consensus with their inferior or risk having their order misunderstood or ignored, and if a leader is certain enough, they will not seek input from their advisors, but rather, approval; similarly, if a leader has already implicitly decided on a particular course of action, an advisor wishing to have influence must work within the framework of the decision the leader has already made. Some of the Human Services in Allegheny County leaders in the case study have various problems that lead to the questioning of their leadership principles and capabilities; for instance, in the case study it is shown that women without employment were forced to compromise themselves to work over the meal. All the same, as for the aspects of the political model the case study was also for the best of the county since now Foerster and Lawrence among other leaders would be able to implement their goals and visions for the Allegheny County. C) Policy Process model The policy process is considered to be a guide for the government in times of catastrophes and puts out that leaders should not look at a crisis as a whole but should break it down and assign it according to pre-established policy; typically, because of time and resource limitations, rather than evaluating all possible courses of action to see which one is most likely to work, leaders settle on the first proposal that adequately addresses the issue. Relevantly, the leaders gravitate towards solutions that limit short-term uncertainty definitely because of the large resources and time required to fully plan and mobilize actions within a large organization (or government), leaders are effectively limited to pre-existing plans. In the case study, Shawn tee’s death led to a lot of panic and pressure that the director of the CYS was forced to resign; fortunately after this, the CYS lead by the Allegheny Board of Commissioners and other administrative bodies established an independent blue ribbon to review the CYS’s challenges (Tranter 2008). This was definitely a good step for the administration and thereafter they would give solutions and strategies for the overall development of the CYS; maybe this can be described as a good comeback and reaction to win the county’s people’ trust again after a chaotic situation. Elements of the Three Stage Cobb and Elder Model Identified in the Case Study Generally, Cobb and Elder identify three major steps in the agenda-building process: issue conception, issue expansion, and agenda entrance where in the first steps an issue is generated and a prompting event must exist that helps outline and create the issue. Resultantly, the second stage of agenda involves issue expansion where for a created issue to finally make an official agenda believers must muster support on the matter at hand (David 2001). The next step is gaining support from large numbers of the public after which resources are obtained to facilitate expanding the issue entirely. The final stage of the three stage model is the agenda entrance where once the best solution to counter the issue this stage is all about obtaining all the necessary resource and involving all the necessary people in the implementation. In the case study there are unquestionably a number of issues that have been raised by the people of the Allegheny County most of which circled around the services that they needed or expected from the government. David Lawrence specifically raised this issue and held the philosophy of helping people himself even though he was not a leader and lacked the necessary resources; additional he saw the great potential in people and knew that chance is all he held, what they needed and they would do the rest. Lawrence is the only one that seemed to go through with the three stages of the Cobb and Elder model; he conscripted friendly cooperation from industrialists in order to fight the air pollution in Pittsburgh initiated by the smoke and led the way to get the first smoke ordinance passed, cleaning up the rivers and where raw sewage and industrial waste was dumped into rivers. However, Foerster also agreed with Lawrence in most of the challenges and issues concerning the welfare of the people; he was persuaded to run for one of the three seats on Allegheny County's Board of Commissioners in 1967 and as Chairman, he initiated a plan to establish home rule in Allegheny County, which would replace the county commission with an elected County Executive and a County Council.  Kingdon’s Three Streams’ Model of the Policy Process and Allegheny County According to the multiple streams model perspective, the civic government can be viewed as a field through which three streams of distinct, instantaneous motion gush; these three streams include the problem stream, the policy stream and the politics streams (Lora 2007). The problem stream consists of those conditions which policy makers have chosen to interpret as problems, the policy stream consists of the various “solutions” developed by specialists in the countless policy communities that surround and engulf the nation’s capital, and the politics stream consists of developments involving macro political conditions: the public mood, interest group politics, and turnover in the administrative and legislative branches. Even though there were service related problems in the Allegheny County the leaders were not doing anything about the issue and they waited for a bad thing such as the murder so that they could react (Morgan 2014). Basically, this is what most of the leaders do, waiting for the problem stream to surge through so that they can use it to their political advantage through pretending to fight for the necessary policies. References David, W (2001) Determining Agenda Placement: Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management. Retrieved on 12th September 2014, from http://www.ibam.com/pubs/jbam/articles/vol2/article2_9.htm Lora, C (2007) Multiple Streams: Florida State University. Retrieved on 12th September 2014, from http://www.fsu.edu/~pea/Multiple_Streams.html Morgan, D (2014) Allegheny County: Expansion of Human Service. Retrieved on 12th September 2014, from http://blog.learning-2-live.com/expansion-of-human-serviceallegheny-county-1968-95/ Tranter, G (2008). Building an Interoperable Human Services system: Stewards of Change, Retrieved on 12th September 2014, from http://www.stewardsofchange.com/learningcenter/documents/case_studies/alleghenycasestudy.pdf Read More