Assignment: Defining Collaborative Leadership in Human Service Organizations
For this assignment, select a human service organization from a public, nonprofit, or government sector that you are familiar with, or one that you find interesting. You will use this organization to complete all of the course assignments. You must be able to access information about the organization's governance, financial sources and practices, mission, population served, and its political and social landscape. Review all the assignments now to verify the types of information you will need about the organization in order to complete them.
The following list provides examples of acceptable types of organizations. You can select an organization of the types included on this list or propose another type of organization to your instructor. The organization must provide human service program services. The selected organization will be included in all your assignments, so you will look at leadership and collaboration practices for that organization through several areas of focus.
Possible Organization Types
• City, county, or state human services or mental health programs.
• State hospitals (Western State Hospital, Milwaukee County Hospital, or another state or county hospital in your area).
• School-based human services or case management programs.
• Private mental health organizations.
• Employee assistance programs.
• For-profit hospital or health care organizations (Humana, Kaiser-Permanente, Aurora, etcetera).
• Catholic community services.
• Lutheran Social Services.
In your assignment submission, include the following:
• In a paragraph format, describe the organization. Provide a brief overview of the mission, target population, and programs provided by the organization.
• Discuss the form of governance used by the organization and why the governance practices used are effective for the organization.
• Address the funding practices and sources for the organization.
• Include at least three current empirical research articles (no more than five years old) that address governance and funding practices for the type of organization you selected.
Understanding Governance and Funding Practices
There are a number of challenges to understanding the complexity of human service governance and funding practices in today's political and funding climate. Traditional nonprofit organizational management and funding are often complicated by government contract practices, legal interventions, and other factors.
Based on your readings for this week, in your initial post, discuss a traditional nonprofit governance board and the funding practices of the organization compared to a human service agency practice that is managed as a government contract or a legally mandated program. What are the challenges faced by a government contract human service program? What are the challenges faced by a legally mandated human service program?
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.