Leadership Development Research Paper: Strategic Planning for Collaborative Service Delivery

The National Council on Family Relations, established in 1938, is the world’s oldest non-profit, politically neutral, interdisciplinary professional body entirely dedicated to family research, practice, and education. NCFR embraces and endorses scholars and professionals from various fields working to fully understand, fortify, and empower households. Furthermore, the institution intends to build standard guidelines that encourage family growth and overall well-being. Human service workers offer a wide range of services aimed at improving clients’ lives. The organization wishes to work collaboratively with other local organizations that will assist it in offering services to people from all fifty states. As a result, strategic planning would help the company to determine the organization’s resolve, objective, and what it does to achieve its goals and aspirations. The primary goal will be to support youthful individuals known to abuse illicit drugs in returning to the everyday life they did lead before being faced by the drug abuse menace.

Needs Assessment Methodology

Needs assessments help determine shortfalls and preferences in social services, which includes assisting guide agency growth and provision of services. A needs assessment can aid in identifying current conditions and anticipated services or results. It can ascertain the strong point of a program and the challenges faced in attaining the service needs of those served. There is a need to ensure that best practices are followed when conducting research studies (Royse & Badger, 2015). Some guiding principles include gathering empirical evidence to identify community opportunities and potential solutions, gathering data from multiple stakeholders, including the target group, those offering assistance to the target group, and those making these decisions regarding the target group, i.e., performing a multi-purpose needs analysis.

Based on the human service task, a nominal group approach would also be used. In this case, the procedure makes use of each person’s knowledge and experience. This approach is efficient for generating and help in generating ideas, reaching consensus, setting priorities, and making a decision on alternative actions. It encourages all respondents to get participate since they feel particularly affected. Moreover, it provides an equal opportunity for all people, in this case, young people, to give their thoughts and insights in a non-threatening environment. Instead of contacting persons at random, it is sufficient to obtain a group of young individuals within a single session. The methodology facilitates the generation of numerous ideas quickly, allowing a full range of opinions and concerns. The approach may be used to develop the data acquired from surveys or existing documents or may be used to produce a more precise assessment.

With this methodology, the National council on family relations will have the chance to interact with more community members and gain knowledge on how to resolve problems such as drug abuse, among others. Since these are societal issues, they are better handled when community people are engaged. This evaluation approach will enable the National council on family relations to link up with community members and obtain the necessary assistance. Nonetheless, appropriate schools and classes can be selected through this approach, and students are present at school all through the school day. According to Royse and Badger (2015), in most nations, young individuals feel more contented admitting to prohibited or socially disapproved behaviors such as drug use in a learning institution instead of the home setting. The technique would provide valuable data to human service workers and interested stakeholders regarding the diverse starting points, resolutions, and focal points.

Building Capacity

Capacity building is about a foundation’s capacity to deliver its objective effectively now and in the future, not just its current capacity. Capacity building is an investment in a foundation’s efficacy and long-term viability. While commonly invisible and often ignored, capacity building is the crucial “infrastructure” that endorses and shapes charitable non-profit groups into influences for good (DeVita & Fleming, 2016). In this case, the capacity building would allow non-profit managers and executives to establish competencies that make them more effective and viable, creating more opportunities for the charitable organizations to empower lives and focus on solving current societal most challenging issues. The national council on family relations will collaborate with other like-minded institutions to aid in the strategic planning. The partnership will be based on the fact that the council’s agenda includes various national stakeholders. The collaborators will assist the organization in pushing its action plan of reducing the increasing cases of drug use among the youth, which has been on the increase in the country.

The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Alcohol and Drug Awareness is one of the advocacy groups with which the national council on family relations will consider collaborating. The Brent Shapiro Foundation for Alcohol and Drug Awareness exists to end drug and alcohol addiction. The organization achieves this by raising awareness through education, removing the negative perception associated with the disease, aiding parents in how to converse with their youth and others about alcohol and drugs, and creating education programs for parents, instructors, and societies to intervene with those at risk (Hawkins et al.,2016). Through the numerous advocacy efforts, both organizations educate people about substance abuse and identify the gaps in funding and resources for treating addictive behavior. This is done by setting achievable objectives for significantly lowering addiction to alcohol and drugs, reducing drug and alcohol-related mortalities, and reducing the societal costs of drug abuse.

The other entity that may partner with the council is the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. This organization’s mission is to assist families whose children are addicted to drugs and prevent drug use among youth. It contributes to the provision of technical support, coaching, research, stakeholder engagement, and the identification and resolution of important issues. During the planning process, the entity is considered to be vital. The organization will assist in linking families with professionals and treatment services, establish support groups where households can share their challenges with abuse, conduct research-based education for youths, and champion improved drug rehabilitation and perspectives in the United States. Moreover, the organization’s website provides valuable tools for families and mounds of valuable research and figures regarding the effects of addiction on the mind and the resources that assist.

Cultural Awareness and Competency

A competent culture program exemplifies cultural sensitivity and recognition in treatment design, application, and assessment. Human service workers and business associates should be fully cognizant of and respect cultural diversity. There are several methods of achieving cultural awareness and competency. They include a team that acknowledges the ethnocultural intricacies of the client population, a personal background comparable to that of the patient population, care methodologies that represent the client’s culturally defined values and treatment plan, and the integration of the client population in program policy-making and decision-making.

