Framework for Systems Change - Report Example

Framework for Systems Change Communities often make decisions on policies, programs, as well as the equitableallocation of resources and the manner in which services are delivered to the citizens in the community; the communities function effectively because they are systems of numerous integrated components that promote stability in the whole (Foster-Fishman & Behrens, 2007). “Systems change” refers to a shift in the decision making processes regarding service delivery, policies, programs and the allocation of resources in the community through joint bridges with various agencies, members of the community, as well as other key stakeholders in the community. A systems change may entail changing the system components or their sequence, changing the interactions between the system components themselves, as well as changing how the system receives feedback. This paper will examine the significance of systems change to service delivery, and the need for theoretical and practical knowledge about systems change to guide the work of community practitioners in the delivery of services to the citizenry. Additionally, this paper will discuss the various frameworks for a systems approach to change alongside their strengths and weaknesses, as well as the need for more research to understand applications of these frameworks in community settings, given the wide knowledge gap in theory and practice today. The exact meaning of the term “systems change” is often mired with ambiguity, especially because human service occurs at various levels while community systems are multi-faceted since they consist of numerous interconnected systems and subsystems including hospitals, social workers, community service agencies, homecare providers, as well as individual families (Kendrick, 2006). Systems change nuances both the formal and informal levels of system structures, since individuals and informal relationships, alongside their values and attitudes play a very fundamental role in social systems. Systems changes may entail “whole-system” changes or simply changes involving a single element of the system, but most importantly, these changes are always substantial and beneficial to service delivery; however, the course of systems change cannot be completely predicted or controlled, thus, changes to complex systems always involve a considerable amount of uncertainty and risk. Successful systems change requires a strong vision of the desired change and the commitment of people in bringing about the change by overcoming all resistance in the form of people’s unwillingness to endorse the proposed change (OConnor, 2007). Systems change is often influenced by moral, cultural, and even political factors, which may result to hesitation in individuals and communities to accept probable solutions that collide with their perceptions of what is proper and beneficial. Significance of Systems change Social systems are ever evolving and the continuous changes taking place often benefit many members of society in terms of improved service delivery; in most case scenarios, systems change will result to far-reaching consequences for all the members of a community (Christens, Hanlin, & Speer, 2007). For instance, technological innovations, the internet, as well as the invention of electricity has permanently impacted on communities by altering the ways in which people live and interact with one another in their neighborhoods. Generally, systems change will result into alterations in the social structure in terms of changes in culture, social institutions, social behavior, or even social interactions within a community of people. Systems change is significant particularly because it results to profound improvements in the outcomes of service delivery to the target population (Emshoff, et al, 2007). Systems of service delivery need to be efficient and reliable, even in the face of changing environments and resultant uncertainties that often compromise the standards, to ensure quality services are delivered to the citizenry all the time. In that case, social service delivery systems must always be dynamic and open to vital adjustments, which are crucial to accommodate the desired goals within the community service delivery system. System change initiatives often seek to upgrade services and service delivery to the citizenry, thereby rejuvenating poor neighborhoods, enhancing interconnectedness of people, addressing social issues such as childhood obesity (Suarez-Balcazar et al, 2007), while promoting access to resources and strengthening families and communities. Systems change is increasingly becoming the dominant and single most significant frame through which funders and practitioners (local, national and foreign) from a wide range of disciplines approach their work (Staggs, et al, 2007). In most cases, change agents and scholars will have deliberate primary objectives in their engagement with communities, which include shifting human services and community systems to establish enhanced and more just outcomes as well as to improve the status quo. System change perspectives are very significant for the delivery of improved services to the communities particularly since they provide the fundamental frameworks that stakeholders in change initiatives including funders and other social service practitioners can use to bring about the intended changes (Kreger, et al, 2007). Community Practitioners and Systems Change Community practitioners need theoretical and practical knowledge about systems change to guide their work in understanding, designing, and even assessing the change process from a systemic perspective. Theoretical and practical knowledge about systems change is very core to the work of community practitioners since they are directly involved in the change initiatives that are devised to enhance communities and the entire human services delivery system. By familiarizing themselves with the deliberate interventions designed to change the status quo by shifting and realigning the form and function of target systems within the