Thesis on "Public Partnership in Serving Transitional Needs"

Thesis 12 pages (3360 words) Sources: 1+ Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Public Partnership in Serving Transitional Needs for the Disabled

Public governance is a deeply complex and layered undertaking, even in the context of local officiating. Where local government agencies are concerned, the responsibilities of civil administration, legislative oversight, public service and commercial regulation are collectively made all the more challenging by the relationship necessarily shared between local government structures and their counterparts at the state and federal level. This dynamic plays in to the responsibilities and power-broking of all public agencies, which must balance the pressures placed upon it by policy, public interest and popular demand with resource availability, organizational reach and geographical relevance. This condition requires a strategic pursuit of effective partnerships within which public agencies of shared interest and goal can help one another further common or overlapping causes. One area in which the demand for such partnership has perhaps never been greater is in education, and particularly in public education, where issues of economy and priority have consistently diminished the quality and opportunity available in our schools. In such a condition, the most deeply afflicted groups are those already at some disadvantage upon entering into America's public education.

For student of every skill level and orientation, making the transition from education to occupation can be extremely challenging. For the disabled student, this is exponentially more beset with obstacles. It is a responsibility of the public schools, communities and local, state and federal governments to pursue partnerships that can help to respond to this imbalance. Still, there are issues of power, cultural and organizational orientation directly impact the success, or even the will, of existing public agencies to help disabled individuals receive the support necessary to make a transition from school to profession. Under the pretense that society and community should take responsibility to help individuals in this position -- whether disabled physically, emotionally or developmentally -- this discussion is concerned with the opportunities and pitfalls in public partnership designed to provide transitional services to the disabled.

For students with disabilities, planning for a future occupation, living circumstances and budgetary concerns can be challenging. The transition from school into secondary education or the working world is a difficult step for any student. But particularly for those with physical or learning handicaps, this is a step which will be filled with unfamiliar circumstances and the ongoing need for adjustment. For many such students, then, it is imperative to realize, explore and utilize those community services which might be available to them for assistance in becoming acclimated to post-academic life.

The schools must play a central part in ensuring that disabled student are made aware of the resources which have been created to benefit them. As the forum for cultivating growth in students of all academic dispositions, public school bears the important responsibility of preparing its pupils for the next tier, whether it be a specialized continuation of education or an integration into independent living.

There are, however, a wide range of resources available to students completing their publicly availed education which are not sufficiently utilized by families, schools or communities. Among these which can help ease the transition from primary schooling to supplemental career opportunities are "postsecondary education or vocational-technical training, adult services, job training and rehabilitation services, independent living services and others." (OCAPP, 2)

There are two underlying purposes in promoting an expanded focus upon public partnerships to bridge a current gap between disabled students and available services. First and foremost, it is the intention of such interdependency to promote a coordination between various agencies which a student or family is likely to use in concert with one another. Such is to note, for example, that one seeking community job-placement services may likewise be benefited by independent living assistance as well. The administrative agreement between such resources should facilitate a more fluid and navigable path to utilizing such available services for the transitioning student.

Accordingly, the second crucial purpose is to help students prepare for the shift into adult life by elucidating the management of occupational options, living requirements and financial balance.

By bringing into close contact and interaction the various community agencies in a district or even in a metropolitan area, we can create a blueprint for helping to initiate our students into a supportive and constructive society. The crucial offshoot of this is that through the proper orientation of individuals toward the options available to them, we can enable otherwise disadvantaged students to become well-acquainted with the responsibilities and realities of adulthood while simultaneously making them aware of support systems structured directly according to their needs.

In order to bring together the many seemingly disparate strands which might constitute a planning team for ensuring meaningful interagency cooperation, partnership requires a firm foundation for bringing into closer contact the personnel which will be essential to the process. There are stakeholders at virtually every level of education, community and business who will have a direct interest in the propriety of transitional services. Indeed, all parties will be impacted by the effective administration of such a program.

Given that the goals of such a program will concentrate on the unique qualities of individual students while promoting an overall cause which will be beneficial to educational institutions, public resource agencies and local commercial organizations as well, it is necessary to bring about involvement from all parties at a distinctly human level. As the text asserts, the quality of interagency agreements among service agencies relies on the cooperation of people in those agencies and their attitudes and spirit of innovation. (OCAPP, 4) Such is to note that the first step in helping agencies to work closely together in order to benefit their individual cases is in helping the individuals working in these settings to become more receptive to working with individuals outside of their respective community service settings.

This means that the parents, the students, special and general educators, school administrators, local business leaders, community planning coordinators, public service personnel (such as police officers and elected officials), local religious leaders, university employees and job placement/training officers will all work across agency borders in order to strengthen their mutual goals of creating a social atmosphere that is conducive to the careful assimilation of disabled students into educational and occupational circumstances which are aptly tailored.

Among the public partnership methods which reflects perhaps the highest potential for interagency effectiveness is the concept of governing by network. Governing by network has come to be by virtue of the increasing complexity of government agency responsibilities in the modern environment. Forces such as the increasing influence of non-profit organizations, the availability of public information and media sources which instigate closer community involvement and the integration of private and public interests have all shaped the growth of this approach to governing. And for parents, teachers, case workers and the disabled individual in question, the ability to participate in defining available public goals and resources can be absolutely invaluable. Particularly in responding to the issues of power distribution that tend to undermine the input of members of the public in favor of more financially influential voices, governing by network actually creates a framework into which interested parties can pursue aggressive participation.

The primary principle from which organizational networks evolve is the necessity to invoke collective input on the best use of agency efforts and resources in order to serve public interest. This is directly related to a second principle denoted in the case study which demonstrates that such networks have evolved from an increasing need to release government agencies from restrictive hierarchical structural approaches and the inherent corruptibility and bureaucracy of such approaches..

The Graddy & Chen (2006) article points to a qualitative study approach in which an ideal model of organizational and community integration is developed and then applied to the examination of existing networked programs. According to the primary text, the four types of public management networks are third party government (private delivery of public services), joined-up government (interagency service provision), Digital Agency (technological outlets for partnership/service provision) and Consumer Orientation (public service effectiveness). The five tasks that lead to effective organizational management are accountability management, legitimacy management, conflict management, management of design and management of commitment. (Milward & Provan, 21)

Empirical findings from the combined sources discussed here illustrate that network government tends to improve the nuance and efficiency of public services and that size of the network will reflect the size of the task at hand and its geographical context. Size is less a factor in impacting network efficiency than is the proper integration of agencies through compatibility preparation. In the instance of the issue upon which this account focuses, this means defining a context for interaction that suits community leaders, parent and teacher groups, public job programs and other outlets related to the assistance, support and placement of transition disabled individuals.

The opportunity for secondary education should be considered among the goals of transition to be rather high where such a desire or capacity is apparent. Those individuals who have been oriented toward… READ MORE

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