Can someone read over my case paperI cannot add a file so i just copied and pasted it...I did not add my references at the end either or the tables since they wont show up right here just need to see if this makes sense and flows and my in paper citations are correct.
Introduction
In July 1998, The Florida Legislature passed legislation creating Healthy Families Florida (HFF). This action was due to the increasing number of child deaths from child maltreatment. Healthy Families Florida is a nationally credentialed community -based, voluntary home-visiting program designed to allow families to raise healthy, safe and nurtured children. The program is to prevent child maltreatment, promote parenting skills, and help parents set and achieve goals for themselves and their children.
The program promotes positive parent-child relationships as well as healthy child development, as a way to prevent child maltreatment and other negative childhood outcomes. Healthy Families Florida offers home visiting services, beginning at the birth of a baby, to families living in geographically targeted areas who are experiencing stressful life situations. Services can last up to five years depending on the needs of the family, with the intensity and duration decreasing over time.
However, managerial issues arise due to lack of communication with the targeted families in need. Getting the information to these families is essential to the organization and has been the biggest issue in this organization. This case study will provide information such as critical analysis, a summary of literature review as it relates to the communication issues within HFF organization, solutions and recommendations, as well as an implementation plan for this organization to have successful communications with its clients, families, the public, stakeholders, and other organization.
Organization Background
Environmental Analysis
Political Environment
As a nonprofit, HFF operates under the strict confines of the requirements of Healthy Families America. The state-level Healthy Families Florida Advisory Committee meets regularly, reviews progress, and makes recommendations on program improvements and other topics. The Executive Director leads HFF. The Executive Director communicates with the Advisory Committee as well as the Administrative Assistant to manage the Training Manager, Assistant Director, and Senior Program Coordinator. The Training Manager delegates to an Administrative Assistant, MIECHV Training Coordinator, and a Training Specialist. The Assistant Director manages a senior program specialist, as well as three Program Specialists, and Contract Specialist. The Senior Program Coordinator works with the Program Coordinator and with the Admin Assistant for the Executive Director. Below is the HFF Staff structure.
As an ongoing organization that strives to help families in need, HFF is always actively seeking out new community contacts. Healthy Families Florida Advisory Committee’s is set up as a bureaucratic culture, in which the organization “emphasizes rules, policies, procedures, chain of command, and centralized decision making” (Gibson, et al. 2009). The role of this committee is to develop new ideas and present them to the Board of Directors of organizations such as the Ounce of Prevention Fund. HFF will discuss such topics as program policy and implementation, training, and funding. Further, in order for HFF to have a successful statewide strategy for communications, the use of two-way websites, text messages, or social media websites need to be available to these public officials, stakeholders, funders, as well as the legislators of Florida in order to help promote as well as fund this organization. The need for reliable and fast response communicate on is essential especially in fiscal and political stress.
HFF gets help and funding from many sources such as TANF Funds, which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; these funds are block grants, and funded through this federal agency. The help from such government agencies is important to HFF funding structure, which is discussed later in this paper.
Other government support is given to HFF through Tobacco Settlement monies that are federally funded and available for organizations that deal with child welfare such as HFF.
The monies received from these federal agencies are sent to the state through a series of formulas, and block grants such as TANF. Then the state will decide what agencies and how much each program will receive. This makes it essential for HFF to have superior communication established with not only the state but also these federal agencies in order to receive the funds needed to support the organization.
Economic Environment
The budget will consist of funding through several sources. The majority of the organization will receive at least part of their funding from Federal TANF and Government (tobacco settlement funds) which was discussed in the previous section. Two-thirds of the HFF
program will receive funding from Florida state general funds, and third party reimbursements, which consist of State department of Human Services, State department of Education, State Children’s Trust, State department of public health, and state of Florida children and family services. One third of the organization will receive funding from other sources (e.g. local in-kind and cash contributions). For funding and expansion of HFF program, see Table 2 below.
Social Environment
Healthy Families Florida has support workers that comprise the majority of staff members. Projects also employ data entry clerks, which will handle the substantial reporting requirements of HFF, as well as administrative assistants to help support program managers and other staff.
Overall, very few staff will work part-time. Almost all (94%) of Healthy Families Florida employees will be employed in their positions at a full time status. The remaining percentages (6%) will be at a part time, which are the family assessment supervisors.
Healthy Families Florida serves a diverse population. The average age at enrollment of participants was 23 years with a range of 11 to 79 years. Close to 40 percent of participants are 19 years old or younger when they enrolled in HFF. Black non -Hispanics (44%) comprise the largest group, followed by Whites (31%) and Hispanics (22%); other categories account for slightly more than three percent.
The families served by Healthy Families Florida are some of the most at risk children dealing with maltreatment. They typically have experienced adverse life situations that most Floridians never experience. They are primarily low -income, mostly single parents with less than a high school education living in inadequate housing. In addition, many have late or inadequate prenatal care, are socially isolated, have themselves experienced abuse and neglect in childhood or have been exposed or engaged in behaviors that may place their baby at risk. These include drugs and alcohol in the home, domestic violence and maternal depression.