community, these practitioners are able to realize their goals efficiently (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). Community practitioners often deal with social systems such as social agencies, service delivery networks, poor neighborhoods, or even whole communities, and the complexity of these systems requires a thorough grounding in the systemic approach to change. In the course of their work, community practitioners are required to undertake system change endeavors by altering the fundamental system structures alongside their supporting mechanisms including policies, routines, values, order of power, relationships, as well as resources, to enhance outcomes of the target population. Evidently, systems change initiatives are complex and challenging to execute perfectly with satisfactory success, and in many cases, systems change efforts often yield dwindling outcomes that are rarely near expectations. The only logical explanation to these disappointing results is that various limitations set in the conceptual frameworks that community practitioners use to comprehend, design, and assess their systems change efforts contribute to unprecedented failure of the system change initiatives. In this respect, community practitioners require theoretical and practical knowledge about systems change to guide their work, and more specifically, to enable them attend to the subtleties and intricate properties of the contexts they are trying to shift (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). Practitioners need to be thoroughly grounded in the systemic nature of the contexts they are targeting to change and the subtleties of the change process by possessing both the theoretic and practical knowledge about systems change to be successful in their work. In other words, a systems change requires a systemic perspective in conceptualizing the key issues that need to be addressed as well as the entire process of change designed to promote the achievement of the intended results. System Change Approaches There are multiple theoretical frameworks within the systems thinking that offer rivaling-perspectives on the manner in which system change should be defined, understood, and implemented (Parsons, 2007); in this respect, practitioners can draw upon and locate their approaches within these theoretical perspectives. For the purpose of this paper, in light of relating system intervention principles to the work of community practitioners, the two approaches namely Soft Systems Methodology and System dynamics within systems intervention field of application will suffice. The Soft Systems Methodologies (SSM) Approach Checkland advanced the Soft System Methodology back in the late 1960’s and since then, it has greatly transformed the system thinking through significant contributions to its theory and application in real world situations. The SSM disputes the common belief that systems that are centered on human activity are subject to the same norms of functional objectivity that are normally invoked in comprehending systems in the natural environment (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). According to the SSM, different stakeholders may experience and understand properties of human activity systems such as the purpose of the system, definition of the problem and the significant system boundaries differently, depending on their roles, position, as well as experiences. It is for this same reason that the SSM insists on engaging multiple stakeholders in establishing multiple pictures that depict the richness of the problem situation as well as the desired change; most importantly, all these multiple “rich pictures” are conceptualized as reflections of particular world views rather than objective realities. The most significant element of this process is that instead of striving for consensus, it seeks to identify ways in which the different stakeholders can integrate and accommodate their different worldviews (Leyva & Quintana, 2003); the SSM encourages a comprehensive analysis of problems by considering an array of factors such as the socio-cultural and political elements that structural frameworks often overlook. Strengths and Weaknesses of the SSM approach One of the strengths of the SSM is that it is most effective when the subjectivity of the situation and its formlessness make action premature (Platt & Warwick, 1995); particularly when the situation is ill structured and the diversity of perspectives limit the applicability of any one particular view. Additionally, the SSM does not require the collection or use of quantitative information thus is effective in non-computerized environments and situations where participants are less mathematically inclined. In addition, the SSM does not require the participants to mastery new vocabulary unlike all other models, thereby is easy to use in situations where participants are less inclined to learning new vocabulary. One weakness of the SSM is it is not appropriate in contexts that lack uncertainty about the problem even when disagreements regarding strategy are feasible and without sufficient systems vocabulary, participants may not be able to defend or transport their efforts to other contexts (Allenna & Stafford, 1994). Besides that, another weakness of the SSM is that its use is limited to situations where participants have sufficient time to share and influence one another as well as high levels of trust and openness within the participants to promote the discussions on their preferences and requirements. The System Dynamics Approach The system dynamics approach, advanced by Forrester, is an attempt to apply the general systems thinking principles in addressing managerial and social issues through the examination of cause-effect relationships within the system itself, to explain its behavior (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). This approach explains the system structure from interaction characteristics, to the role of feedback, to the impact of delays between actions and consequences, as well as the new complications that often emanate from unexpected