Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence E-Book

Nancy Summers

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 426

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

An essential guide for those charged with supervision ofnonclinical staffin programs, agencies, and units within socialservice organizations "As someone who has worked in social service agencies, consultedwith hundreds of them, and who teaches social serviceprofessionals, Ms. Summers knows the issues faced by agenciesfirsthand. From this experience she has compiled a thoughtful andwell-organized text that identifies the principles of effectivesupervision." --Samuel Knapp, EdD Director of Professional Affairs,Pennsylvania Psychological Association From the Foreword The care of patients and clients of social service agencies isincreasingly being performed by paraprofessionals or professionalswith little experience. While there are many books written aboutgiving quality clinical supervision, there is very little onsupervising the least experienced frontline nonclinical andclinical staff to teach and promote positive and effectiveinteraction with clients, and provide staff support and trainingthat elevates quality care, improves job satisfaction, andminimizes staff turnover. Based on author Nancy Summers' many years of working withtroubled social service agencies, Managing Social Service Stafffor Excellence: Five Keys to Exceptional Supervision fills thisneed and offers numerous ideas for securing the best care for thoseserved by social service agencies. Common problems faced by agencies are examined with regard toemployee behavior and wellness, including staff teamwork, how tobuild healthy staff/client relationships, and the identificationand prevention of routine disrespect of clients and their needs.Diagnostic techniques are presented for identifying these problems,as well as remedies and prevention programs that can be put inplace without great expense. Filled with interviews and numerous case examples, ManagingSocial Service Staff for Excellence offers a step-by-stepprocess for: creating good preventive measures to counteractnegative practices that can occur; developing robust commitment andenthusiasm; and getting back on the right track after unfortunateincidents have taken place.

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1 : Key 1: Apply What We Know

Who Are Our Front-Line Workers?

Educational Preparation

Public Point of View

Limitations of Ethics Codes and Supervision

Conflicting Views of Staff

What Do Our Employees Need?

Excellence Starts at the Top

A Snapshot: Two Homes, Two Attitudes

Where to Begin: Developing that Top-Down Hierarchy of Support

Common Objections

Chapter 2 : Key 2: Connect the Employee to the Mission

Step 1. Create a Mission Statement that Has Meaning

Step 2. Provide a Relevant Orientation

Step 3. Develop Fair Personnel Policies

Step 4. Teach Ethics Related to Your Context

How We Fail Our Employees

Moving into the Work Site

Chapter 3 : Key 3: Build a Support Structure

Step 1. Decide What You Want

Step 2. Mean What You Say in Your Policies

Step 3. Take Appropriate Action When Individuals Step outside the Structure

Step 4. Back Up the Policies with a Support Structure

Step 5. Support Workers’ Energy

Step 6. Practice Gratitude

Chapter 4 : Key 4: Be a Leader

Assessing Your Leadership Potential

Where Do Leaders Get Their Energy?

The Leader’s Checklist

Leadership Requires a Team

Opportunities of Leadership

Delegation

Empowerment

Leadership in Crisis

The Abusive Supervisor

Chapter 5 : Key 5: Promote Success

Feedback

Make What You Say Useful

Seek Input and Learn from Your Employees

Workshops, Seminars, and Additional Education

Create a Continuous Learning Environment

Support in Tough Times

Use Encouragement as a Tool

Thwarting Success

Chapter 6 : Bad Apples and Underdogs

Bad Apples

Addressing Negative Behavior

The Impaired Worker

Groups that Decide They Are Underdogs

Handling Complaints

Chapter 7 : Enmeshment: The Worst-Case Scenario

What Is Enmeshment?

How Enmeshment Occurs

Symptoms of Enmeshment

Treating Enmeshment

Chapter 8 : How to Correct a Bad Situation

Three Ways to Correct Internal Problems

How to Make a Workshop, Retreat, or Outside Facilitation Pay Off

What to Do Next

If the Issue Really Is Personality

What to Do about Enmeshment

Keeping the Unit Intact

Addressing Enmeshment Is Never Easy

Chapter 9 : Building a New Team

What Is a Team?

Decide Who Will Be on the New Team

Getting Started with a New Team

What Are the Desired Consumer Outcomes?

Develop a Team Plan

Make the Team Accountable

Revisit the Plan

Motivation

How Workers View Fairness

Retention, Pay, and Awards

Building the Wrong Team

Pitfalls Once You Have a Team

Team Building Will Not Work If . . .

