An Education Proposal

The field of human services is currently at a crossroad. The service delivery challenges are becoming greater, more complex and the population more diverse. Financial resources are at a minimum and shrinking. Yet, as we prepare those who choose a future in human services, real pay has and continues to decrease, the educational preparation of skills of those applying for entry level positions, has dipped into an abyss that requires rethinking how education will prepare people for a career in human services.

At the management level we are identifying new managers from a conservative era that promoted status quo services or less than that. The human service field has been maintaining empires rather than the development of progressive services, which actually serve those, identified to have a real need and this has become the accepted norm.

The KOAN Institute for Applied Human Services as a concept proposes radical change in the educational experience for those seeking a career in the field. It is believed that the most effective education occurs in a contextual way when theory is applied to real life situations. People learn best through doing, and most educational programs at the college and graduate levels do not provide students enough opportunity to apply deeply profound theory to the real life challenges consumers face in the delivery of services.

Through a collaborative effort, born out of the belief that we cannot function alone in the delivery of service, we will call on a variety of organizations including, but not limited to, colleges, human service providers, government funding sources, consumers of service and local community and education leaders. They will be asked to form an educational alliance that is designed to meet the prioritized needs of all the players. Most importantly the student will experience a hands on and highly practical education.

The Institute promises to be a dynamic entity that will literally change the way people are prepared to work in the human service field. It will provide an atmosphere based in critical thinking and creative problem-
solving as the prime component of the course of study. Traditional courses will also be offered to assure that the Institute will meet traditional academic standards and cover major theories in psychology, sociology, community organization, and planned social change.



Program Components
1. Classroom Study: Participants in the IFAHS program will be exposed to ample classroom time taught by college level faculty. Courses will include, but not be limited to:

Introduction to Psychology
Introduction to Social Problems
Introduction to Human Services
Interviewing and Counseling Techniques
Crisis Intervention
Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving
Technical Writing
Psychology of Self
Abnormal Psychology
Special Topics in Mental Health
Special Topics in Developmental Disabilities
Service Delivery Systems
Working with Families



2. Live Instruction: The primary purpose of the Institute is to expose the student to as much hands on experience and instruction as possible. The need to apply classroom learning to actual service delivery systems is the underlying strength of this educational model. Therefore, each student will experience steady and almost daily movement from class to live settings to solidify classroom discussion and learning. Students will receive immediate feedback, instruction and support for their applied portion of the program. Real time instructors will be supplied by host agencies and university affiliated staff, as well as experienced others working in a variety of human service settings with a diverse population.

3. Mentoring: Each student will be assigned to an experienced human service professional for the purposes of developing a mentor relationship. This person will be available for hands on instruction, discussion, counseling and career guidance.

4. Competency Testing: Throughout the program at agreed fixed times the students will be tested in the competency areas they’re trying to build. Their classroom work and applied work will be evaluated and scored, as it would be in a paid human service setting. There will be acceptable levels of scoring as a standard for the student’s performance to be measured by.

5. Standards of Performance: Faculty, students, hosts and mentors will collectively develop standards that measure performance against the competencies each student is working on and as defined by the host providers. Standards for quality, service delivery, human rights, values implementation, paperwork, writing and communication will be developed that incorporate universal and specific elements used to define what an excellent performance should look like.

6. Host Agencies: In order for the Institute to have economic and program viability, provider agencies will join for a fee, define what competencies staff need in their organization, and offer their programs as the applied learning environment for their staff and others to learn in. They in turn will have well trained staff who can apply their learning to actual agency needs and save money in the short and long run by not having a high turnover rate or the need to develop and maintain a large and expensive training program.

7. University/College Affiliation: It is essential that the Institute affiliate with a college to help develop and implement a variety of courses of study. Also the university or college will be the component of the Institute that grants certification and credit for course work that may lead to the continuation of a participants’ personal education.

8. Long Term Project: Each student will be assigned to a study group. The group will examine social problems and decide on one that they would like to address. With guidance from faculty they will collectively develop a formal human service response to the social problem by building a human service from the ground up. This project will help the student to understand the level of work that goes into program development and the kind of intensive thinking and problem solving skills it requires.

9. Additional Seminars: From time to time the Institute will hold seminars, discussions, book reading groups, lead by experts in their particular field of human service delivery.

10. Career Planning/ Job Development: The Institute will develop a career development component, that will have computer access to available databases of jobs, opportunities, trends in hiring and growth areas and provide guidance and counseling when appropriate.

If anybody thinks this is viable training model let me know. Maybe we could form a working community to further develop the model.

Until Then, Serve On.

JBG