Issues in Health and Human Services Management

This article discusses the issues faced by a non-profit organization, Health Outreach Alliance, due to inadequate human service management. It highlights the importance of efficient leadership, assessment, and advocacy to identify the root cause of the issues and introduce effective strategies to mitigate them. The article also emphasizes the use of managerial problem-solving strategies and reflection practice to improve human service management. References from various sources are included to support the discussion.

Running head: ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
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1ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
Human service management is an essential part of establishing a successful industry or
organization, as it deals with the issues that could affect the productivity of the organization and
introduce effective strategies in order to mitigate such issues and provide high quality service to
the consumers (Mackelprang, Salsgiver & Salsgiver, 2016). Hence, it is important to provide
adequate focus to the human service management in case of healthcare organization in order to
adequate service to the patients and their family and meet their requirements efficiently (Bratton
& Gold, 2017).
As per the case scenario, the non-profit organization, Health Outreach Alliance was
established in 1992 by four founders and only one founder had left to take the responsibility of
the organization. The organization serves to provide health care access to the people from low
income families. The fourth founder plays the role of executive director and the organization
consists of the executive director, program director, and three program teams with four staffs.
Only the executive director, program director and field advocators are men and other staffs are
female. It has been found that the HOA organization is facing high employee turnover and
internal conflicts and high job dissatisfaction have been identified as the reason such high
turnover. The team leaders have raised an issue of gender disparity and according to them the ED
oversteps his limits and he is more supportive to the field workers as they are men. In addition,
lack of encouragement and issue regarding work environment and settings have been identified
as well. The project manager has tried to mitigate the issue through meetings and reducing the
communication barriers, however, the strategies did not work and the issue remained unresolved.
The scenario has provided appropriate example for inadequate human service
management. The poor assessment of both the executive director and the team leaders has been
identified here. Both of them have failed to understand the issue. On the other hand, the poor

2ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
advocacy of the program manager has played an important role in the internal conflicts.
According to Forbat & Barclay (2018), communication through meetings is one of the most
effective process to discuss about the conflicts, identify the reason and introduce effective
strategies in order resolve them in an effective manner. However, the program manager has
arranged meetings for ED and the team leaders but he has failed to manage it efficiently,
therefore, the meetings have led to more embracement instead of resolving issues. Hence, it can
be said that, efficient leadership is required for effective assessment and advocacy in any
healthcare organization in order to understand the rising issues, assess them to identify the root
cause and introduce effective strategies to mitigate them and provide effective service as well. In
this regards, the strategies listed in managerial problem solving strategies are useful to issues
related to human service management. As per the strategies listed, it is important to identify the
problem at first and recognising the underlying assumptions to propose effective strategies for
resolving the issues. Next, it is require to identify the key stakeholders and evaluate their
contribution to mitigate the problems. Three effective strategies should be structured and
evaluation should be done to select the best one. Therefore, implementing the best strategy
according to the situation would be easier and adequate monitoring and evaluation of the strategy
would help to manage the issues in an effective manner.
Reflection practice is one of the effective way to evaluate own performance, as reflection
allows to identify the mistakes, challenges and facilitators as well and evaluate them to gather
knowledge and improve own performance effectively (Halpin, 2015). The group work regarding
the issues in health and human service management has helped me to understand the importance
of effective human service management in an industry or organization. It was exciting to collect
information about different issues in human service management and find out strategies to

3ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
resolve them. The experience has helped to identify essential skills for effective management as
well, for example, advocacy, leadership, adequate assessment and effective communication.
However, it was difficult to apply different theories on a practical situation, such as social justice
theory, theory of change and others, but with adequate information, research and acquisition of
knowledge we have successfully applied such theories in this given scenario. Adequate support
from the group and contribution of each member has helped to complete the work on issues in
health and human service management. Such positive experience has encouraged me to involve
in further research on this topic and gain knowledge about effective human service management.

4ISSUES IN HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES MANAGEMENT
References:
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Forbat, L., & Barclay, S. (2018). Reducing healthcare conflict: outcomes from using the conflict
management framework. Archives of disease in childhood, archdischild-2018.
Halpin, D. (2015). Essaying and Reflective Practice in Education: The Legacy of M ichel de M
ontaigne. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 49(1), 129-141.
Mackelprang, R. W., Salsgiver, R. O., & Salsgiver, R. (2016). Disability: A diversity model
approach in human service practice. Oxford University Press.