Cultural Responsiveness in Human Services Delivery: Women's Health Center in Hart City

The Women's Health Center in Hart City is a non-profit organization that provides a crisis-centered program for women and children who depend on them and have been in Child Protective Services. This program aims to provide a safe residential shelter for a short term and help such women to find permanent housing. Moreover, they offer daycare services for children below school age. Generally, the program's ultimate goal is to support families to attain independence and start afresh after challenging circumstances. This paper delineates the program's needs assessment; the appraisal of the processes and outputs in the delivery of human services; the program's services quality in terms of accessibility, communication, and responsiveness; and the degree to which it addresses the needs of the increasingly culturally diverse users.
Part 1: Needs Assessment
Program Identification and Needs Assessment Link to Service Users
The selected Hart City program is the Women's Shelter. It is a human services provider that offers interventions in terms of safe shelter for vulnerable women and their children in the short term. Hart City needs assessment issues related to service users (i.e. vulnerable women and their children), including adopting a community-based intervention approach and evaluating gaps between the status quo and the desired state (Ravaghi et al., 2023). The need assessment provided the impetus for the Women's Shelter program to help women and their children find permanent housing through case management and referrals. The target population will also receive essential services such as substance abuse, education, housing, mental health, health, and employment. The needs assessment established gaps in housing for women and their dependent children, leading to the delivery of the women's shelter program.
The Program Meets Community's Needs
For specific reasons, the service achieves the community's needs as established based on the need assessment of Hart City. The women's housing program provides a fresh start for families and their dependent children, especially those lacking homes because of difficult situations. It also covers women and children who require support to restart their lives and regain independence. In addition, the program increases the social capacity of communities in the long term via the empowerment of families and their children via the provision of shelter (Mulroy, 2015). Over 40 per cent of service users found permanent, shared, or transitional housing after leaving the shelter, which is quite a promising statistic (Hart City, n.d.). These benefits are congruent with Taylor and Brunson's (2019) finding that needs assessments should be geared towards avoiding a current or previous problem, solving a problem, or creating sustainable development. In addition, only 32 percent of the beneficiaries attempted to return to the shelter. This implies that the program positively impacted the community, as 68 percent of the service users found no reason to return to the shelter. Therefore, the women's shelter program meets the community's needs because it satisfies the above criteria.
Despite the program's success in satisfying Hart City community needs, it is not without limitations, as noted in the program outcomes encompassed in the facility's annual report. For example, the program did not score well in terms of connecting users to employment opportunities. Only 22 percent of the beneficiaries secured and maintained stable employment for at least twelve months after leaving the shelter. In addition, 86 per cent of service users who had received therapy for drug abuse relapsed within a year after leaving the shelter, which implies a gap in anticipated outcomes (Hart City, n.d.). This means more must be done to address the program's drug abuse outcome. Overall, the program achieves the community's needs to a greater extent based on the ability of users to find shelter after leaving the program.
Gaps in Service Delivery
The gaps identified in Hart City relate to the lack of safe shelter for families previously flourishing before unpleasant life circumstances transpired. The women's shelter program is sufficient to address this gap because it leverages existing community assets and strengths to address Hart City's housing needs. Meals and private sleeping spaces are also provided for each family. Accordingly, survey results indicated that 90 percent of the program beneficiaries indicated that staff were reluctant to respond promptly to their concerns and questions (Hart City, n.d.). In order to address this satisfaction gap, the facility's personnel must improve professionalism and ensure the users' needs are addressed immediately.
Part II: Evaluating Processes and Outputs in Human Services Delivery
Processes: What are the strengths and limitations of the program's processes
The program's processes comprise activities fundamental to its objectives and goals (Thompson & Kegler, 2015). Such activities entail how the staff communicates with service users and how they deliver their services. The ability of the program's processes to offer key services such as housing, employment, food, health, education, substance use treatment, and mental health defines its strengths. The program provides case management and referrals for effectively addressing such needs. Moreover, the program's ability to offer safe residential shelter for a short period of up to 90 days alongside all the day's meals shows the program's strength in addressing the service users' basic needs.
However, there are limitations in the processes of the program. The fact that residents complain shows that there are problems with the quality of the program's housing units, and thus there is a dire need for repairs to facilitate significant living needs and instances of bugs. Kettner et al. (2017) emphasize ensuring quality dimensions for effective programs—additionally, the program strains in meeting the people's religious and cultural dietary needs. Lastly, there is a limitation in the staff positions turnover that adversely affects effective communication and the program's ability to address the needs of the service users.
Outputs: Are service users receiving the services they need?
It is important to consider the program's service unit outputs and outcomes to ascertain whether service users receive the services they seek (Browning, 2015). In the context of outputs, roughly 48 special families receive services from the Women's Health Center in Hart City annually through residential services. The program provides residential units for 12 families and serves 12 on average with weekly shelter and meals (Walden University, 2021). Moreover, the program offers 19,200-night shelter units and 49,600 meals per year. The amount a person has to pay daily, $60, signifies its affordability as it is lower than similar programs (Walden University, 2021).
However, when evaluating the program's outcomes, it is crucial to consider the improvement recorded. According to Glesmann (2016), comparing process and outcome evaluations is important. The program's annual report shows that of the total service users, only 40% find permanent, shared, and transitional housing after moving out, depicting that most of the population struggles with finding stable housing (Walden University, 2021). Moreover, 32% of them try to return to the program again, although many are not allowed back, considering the large awaiting list, showing continuous challenges in addressing their service demand. The outcomes from education and substance abuse treatment portray room for improvement, considering 86% of this particular service users relapse within a year, and only a few service users, about 10%, who fail to graduate from high school receive GED in a year of staying at the shelter (Walden University, 2021).
In summary, the Women's Shelter program in Hart City significantly offers support and services to women and children depending on them and in need. The program's strengths underlie its ability to provide key services, referrals, and case management, along with providing shelter and meals for the short term. However, the program has limitations, including housing quality problems, staff turnover, and dietary needs that adversely affect the program's effectiveness. The program's ultimate goal is to support families to attain independence and start afresh after challenging circumstances. The statistics in this section imply that the outputs were achieved as the users received the required services.
Part III: Measuring Quality in Human Services Delivery
According to Kettner et al. (2017), a program must ensure accessibility, responsiveness, and effective communication to meet the needs of service users to serve the target population effectively. These program attributes will be effectively delineated in the subsequent sections.
Accessibility
The program provides services to women from different age brackets with minor children depending on them and under Child Protective Services. However, certain factors limit specific individuals from accessing the p...