The historical alternative : learning organization practice in child and family services.
Date
1997
Authors
Bellefeuille, Gerard
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Abstract
This thesis represents the story and analysis of my journey as executive director to recreate child and family services. A decade of social worker practice prompted me to search for a better way to design and deliver child and family services; one which is predicated on relationship-building, innovative delivery, and visionary thinking. My reading of the learning organization literature became the catalyst for creating a paradigm shift used to initiate change within Awasis Agency. It gave me the courage to say "we can think about and do things differently" . As the thesis is based on my experience, a qualitative approach to inquiry was utilized to formulate and report my analysis. Heuristics was the form of phenomenological inquiry that brought to the fore my personal experience and insights.
Awasis Agency as a result of its learning adopted a learning paradigm as a model of governance. A framework was developed to illustrate diagrammatically (see figure 1) the paradigm shift from the 'Traditional Patriarchal System of Governance' . The framework is divided into three sections: mental models; organizational structures; and practice orientations. It is important to note that this paradigm captured the Agency's new ways of thinking about child and family services. Alternative ways of thinking were derived from this framework which fosters an ongoing change process encompassing shared vision, systems thinking, team learning, awareness of mental models, and personal mastery rather than merely particular objectives and results. Paradoxically, by emphasizing an ongoing change process, objectives and results are realized in ever changing contexts and truly serve the people in them.