The personnel or corporate sponsors must not interfere with providing services to the client due to prejudice or variances. The program should leverage the strong point of both the client and the community. According to Burke (2015), the National Organization of Human Services Ethical Standards indicates that human service experts acknowledge and boost the confidence of their clientele and the community. Moreover, it indicates that human service specialists guarantee that their values or prejudices are not imposed upon their clientele. Managers and corporate partners should always acknowledge that moving their system toward cultural awareness necessarily requires personal dedication and cultural awareness.

Timeline for Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation

A logic model for any organization varies depending on the organization’s size, as larger organizations are much more likely to have a comprehensive strategy. Scarce resources influence strategy implementation within independent non-profit institutions. According to Mosley and Smith (2018), a variety of factors, including the size of the organization, the aspects of the board, the type of management, concurrence on organizational objectives, and funding requirements to embrace planning, may impact an institution’s involvement in strategy development. According to mmm, non-profit entities are struggling to react to technological, economic, and cultural shifts. Generating a timetable for preparation, execution, and assessment can help to alleviate the complexity. A quick logic model would provide a high-level overview of the purpose of trying to minimize substance abuse among the youth in the community. The logic model captures the essence of the program, despite its briefness. Moreover, the logic model incorporates a timeline. For more details, kindly see the logical framework below.

Evaluating Success of Initiative

The program’s fundamental goal is to reduce the number of youthful individuals involved in drug abuse.   There are several methods for measuring and assessing the effectiveness of the program. The ability to measure the accomplishments of a continual improvement action plan is vital to the program’s overall performance. According to Life Cycle Engineering( 2014), projects are more likely to succeed when executive sponsors are visible and active. Impact assessment is one technique for measuring success. Impact analysis is a tool that is used to guarantee that the initiative is used as planned. Impact analysis can establish whether or not an initiative achieves its target demographic. Based on the organization’s key objective, the target audience involves youths engaging in drug and substance abuse. Impact analysis seeks to evaluate if the partnerships with known agencies and non-profit entities significantly reduced the number of addicts in the community.

External evaluation is another method used to determine the achievements of the action plan. An external evaluation may lend the research results rationality. External assessments have the additional advantage of introducing innovative viewpoints to the communities’ problems which may not have been initially considered (Sylvia and Sylvia, 2012). As a result, external evaluations have the capacity to predict whether or not the program was effective. Another method of measuring achievement is to understand how the stakeholders view the program. The rehabilitation initiative works in conjunction with a wide range of stakeholders, the perspectives of which are crucial to the project’s long-term success. The target population, parents, teachers, the council’s management, the partners, and the community, in general, are all interested parties keen to assess the organization’s performance towards curbing the menace. Consequently, if all the needs of the drug abuse addicts are met are being attained, then the entire initiative may be regarded as a success.

Assessing Sustainability of Initiative

A growing or established organization that intends to preserve its growth requires several techniques to guide project implementation, establish a firm financial foundation, and plan for future obstacles. Governance is critical to the long-term viability of organizations such as the National Council on Family relations. It is the responsibility of the ruling authority and stakeholders to guarantee that the initiative to address drug use is on the correct course. The Executive board and other involved parties are responsible for ensuring that the action plan to end drug use among the youth remains on track. Every party makes a significant contribution to the project’s long-term viability.

Moreover, to guarantee that the strategy is and stays in the minds of the staff, volunteer organizations, and other interested parties, the governing committee or its equal should be tasked with overseeing the progress towards the project’s mission and targets (Watson & Hoefer, 2014). Direction-setting and tracking are core responsibilities of the Management board and must not be assigned to a steering committee or other institution. Instead, the management should review and update on a routine basis and, if needed, suggest amendments to maintain the organization on track. Non-profit entities capable of identifying and overcoming sustainability hurdles are capable of changing the perspective of project undertakings.

Conclusions

Collaboration and partnership approaches have become commonplace in social service delivery over the years. The collaborative approach necessitates forming groups to share their information and knowledge on a particular area of focus. It requires planning to carry out any initiative, particularly one as massive as the rehabilitating youths engaged in drug abuse. Strategic planning cannot occur without predetermined objectives because the program’s primary goals become decision-making standards as the project continues. Service primary goals, efficiency desired outcomes, and efficiency objectives are all crucial aspects of a good set of strategic priorities. It is necessary to keep in mind the comprehensive strategy because it is the action plan for achieving a long-term objective. Setting the goals is dynamic when conceiving a plan to implement any program and project. The planning process is time-consuming. However, it does not have to be burdensome. When developing a comprehensive strategy, there are techniques to take into account. Identify the objectives and what is to be achieved with this campaign, set key target outcomes reflecting that goal presented against the estimate of the overall population likely to be impacted by a specific initiative, cultivate metrics to measure advancement towards certain results, and gather evaluation information pertaining to these metrics as a phase of the process. Anything that usually entails planning necessarily involves a different way of learning to implement changes and sustain the program.