Job Satisfaction and Turnover

Chapter 10 : Building and Maintaining the Foundation: The Administrators’ Chapter

Quick Diagnostics: Characteristics of a Stable Agency

Consumer or Staff Oriented?

Social Services versus Charities

Consumer Care: The Buck Stops with You

Boards of Directors that Destabilize

Destabilizing Hiring Practices

The Right Support in the Right Places

Articulate the Big-Picture Vision

Continuous Learning

Role Model

Are You the Problem?

A Good Foundation

Appendix A : Sample Mission Statements

Appendix B : Ideas for Employee Handbooks and Orientation

Appendix C : Differences between a Professional Relationship and a Friendship

Appendix D : Consumer Survey

Appendix E : Consumer’s Family Survey

Appendix F : How to Write Goals and Objectives for Individual Consumers

Appendix G : Conducting a Mini Analysis

Appendix H : Online Resources for Administrators and Supervisors

References

Author Index

Subject Index

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Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Summers, Nancy.

Managing social service staff for excellence : five keys to exceptional supervision / by Nancy Summers.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-52794-8 (pbk.)

1. Social workers–Supervision of. 2. Human services personnel–Supervision of. 3. Supervision of employees. I. Title.

HV40.54.S87 2010

361.0068'3–dc22

2010005941

To all those who dedicate themselves to helping others and to their supervisors, who support and celebrate their success

Foreword

This book will help social service agencies become more effective in reaching their goal of providing quality services to their clients. Those agencies that pay sufficient attention to supervision tend to do well and see their mission fulfilled in the day-to-day interactions between staff and clients. Those agencies that fail to address supervisory issues satisfactorily risk delivering less than optimal or even substandard services and may fold completely. Without quality supervision staff is more likely to burn out, become demoralized, and turn over quickly. With quality supervision staff is more likely to be invigorated, motivated, and committed, and this translates into higher quality client services.

Social service work is often stressful; clients are not always easy to get along with; the pay is lower than it should be; and opportunities for advancement may be limited. As someone who has worked in social service agencies, consulted with hundreds of them, and who teaches social service professionals, Ms. Summers knows the issues faced by agencies firsthand. From this experience she has compiled a thoughtful and well-organized text that identifies the principles of effective supervision.

Unfortunately, some administrators and supervisors do not take enough time to screen staff adequately, orient them thoroughly, or create a productive work environment. They view supervision as a technical chore requiring little thought or knowledge and consisting primarily of enforcing basic rules and overseeing personnel policies. In contrast, Nancy Summers proposes that supervision is a professional skill requiring an understanding of human and organizational behavior and discretion in applying this knowledge in specific situations. Although personnel policies are important, supervision is done best when it involves a proactive approach that helps create a sense of staff competence and commitment.

This positive atmosphere does not come easily. Administrators and supervisors must consciously plan for and continually strive to create an atmosphere that fosters employee enthusiasm, competence, and development. Fortunately, Nancy Summers’s book provides step-by-step direction showing how to do that. It identifies principles of human behavior known to improve performance, including making expectations clear; being transparent; giving prompt, accurate and constructive feedback; recognizing those who do well; and working to promote welfare and quality of work environment as much as possible, given the real-life financial limitations.

I hope this book will be read widely and read thoroughly.

Samuel Knapp, Ed.D.

Director of Professional Affairs

Pennsylvania Psychological Association

Acknowledgments

When I decided to write this book, many people offered good ideas and examples. Foremost among them is Michelle Beahm, a long-term case manager in resource coordination working with consumers with mental health issues. She has consistently given her time and thoughtful consideration to this book and others I have written. I also want to thank both Marvette Flood and Scott Smith, each of whom took time to talk to me about their work protecting and providing for consumers.

When writing, there are always times that I need clarification or more details. Kim Castle, clerical supervisor at Dauphin County Case Management Unit, has worked with me over the years, and I am indebted to her for her time and input. Her explanations have enriched this book and others.

I want to thank Rob McMonagle, director of human resources at Bethany Village, for helping me better understand human resources procedures and issues related to employment. Matt Kopechni, director of Dauphin County Case Management Unit, has always supported my work and given encouragement. He generously makes his staff available to answer questions and contribute examples from their work with consumers. Another person who has given encouragement and ideas for my work over the years is Sam Knapp, director of professional affairs, Pennsylvania Psychological Association. To each of these people I am indebted.

