Mary Wilson has been a therapist at Mainstreet Community Mental Health Center for 8 years. For some time now she has been concerned that, while the community where Mainstreet is located has a growing Hispanic population, the agency is not very responsive to this population. About one-third of the people living in the community are now Hispanic but only about 10% of the agency's clients are Hispanic. No member of the Board of Directors is Hispanic and none of the agency's full-time staff speaks Spanish. She has informally discussed this issue with several of her colleagues and while many of them agree with her "in principle," there seems to be a general lack of will among the staff to seriously address the problem. Mary has recently been promoted to Director of Intake and Outreach for the agency. As the Director, she hopes to be able to help make the agency more responsive to the needs of the Hispanic population. Using the open systems perspective, look at this agency situation and consider the following questions.
 
What is the main problem and in which sub-system is it located?
 
 
 
 
 
 
What additional sub-systems are involved in this situation?
 
 
 
 
 
 
What about Mary's promotion? Does it involve a change from one sub-system to another? What new skills and motivation are needed in her new position?
 
 
 
 
 
 
What strategies might Mary consider in bringing about change? What other sub-systems need to be involved? How might those changes effect the other sub-systems?
 
 
 
 
 
 
What environmental consideration should she be thinking about?
 
 
 
 
 
 

Return to exercises

Return to syllabus