Pick one person on the case and summarize the challenges faced by this individual, as well as an analysis of the strengths and limitations of the approach, and state whether you believe the situation was resolved effectively. Discuss if you would have proceeded differently.

The following incidentsall typical of the kinds of conflicts professional helpers face every dayspeak for themselves.

Keith Michaels. As soon as he had earned his master's degree, Keith Michaels decided to put all his time and energy into the creation of a center that would serve the youth of his community. Now in the fifth year of its existence, that center has grown from a storefront office in which Keith saw a few walk-in clients into a major community center, complete with recreational facilities, a peer counseling project, an ongoing consultation program, a busy staff of individual and group counselors, and a major role in the local youth advocacy movement. Most of the clients, counselors, and community members involved with the center are convinced that the explanation for this growth lies in the fact that the staff has always been close to the community's young people and responsive to their needs. They feel that Keith, with the help of the energetic staff he has recruited, can realize a dream they all share, and they want his promise that he will stay with the center as director.

Keith is hesitant, for the agency no longer "runs itself" the way it used to. There is a need to departmentalize,to organize staff hiring and training, to lay out appropriate plans for further change. Keith is afraid to place the management of the center solely in the hands of a professional administrator because he fears that the community responsiveness that has been a hallmark of the program might be lost. He wants to continue to have an effect on the center's future, but he knows that he will have to learn how to plan, organize, and budget on a larger scale.

Shirley Lane. Shirley Lane has spent several years working in a community agency for developmentally disabled adults. She has developed an approach for working with her clients that she has found highly effective and knows that her approach might be helpful to others. In fact, it would provide a major innovation in the field if research showed it to be as effective as she thinks it is.

Because her approach is so promising, Shirley has consistently been encouraged to submit a proposal for federal funding. Finally, her proposedproject is being funded; she will now have the chance to implement a training and researchproject that can make a significant contribution to the field. She knows, however, that if the project is to be successful, she must develop effectiveness in planning projects, supervising the trainees who will help carry out the project, maintaining the budget, and evaluating the results of interventions. She can meet this challenge only if she can successfully carry out the required managerial functions.

Bill Oklta. As the harried director of a small community mental health project, Bill Okita never has enough time. He spends half his time in direct service, working with individuals and groups, and this is an aspect of his job that he would not want to give up. He finds his work with clients to be a positive part of his workday; it is what keeps him going and makes all his efforts worthwhile.

Bill has a small staff of professional service providers, all of whom are highly competent. Perhaps this high level of competence accounts for the dramatic rise in the number of clients. The project now has a waiting list for appointments, which conflicts with Bill's belief that counseling should be readily accessible for community members. Yet the agency's funding does not allow Bill enough financial resources to hire additional counselors. He has to make do with the present staff members, but they are all stretched too thin as professionals.

Bill has just been approached by a local citizens' organization whose members are interested in serving as unpaid volunteer counselors at the center. If they could participate in this way, Bill's time problems would be solved. He would finally have enough personnel available to provide the immediate service that he thinks counselees should have. With the pressure off, he could still devote some of his time to direct services instead of having to spend all his time dealing with pressing administrative problems and fundraising.

Bill has no doubt that these volunteers could do an effective job of serving clients if he provided training and supervision, It is his own skill in supervising and coordinating their efforts that he questions. In fact, he recently turned down the opportunity to have doctoral-level psychology students complete internships at the center because he was not sure that he could handle their needs. Now, however, the situation is desperate. He needs the help of these volunteers, but he must be able to train, supervise, and coordinate them. If he performs his managerial functions more effectively, he can spend less time on them.

Lillian Sanchez. Lillian Sanchez began her career as an elementary school teacher. She spent many years working with young children and found the work fantastically rewarding. Yet, when she received training as a counselor, she wanted the chance to experience that side of helping, too. She accepted a position as a high school counselor because her city did not employ school counselors at any other level.

That work, too, has been fulfilling. But Lillian has always wished that she could combine the rewards of working with young children with those of working as a counselor. She feels that elementary school is the place where effective counselors should be working, for only at that level might there be a chance to prevent the personal and educational problems her high school clients all seem to be facing.

Suddenly, Lillian has the opportunity of a lifetime. A new elementary school is being built in her area, and the potential principal, a longtime professional colleague, has asked her to join the staff as the district's first elementary school counselor. She will build her own program in the direction she thinks best and perhaps have the chance to consult Facing the Challenges of Management 5 with other schools in the development of additional programs. Lillian has no doubt that this position would be a dream come true. She has always wanted to counsel at the elementary school level, and now she can create a truly innovative program based on the concept of prevention.

Still, she hesitates. She knows she can counsel the children effectively, but she does not know whether she can build a program where none existed before. She will need to learn how to plan effectively, how to provide leadership for teachers and parents, how to consult beneficially with other counselors, and how to evaluate her efforts. The only way she can have the opportunity to practice her child-counseling skills is to develop administrative skills at the same time.

David Williams. David Williams is one of a group of human service workers conducting a preventive program under the auspices of a child and family service center. In recent years, the financial situation of the center has changed. The agency is being forced to cut back services in some areas to maintain adequate funding for other programs.

David and his colleagues have been called into the executive director's office and told that, as much as she appreciates their fine work, their programmight be eliminated within the next year or two. The director recognizes that the preventive program is very popular in the community; calls have been coming in constantly from schools, churches, and recreational centers to request assistance from it. Although she knows that the program is doing something right, she does not know just what it is. She does not know how important it is in comparison with the functions being performed by workers providing direct, clinical services to troubled families.

David and his colleagues now have a real challenge before them. They know that they are helping the community; the informal feedback they have been receiving from young people, parents, and community agencies tells them that. They also know that right now they have no way of proving it, no way of showing that the prevention program is accomplishingsomething important. They have a short time in which to prove themselves, and they know that their only chance is to plan their programon the basis of goals that the administration agrees are important, to coordinate their efforts with those of other programs, and to develop an accurate evaluationmethod. If they are going to survive, they need to learn how to carry out these tasks. In short, they need to be able to manage.

Keith Michaels, Shirley Lane, Bill Okita, Lillian Sanchez, and David Williams are all typical human service professionals. They are not interested in changing their professional identities or in moving up some administrative ladder. They are interested in improving and enhancing their human service delivery systems. It could be argued that they should not make the professional move they are contemplating. Perhaps Keith should turn over the management of his counseling center to someone whose original training was in business administration. Possibly, Lillian should stay at the high school level, where she can spend all her time on direct service, and wait until the program is fully established by someone else before moving into an elementary school situation. Conceivably, David and his fellow human service workers should seek employment at an agency where preventive programs are already appreciated and where they would have no pressure to prove themselves or to sell their program.

If they do make these decisions, however, they should make them freely, based on their evaluation of all the possible options and their values, priorities, and professional judgment. They should not be in the position of having to choose inaction just because they lack the skills needed to bring about change either in their careers or in their programs. This book is intended to provide human service workers and students with basic management knowledge that may help them in their current jobs or prepare them to take on managerial work. Human service organizations will be presented as complex, purposeful organizations with the potential of bettering social conditions and enriching the lives of employees, clients, and community members.