Marquita Flemming, my editor, who developed the concept for this book, deserves my deepest gratitude. She untiringly gave me her ideas and supported mine as we developed and completed this project. Her optimism was invaluable.

Mary McGrath, executive director of the Adams Hanover Counseling Service, has always brought to my writing the realistic perspective of the director and supervisor, which is invaluable information.

Finally, I am eternally grateful to my husband, Martin Yespy, who endures the long hours of writing and revising and has always offered sound suggestions when I have reached a dead end or when I need to think about a different direction.

It would not have been possible to write Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence without the examples, encouragement, and opinions of all of the people listed and without the numerous examples from student interns and front-line staff in the social services field. To them I offer my deepest appreciation.

Preface

The report from the Disability Rights Center (2005) begins:

From May 2003 through February 2005 at least nine (9) patients at ASH [Arkansas State Hospital] suffered, not from the symptoms of their mental illnesses, but from verbal and physical abuse at the hands of some of the professionals who were supposed to be helping them recover. Inexplicably, supervisors, managers and hospital administration either professed ignorance, denied the abuse had occurred, or looked the other way. [p. 4]

The report attributes the problem in part to the culture: “A culture of abuse exists within ASH, with numerous ASH staff failing to recognize that the people housed within the walls of ASH are patients in a hospital” (emphasis added). The account goes on to talk about preventive measures the hospital must take in the future. Some of these steps, had they been implemented routinely, would have prevented the abuse this report addresses.

Things do go wrong from time to time when we are in the business of working among people who deliver services to other people. The relationships are intense, often complicated by families, schools, other interested parties, and organizations. Coordination, personalities, and social structure all have an effect on how well services are delivered. None of us, however, believes abuse, certainly not this kind of abuse, is taking place in units for which we are responsible.

Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence, written with supervisors and administrators in mind, is a guide for the prevention of problems—not the sorts of problems consumers cause for agencies, but the kinds of problems our less experienced workers and supervisors create. The book was written to assist those in administrative and supervisory positions in our social service organizations in their pursuit of outstanding consumer care. Some years ago a supervisor came up to me following a seminar and said she wanted me to know that her agency did not have the kinds of problems that I was describing and will be describing in Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence. Her agency was better run, she felt, and her staff more professional than the people I used as examples. I told her I was impressed with the good management that must be present where she worked and complimented her on her role in making that possible on her unit.

And it was true. She had a very fine unit with few problems. Most of us will not have major problems either. When we do, we will ask “What could we have done to prevent this?” Further, even with no problems, excellent care often is not easily attainable. People develop routines, work seems repetitive, and gradually the care, while adequate, is no longer meaningful to the people giving that care.

Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence is written in large part for those charged with supervision of staff in programs, agencies, and units within social service organizations. The material here is for those who supervise inexperienced or less experienced workers. However, the principles laid out here start at the top. In many agencies, supervisors of individual units are only a little more experienced than those they supervise. The decisions they make and the worker behaviors they tolerate can have a negative effect on consumer care without oversight from senior supervisors or administration. Therefore, Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence is for any supervisor who is responsible both for consumer care and the management of frontline staff. Following ideas put forth here, those who supervise others meet their own ethical obligations to give good care even when they are not giving that care directly.

In any organization, there can be difficult situations from time to time. Sometimes these situations affect others. Sometimes they violate the law. Sometimes they simply impede the operation and make it less effective. In social services, however, our organizations are charged with caring for other people, and we do that in many different ways. We work with people who cannot make their own decisions, people who are unable to care for themselves, people who are ill and need protection, people who need shelter. When the agency is not running well, internal staff and structural problems can threaten the very consumers we are seeking to strengthen and heal.

In addition, people seeking to work in the social services generally are interested in others and the dynamics of their lives. Whether it is this interest in others or the fact that so many entering the social services bring personal problems of their own with them, there nevertheless seems to be a tendency to become involved in problems and issues unrelated to good consumer care. Sometimes that interest impedes good care and damages the agency.

For this reason, certainly, a well-run agency with few internal problems serves the consumers best. We know that, yet often I have been asked to come to agencies where there were boiling issues: interpersonal complications, poor service delivery, and inefficient agency structures. From that work over the years I developed the steps I found most useful in creating an agency where people work cooperatively, deliver excellent services, and have a structure that is efficient and supports each individual’s work. That sounds like a lot, but it can be readily accomplished.

