3.1 Chapter Overview
Your fieldwork begins long before your first day as an intern. Getting to know your agency begins with researching the available fieldwork sites and doesn’t end until the final day of your practicum. Your first steps involve learning about the practical aspects of your agency, such as where to park and what door to use. In this chapter, the focus is on getting to know the whys and the hows of your agency, including how it is organized and regulated and its role in micro, mezzo, and macro work in the community.
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to do the following:
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- Identify the characteristics of an effective agency or organization.
- Explain how human services organizations are organized, regulated, and governed.
- Differentiate between macro, mezzo, and micro influences on an agency/organization’s structure and service delivery systems.
Preview of Key Terms
- Accreditation: The process of the organization being evaluated by an independent third-party entity for conformity to and compliance with a specific set of industry standards.
- Board of directors: A governing body of individuals who have been elected, selected, or appointed to oversee an organization.
- Fiscal solvency: An agency’s ability to service any debt and meet its other financial obligations.
- Laws: The rules a country, state, or other governing body sets, maintains, and enforces. Violations of laws are illegal and can be punished by fines, probation, or incarceration. In the United States, there is a hierarchical structure for authority: federal, state, county, and local.
- Mission statement: The formal summary of why an organization exists, whom they serve, and how they are unique.
- Organizational charts: Charts that demonstrate who in the agency is responsible for specific duties, who reports to whom, and how the work of the agency is organized.
- Organizational culture: A shared set of beliefs and actions that are supported by the structure of the organization, strategies used, and policies.
- Regulations: The rules a governing body sets, maintains, and enforces. Violations may result in fines and/or loss of licensure or certifications.
- Statutes: A law written by a legislative body.
- Strategic planning: Outlines the steps and processes involved in incorporating an agency’s mission, vision, and values into their day-to-day activities.
- Vision statement: The formal summary of what an agency or organization wants to achieve.
Chapter Overview Licenses and Attributions
“Chapter Overview” by Sally Guyer MSW is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
(or internship/practicum) experiential learning contained within human services programs. For the purposes of this text, fieldwork, internship, and practicum will be used interchangeably.