eventualities. With these revelations, community practitioners can recognize the meaningful patterns within the system thereby identifying fundamental controls for change within the systems, besides establishing the root causes to given problems. Strengths and Weaknesses of the System Dynamics approach One of the strengths of the SD models is that they can be used to understand and anticipate change over time in intricate systems and it has a much broader information base compared to the numeric database, thus is most appropriate in “data poor” situations. This approach is also great in conceptualizing intricate and confusing situations such as the dynamic complexity that surrounds many public health issues (Homer & Hirsch, 2006), thereby enabling practitioners to anticipate patterns and sources of dysfunctions; moreover, this approach is essential for monitoring change by taking care not to overlook any emergence of unprecedented variables (Allenna & Stafford, 1994). One of the weaknesses of this approach is that the dynamics generated by information feedback and its circular causality are not easy to understand without the use of computers, thus for a serious analysis to be achieved, simulation is required to expose the dynamic insights. Apart from that, another weakness of the SD is that it cannot run more than one version of a situation concurrently even though it can capture a considerable variety in the shifting values of its variables. Due to this fatal limitation in the use of this model, varying stakeholder assumptions that seek to endorse different cultural or political agendas may result to completely different pictures altogether; nonetheless, a System dynamics diagram becomes very sophisticated when real situations with their numerous variables are modeled resulting to difficulties in interpretation of information presented. Rationale for system change frameworks Despite the increasing popularity of systems change as a fundamental frame that both funders and community practitioners at various levels of society can exploit in approaching their work, there is a serious shortage of frameworks that can be used in understanding, designing, as well as assessing the process of a system approach to change (Foster-Fishman, Nowell, & Yang, 2007). We need more research to understand applications of these frameworks in community settings since the current system change initiatives in social services delivery or community change have yielded disappointing outcomes. It is evident that the current system change initiatives are failing to deliver the anticipated outcomes since they have been constrained by numerous limitations embedded in the conceptual frameworks that are presently being used in understanding, designing, as well as assessing systems change efforts. For instance, in as much as systems change initiatives are designed to bring about the desired change in systems within the community, most of these system change initiatives do not take into account the systemic nature of the situations they target to change, and besides that, they are simplistic in their approach, overlooking the complexity of the change process. The wide gap between theory and practice can be bridged effectively through more research that will eventually link the practice of systems change in practical contexts to theoretical foundations, leading to the comprehension of applications of these frameworks in community settings (Peirson et al, 2011). Ultimately, systems change, the deliberate procedure of changing the status quo by shifting and readjusting not only the form but also the role of a targeted system, has increasingly taken the center stage in an array of initiatives that aim to create improved human services delivery systems in communities. Systems change may involve the “whole-system” a single element of the system, but most importantly, change initiatives are always substantial and beneficial to service delivery even though the course of change cannot be completely predicted or controlled, nuancing uncertainty, and risk. Systems change is significant particularly because it results to profound improvements in the outcomes of service delivery to the target population in the community; efficiency and reliability in systems of service delivery even in the face of changing environments and resultant uncertainties is highly desirable. Community practitioners need theoretical and practical knowledge about systems change to guide their work in understanding, designing, and even assessing the change process from a systemic perspective. The multiple theoretical frameworks within the systems thinking that offer rivaling perspectives on how to define, understood, and implemented system change. On one side, the SSM insists on engaging multiple stakeholders in establishing multiple pictures that portray the varied profundity of the problem situation as well as the desired change with the multiple “rich pictures” reflecting particular worldviews rather than objective realities. On the other hand, the System Dynamics approach explains the system structure including interaction characteristics, the role of feedback, the impact of delays between actions and consequences, as well as the new complications that often emanate from unexpected eventualities. References Allenna, L. & Stafford, B.(1994). The systems perspective: Methods and models for the future. AC/UNU Millennium Project, Futures Research Methodlogy. Print. Retrieved from: http://www.cgee.org.br/atividades/redirKori/545 Christens, B. D., Hanlin, C. E., & Speer, P. W. (2007). Getting the social organism thinking: Strategy for systems change.American Journal of Community Psychology, 39(3-4), 229-38.  Emshoff, J. 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Changing systems by changing individuals: The incubation approach to systems change. American Journal of Community Psychology, 39(3-4), 365-79.  Suarez-Balcazar, Y., et al. (2007). Introducing systems change in the schools: The case of school luncheons and vending machines. American Journal of Community Psychology, 39(3-4), 335-45. Read More