NYC Human Resources Administration: Mission and Personal Experience

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The Human Resources Administration (HRA) is also called the Department of Social Services (DSS). HRA is a New York City government department that was founded on 15th August 1966 by Mayor Lindsay John and facilitates the majority of the citys social services programs (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020). DSS helps in-need New Yorkers through various services that subsequently create employment and personal responsibility. DSS provides temporary help and equal work opportunities. According to the NYC Human Resources Administration (2020), the DSS regulations are enshrined under title sixty-eight of the New York City Rules and Regulations. Stephen Banks is the current HRA Commissioner since 2014. HRA is a not-for-profit organization aiming at empowering people in society. The corporation receives financial resources from different entities within the U.S. The primary funding of DSS comes from the City funds (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020).

Mission Statement

The NYC HRA mission statement is: Dedicated to fighting income inequality and poverty in New York by providing the in-need New Yorkers with pivotal benefits including the Emergency Rental Assistance and the Food Assistance (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020). Arguably, the DSS agency works towards attaining its mission statement by following its diverse programs. First, HRA has the Cash Assistance program, whereby FIA (Family Independence Administration) gives temporary cash to New Yorkers (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020). The consideration and eligibility for the amount that one gets references to the family size and the amount of income a household or family makes. Individuals that receive temporary cash must participate in a training or employment program. Also, DSS offers food stamps as a way of meeting its mission statement. FIA equally provides families from low-income backgrounds access to food stamps (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020).

Community

The NYC Human Resources Administration serves the problem-based type of community. As mentioned above, the agency intends to attain socio-economic equality in society by alienating instances of poverty. The agency serves the less fortunate in society through its cash assistance, employment services, food stamps, public health insurance, long and home care programs, among many other programs (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020). As such, the HRA agency aims at making a difference in individuals lives from poor or disadvantaged backgrounds. For instance, the HRA agency thrives on making individuals who come from low-income backgrounds feel comfortable, because of the health insurance program.

Community Demographics

The communitys demographics that the NYC Human Resources Administration helps include individuals of different races, ages, and gender. HRA majorly concentrates on the communitys financial abilities, helping the poor (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020). Individuals that have a larger family size have more chances of receiving cash assistance. Despite the HRA community encompassing those from the low-income class, the agency gives those that are poorer, priority for the first cash assistance circular. The DSS exemplifies that it provides those whose family size is more prominent and their income is low with the priority to be a part of the different agency programs. Equally, HRA favors families with children since the agency understands the burden of bringing up children in poverty. Therefore, DSS does not discriminate within the communitys demographics but gives families with children and with the lowest financial potential an opportunity to receive services first.

Overlap Services

Distinctively, there is an overlap of services similar to what the NYC Human Resources Administration offers within the community. Obamacare provides identical benefits to the ones that HRA offers. Beland et al. (2018) allude that Obamacare aims at increasing health insurance coverage, improving healthcare quality, and equally reducing healthcare costs. Thus, Obamacares aim resembles that of the Human Resources Administration in New York City. However, there is a slight difference between the HRA Public Health Insurance service to that of Obamacare. In the HRA healthcare cover, the service aims at covering the insurance bills for those from low-income status. On the other hand, Obamacare cares for the interests of individuals from the low-to-the-high financial level.

Community Strength and Resources

Arguably, the communitys strength is that, despite individuals being from a low-income class, they have managed to obtain higher education. Saleebey (2012) mentions that the strengths perspective approach puts peoples resources first to defeat the present problem. It is easy to give a source of employment to individuals who have attained college-level education and above. Comprehensively, education stands as the central pillar that can eradicate poverty among individuals within the community. HRA projects at offering a source of employment for people from low socioeconomic levels within New York City. Statistically, there are over fourteen thousand people that HRA has employed who are delivering services to over three million New Yorkers (NYC Human Resources Administration, 2020).

Importance of the Agency and Community in Practice

Social workers are expected to care at different levels, including micro, mezzo, and macro contexts. At the micro-level, social work implies working with individuals who need certain services to improve their lives, which is performed through the direct interaction between a client and a professional. For example, people who have problems with social services, healthcare access, homeless ones, and others are commonly referred to the social workers at the micro-level. Since this level involves sensitive communication, social workers should be aware of psychology and ethics to provide the best care possible. Accordingly, the Agency plays the role of connecting social workers and individuals not only at the micro-level but also across the levels.

The macro-level social work implies considering a large scale that impacts communities and nations. In this case, the systems that affect people and cause social injustice and a lack of opportunities are viewed by social workers as composing the problem. In their study, Heimstädt and Reischauer (2019) propose innovation in the NYC administration. The authors assume that open innovation is useful for social work, and it should be enabled at the organizational level. However, the authors also note that little attention is paid to the phenomenon of culture that impacts the links across organizations. It means that a lack of culture leads to the fact that the actors of the NYC administration take the different roles and focus on their parts only. For example, outside, insider, and interstitial roles make these actors choose different tactics, and the entire work of the administration becomes scattered (Heimstädt & Reischauer, 2019). Therefore, it seems that social workers should promote cultural resonance to effectively implement open innovations and use new practices.

