the '45 Years' Newsletter Launch
The ‘45 years’ Newsletter
Thesis: Forty-five years represents my lifetime. It also represents a millennium of changes - some good, some bad - in the human services space. This newsletter asks the question, “Can we do human services better, so that in 45 years those that follow see us as forward-thinking change agents, not as those that squandered their opportunity to improve systems for children and families?”
Story:
In 1978 an Oklahoma City Legal Aid Lawyer filed a federal lawsuit against Oklahoma’s public welfare agency and its Director, the most powerful man in the state. As chronicled in the book, Throwaway Kids, by Oklahoma historian Bob Burke, the class action lawsuit alleged decades of unspeakable treatment of Oklahoma’s juveniles at six state institutions that had been overlooked or ignored by the adults who were charged with protecting them. The state failed those children. That was forty-five years ago.
Three Bullets:
Culture has changed in our communities and in human services agency’s leadership and workforce in material ways, yet there is another culture shift on the horizon.
Our systems are more transparent than they ever have been.
The next evolution of culture, a genuinely human centered culture that is focused on outcomes that matter and true relationship as the mantra has only just begun.
Lessons Learned:
‘Outcomes’ in human services systems today are largely focused on transactional successes (‘I provided benefits’), not relational successes (‘I helped that person meet their needs, reach their goals and gain independence’)
The human services workforce, by and large, is made up of committed and passionate people that truly care about those they serve.
Agencies have yet to truly invest in their people. This is coming.
True North Principles:
We must:
Rebuild human services systems to be truly human centered.
Build a definition of success that means something to the people we serve.
Focus on culture first to build fertile grounds for transformation.
Ideas to Learn From:
Our systems have certainly changed dramatically over the last 45 years. We are now talking about hope and pathways, opportunity, love and connectedness. We now have an opportunity to continue move forward rebuilding human centered systems to make the next generation of leaders proud, and we must always be motivated by the legacy that we leave on the children and families that we serve today. Their success will be the evidence of our success over the next 45 years.