In the paneled conference room of a large social service agency, administrators, senior supervisors, and I came together to discuss unrest in the agency. You could see the tension. Some staff members were not speaking. There were arguments over the firing of a staff person who was accused of forming a dual relationship with a consumer. He was popular, and some staff felt he did not deserve to be fired.

The people present that day were uncomfortable about asking for a consultation. They began by explaining to me that there were some “individuals” who had “an attitude.” They wanted some sort of retreat or workshop on collaboration and team building. This exercise was to be for “them,” the staff. No one in the room felt they needed to be involved.

The fallacy here is that the agency needed an overhaul. It did not necessarily need to fire more people, but everyone needed to be involved in looking at what it was about the structure of this agency that was making it possible for all this tension to develop.

When I started talking about structure and structural changes and how we might go from this meeting to involving staff in developing a better working structure, there was some initial discomfort. The purpose of the meeting had been to talk about how to make the staff more productive and responsive. The people in the room wanted to look at problematic staff behavior and attitudes. It had not been part of their thinking that they as an administration could collaborate with the staff to make changes that would benefit the staff or that staff members would contribute significantly to that effort. They had not considered making changes according to suggestions the staff put forward. However, they needed to find ways that would make their employees more focused on the consumers and reconstruct the agency to make it a better place to work.

As we discussed the various ways we could get their people involved and elicit good ideas, the administrators in the room became more enthused about looking at the structure, including how they fit into that structure and what positive structural changes they might make. Following that session, I met with staff in the two units several times, met with representatives from those units and with the administrators who were in the room that day. Gradually a good, working structure evolved. Built into it were numerous elements that supported staff members in their work with consumers. Staff suggestions for change had been taken very seriously.

Today that director and most of the supervisors have moved on. However, they created a structure within which the agency flourished, and that structure and the culture it spawned are still in place today. Initially some people did have to be let go because they resisted changes to ways of doing things, changes that altered the way they had grown accustomed to doing things. However, working with those who stayed, the agency put together an organization that supported staff so that the employees could give excellent care to consumers.

Some of the examples contained in this book are descriptions of problems that arose, which not only involved the staff but also first-line and, in some cases, second-line supervisors. For example, in 2000, Eliot Spitzer, then Attorney General of the State of New York, “announced that five registered nurses holding high managerial positions at the Townhouse Extended Care Center in Uniondale have been charged with covering up acts of patient abuse at the facility by tampering with evidence and falsifying documents to deceive state investigators looking into the allegations” (Kelley, 2000). In other words, the article “Death at Nursing Home Leads to Indictment of 5” makes a point: Everyone has a part to play in excellent care, and all employees benefit from oversight of their work regardless of their position within the organization.

When agencies get in trouble, when individual workers get in trouble, yes, it is about the people who violated the ethics or ignored best practice. But it is also about the way the agency is put together, the way the agency employees function with each other, the views different elements within the agency have of each other and their work. These are things we cannot see as well, but they are key to making your agency excellent.

Managing Social Service Staff for Excellence is a step-by-step process using five keys for creating good, preventive measures to counteract negative practices that can occur, for developing robust commitment and enthusiasm, and for getting back on the right track after unfortunate incidents have taken place. In the pages that follow, you will find these keys, tips for preventing problems, and many ideas for producing excellence. Taken together, these five keys provide a structure within which your staff will provide excellent care. In addition, there are ideas for putting your agency back together after significant problems have occurred.

CHAPTER 1

Key 1: Apply What We Know

BILL SAT IN FRONT OF HIS DESK in the late afternoon sunshine and flipped through a small pile of applications and resumes. “This one is interesting,” he remarked to his clinical director sitting across from him. “She has a degree in social work.” He handed a neatly typed resume attached to an application across the desk. After a few minutes the clinical director commented, “Yes, but she’s never worked with consumers except during her internship, and that was with children.”

Looking for a new case manager for an agency dealing with addictions is not easy. “Here’s one.” The director slid another resume and application across to the clinical director who considered the papers. “He has an associate’s degree. Oh, here he says that he is a recovering alcoholic. Do you think he would be likely to overidentify with the consumers? What do you know about his degree?”

The conversation continued in this manner for the better part of an hour as the director and the clinical director sifted through applications and resumes looking for the right person to fill the open case management position. They looked at 11 applications, some from individuals with bachelor’s degrees and little or no experience. One was from a person with a BSW and two years of experience as a case manager, but it was in a nursing home. One person had no educational credentials but a successful period of abstinence from drugs.