Social Worker Roles

The role of a social worker is evident in the HRA agency. The first role of a social worker in the urgency is to help the community individuals and families be strong and overcome the different challenges and problems they are going through. According to Hepworth et al. (2017), a social worker encourages people to embrace endurance amidst trouble. For instance, families within the community are missing proper nutrition.

At the mezzo level, a social workers perspective focuses on helping groups of individuals, beginning with a family and ending with organizations and organizations. The problems between two students in a class or family interactions become the target area of social workers. Lieberman et al. (2015) state that pregnant and parenting teenagers compose a vulnerable group of clients, who need family preservation assistance. In particular, the statistics show that such adolescents are more likely to have difficulties with family relationships, which prioritizes the idea of special programs and education to be implemented through the New York City foster care agency (Lieberman et al., 2015). This approach ensures that the target audience would not only be protected but also provided with some relevant development opportunities.

The second role of a social worker in the HRA agency is to educate the clients regarding the different approaches and mechanisms they can embrace to get out of their devastating situations. For instance, the HRA agency aims at educating the community regarding health issues apart from providing public health insurance. A social worker gets an automatic responsibility of making the population, including patients within the city, understand the different mechanisms that they can put in place to avoid such occurrences in the future (Shulman, 2016).

Personal experience

Client Intake Process

There is a rigid process that a client goes through from initial referral to intake. The first step involves immediate need identification during the brief assessment or intake process (Hepworth et al., 2017). Here, the professionals assess the needs of different individuals within the population. Subsequently, the professionals decide whether the individuals needs can be addressed immediately or later, hence entering the brief assessment or intake documentation step.

Clients who pass the assessment or the intake documentation move to the second phase and must effectively fill in their basic information profile. Basic information incorporates presenting the problem, giving the identification information, and other demographics, including the language that the client speaks (Hepworth et al., 2017). The social worker and other professionals within the agency understand the clients background, names, and origin. The clients experience gives a social worker and the agency the correct response to the clients needs. Assessment documentation equally involves a brief overview of status and requirements. Here, the agency checks the customers needs in different aspects. For instance, other clients needs can be food or clothing, finances, housing, transportation, substance use, domestic violence, or even preventing HIV/AIDS transmission and progression.

The third process for the client involves the release of the necessary support. Here, the agency is sure of the clients exact problem and need, hence, it starts helping them (Hepworth et al., 2017). For instance, authorization of HIV confidential information release happens as per the depictions of Article 27F. In other words, the third phase involves results, whereby the client gets to know whether their desires are being met.

The fourth process involves client assessment for eligibility, whereby professionals assess whether the clients need is genuine. The client gets tested whether they meet the minimum requirements to be part of the program (Hepworth et al., 2017). For instance, clients are assessed whether they meet the essential condition, like coming from low-income families. The client becomes part of the program after this program eligibility assessment and subsequent approval. Individuals are assured of getting their preferred aid after a successful eligibility assessment test.

Client System, Strength, and Challenge

The client is an African American woman Christian aged 27 years. The client comes from a low-socioeconomic status. For over five years now, the client has been under ARVs medication, but it is only last month that she stopped taking the drugs, and she argues that social stigma from the community has led to this decision. The clients family is intact and very supportive, trying their best to ensure that the client resumes normal life. The woman feels wasted, worthless and confesses that she had tried to commit suicide the previous week by taking excessive analgesics. Arguably, the clients greatest strength is that she is free and talkative, spilling everything within her heart, which is a good thing since it makes me understand her better. In contrast, the clients challenge is that she seems to be suffering from depression, considering that she quickly forgets what she said minutes ago.

Similarities with Client and Bias

The main similarity between the client and me is that we are agemates and Christians. The client feels free and comfortable in my presence, making it easy to counsel her to take the ARVs drugs. Empirically, the client embraces satisfaction and feels free, considering that she responds quickly and openly to everything I ask her. The client even goes the extra mile to explain how her life since childhood has been smooth until 2015 when she realized that she is HIV positive. However, the central bias that arose is that the client has a negative attitude towards men. The woman feels that if it were not for her husband, she could not have had the virus.

Client Interaction Skills

The first skill that I am using to engage with the client is eye contact. As Hepworth et al. (2017) reiterate, eye contact is an indication of concentration. When the client speaks, and I am embracing the eye contact skill, it gives the client confidence to continue speaking since she understands that what she is saying makes sense. The second skill that I am using to engage the client is empathetic and empathy responses. Here, the client feels that I genuinely feel what she has gone through, igniting her to speak more as a way of getting relieved.

