It Starts With Listening: Why The Cookie-Cutter Social Service Approach Misses The Mark
By Mike Shaver, President and CEO, Brightpoint
In the social service ecosystem, the voice of the program participant—the people who receive support—is the quietest of all. Take the case of a mom who walks through our door to enroll her kids in an early childhood program. What if she is experiencing mental health challenges and needs additional support? If we want to see a greater impact on those we serve, we need to listen better. Most nonprofit organizations, including ours, just do not do this well.
By carrying out the active work of programs funded by the government, our sector inherited the industrial template as a model: Define problems and provide social services that seek to address them. But this approach has no adaptability. We are effectively saying, “Here’s the solution to the problem. It fits what we do, so we are going to keep giving it to you.” Being more intentional about identifying the underlying issues affecting families would cause a major evolution in our sector.