Social Work Literature

Notably, values are one of the social work literature that informs my approach to engaging the client. As a social worker, I have to value and respect the worth and dignity of the client. Social work ethics dictate that I have to treat every client equally, respectfully, and compassionately. While speaking about the challenges faced by social workers, it seems to be important to mention that ethics is one of the complicated issues to ensure. Morley (2019) applied the social impact bonds (SIBs) theory to evaluate its ethical status and found that it is often used to combat recidivism, healthcare difficulties, and homelessness. The authors findings indicate that the denial of care, harm generation, and a lack of informed consent reduce the therapeutic effectiveness of social work. I believe that it is of great importance to complying with the requirements of ethics. It is also critical to recognize diversity and adjust care accordingly since the unique characteristics of clients should be taken into account to make sure their situations are properly understood (Morley, 2019). In particular, the structure of the culture, race /ethnicity, and identity serve as the key characteristics of every client, group of clients, and even community.

Learning Experiences

My learning experience in my beginning process of social work practice is that I have learned about erudition. Practical experiences are vital in the field of social work. I have cultured that social work is about acting as a client and allowing the client to act as a social worker. I have come to know that I had little knowledge regarding the whole social work profession. At least, I now understand that I have to take clients as they are during social work practice and never allow myself to be emotionally provoked by abusive clients.

As a social work practitioner, I encountered various clients who have diverse problems. Among them, immigrants seem to be an especially vulnerable population that needs more precise attention. Congress (2017) notes that in large cities, the number of immigrants increases rapidly, which requires social work interventions at micro and mezzo levels. For example, culturagram is offered as a micro intervention to engage these people in interaction with social workers and make them more open to assistance. Regarding the macro level, advocacy seems to be a powerful tool to change the policies for immigrants (Congress, 2017). I would like to emphasize that I consider the integration of social work at the levels should be promoted.

Opening up Experience

Arguably, the experience of opening up and being vulnerable with my field instructor made me feel relieved. Regardless of all the criticism, speaking out has given my instructor a clear picture of how I think, feel, and believe. Also, being free and saying about me has allowed my instructor to realize that I feel comfortable around him. Disclosing my inner-self has critically put me in a position to receive guidance, feedback, and critique from my coach. My teachers criticism gave me a new perspective, making me turn my eyes to things that I never considered or overlooked previously. The instructors criticism helps me grow intellectually since it sheds light on my consciousness, thus giving me the opportunity for improvement.

Knowing Myself Experience

Knowing myself in becoming a social worker has made me understand that combining skills, values, and knowledge gained in social work education develops my traits as a social worker. Living by the values and social work ethics magnifies my character in the eyes of my clients. Furthermore, knowing myself in becoming a social worker has imparted knowledge in me that I own myself. As such, I am in charge of my thoughts and, equally, my personality. Knowing myself is similarly contributing to my self-awareness and independence spectrum, hence enhancing levels of confidence. Presently, I am more confident than ever, courtesy of knowing myself, meaning that I can advise clients effectively by embracing critical thinking and social work interaction skills.

Supervision Experience and Client Relationship

The experience that I am having in supervision connects to my developing relationship with my clients in that I have more knowledge and experience than the client lacks. My client and I have common goals of enhancing the clients health and making her reverse her decision to no longer take ARVs. Also, my supervision position gives me vital skills that I have to listen to my juniors. Thus, listening to the client is a sure way of trusting me and feeling free to open up and consider my advice. In addition, I strive to recognize and accept diversity while providing social care since clients unique characteristics shape the basis for choosing proper strategies of assistance, which also helps in establishing mutual trust and openness in relationships.

References

Beland, D., Rocco, P., & Waddan, A. (2018). Obamacare in the Trump Era: Where are we now, and where are we going? The Political Quarterly, 89(4), 687-694.

Congress, E. (2017). Immigrants and refugees in cities: Issues, challenges, and interventions for social workers. Urban Social Work, 1(1), 20-35.

Heimstädt, M., & Reischauer, G. (2019). Framing innovation practices in interstitial issue fields: Open innovation in the NYC administration. Innovation, 21(1), 128-150.

Hepworth, D. H., Rooney, R. H., Rooney, D. R., Strom-Gottfried, K. & Larsen, J. A. (2017). Direct social work practice: Theory and skills (10th ed.). Brooks Cole.

Lieberman, L. D., Bryant, L. L., & Boyce, K. (2015). Family preservation and healthy outcomes for pregnant and parenting teens in foster care: The inwood house theory of change. Journal of Family Social Work, 18(1), 21-39.

Morley, J. (2019). The ethical status of social impact bonds. Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 1-17.

NYC Human Resources Administration. (2020). Welfare and HRA History. Department of Social Services.

Saleebey, D. (2012). The strengths perspective in social work practice. Longman Publishers.

Shulman, L. (2016). The skills of helping individuals, families, groups, and communities. Brooks Cole.

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