Technical Environment
Healthy Families Florida has come a long way in improving its technical environment. When the organization started in 1998, the only means for communication with this organization was by going to the main organization. Further, with the help of the internet age much of the technical environment has improved with its success in training. Widespread training for the HFF staff helps the staff to prepare for any time of issue that they may face with new parents in today’s society. Healthy Families Florida has a training facility that offers face-to-face trainings, as well as, fundamental and cutting-edge training. Healthy Families Florida also offers online training that consists of a six and twelve months of training on many topics. New technology is always coming out to help improve an organization succeed in communicating with the public, clients, as well as stakeholders, and other organizations. Utilizing the use of websites, cell phones, and social media will help HFF succeed with the communication issues that have arisen.
Goal Analysis
Mission
According to HFF organizational mission statement, they state their mission is “To provide a statewide system of voluntary, community-based home visitation services that strengthen families, promote positive parent-child relationships, and optimize the health and development of children.”(input citation number here)
Goals
Healthy Families Florida’s goals of the organization are to circumvent the frequency of child abuse and neglect, enhancing parent’s ability to have a structured and nurturing environment with positive relationships with their children, encourage healthy child development and overall health, and ensure the family is self-reliant so the families medical and social needs are met. Finally, HFF wants to ensure every family is satisfied with the services offered.
Objectives
Healthy Families Florida follows the critical elements developed by Healthy Families America. The HFA model includes defined procedures as a basis for staff training, program operation, family involvement, and achievement of program outcomes for families and for participating projects.
Participant objectives include linking participants and children to medical providers. Other objectives measure program performance and ensure timely and appropriate services to families.
Stakeholder Analysis
Internal Stakeholders
Volunteers, financial officer, program director, and the early head start program all act as internal stakeholders for this organization. Each plays an important part within Healthy Families Florida and carries their own set of concerns. Information on each is in Table 3.
Among internal stakeholders, the primary concern has to do with personal or organizational financial stability. With the exception of HFF volunteers, all other parties are of financial concern. This is not surprising given each of their roles and the general financial state of the nonprofit sector.
External Stakeholders
External stakeholders include a variety of community volunteers, community resource agencies, HFF members. A summary of each interest group’s concerns are in Table 4.
In contrast to internal stakeholders, external stakeholders are primarily concerned with the continuation of superiority services. As long as HFF continues to affect the community in a positive way, it will justify financial and personal investment from all parties involved.
Critical Analysis
Communication is always an issue within organizations; the same can be assumed with Healthy Families Florida. The care and support for these families and children are HFF’s top priority. In order to efficiently provide families and children with the best care and support, communication with families, stakeholders, and other organizations is essential.
With various organizational stages and various employees at each stage, information is not always communicated efficiently or precisely. Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, and Konopaske (2009) noted, “Effective communicating is a critical skill because the manager’s planning, organizing, and controlling functions become operationalized only through communicative activity” (p. 427).
Stakeholders, both internally as well as externally depend on HFF to utilize a firm, communication process (Gibson, et al, 2009, p. 428) with knowledgeable communicators. Utilizing clear messages for employees to access over an assortment of methods in order to successfully obtain and provide the information, which will help HFF to receive positive criticism from the families helped, external stakeholders, employees, and other organizations.
Healthy Families Florida is a great program that helps new parents in need of caring for their new children, however, like any other program; there are major managerial issues that come along with it. After reviewing the Healthy Families Florida program, it is apparent that a major issue within the management of this program is communication. The website for HFF is easy to understand as well as finding any information you need about the program. Past evaluations, facts, contact information, and how the program is set up are also displayed on the website.
Any type of communication through the program is through telephone, in person, or through email. There are issues that arise with these types of communication, which are listed below, however, the main causes for most of these communication issues come from technical issues that arise from use of electronics, such as, cell phones and email communications.
This effects the program and causes problems when trying to help families in need of this service. Most of these families do not have enough money to afford cell phones or internet connections, this poses a problem for families that need this service and have no way of contacting them. There are many locations all over Florida within the HFF network; however, for families that utilize this service in person can only do so during certain hour of operation.
These challenges have posed issues within HFF; therefore, I believe that if we have volunteers at the hospital when these families give birth to their children this may help with the communication issues. The families can sign up for the program before they even leave the hospital. These services can be utilized in doctors’ offices, where if the doctor feels the family needs this service they can contact HFF, and the health department will be another outlet for communication for families in need of this program to sign up. For a further information on the causes, consequences/effects, and challenges within the communication issues see Table 5 below.
Literature Review
Past studies (e.g., Kent, Taylor, & White, 2003; Saxton, Guo, & Brown, 2007) have found that nonprofit organizations such as HFF do not utilize the use of websites as an interactive tool for communication. Reasons for this are due to lack of knowledge on how to create and maintain such websites with discussion boards, tweets, and social media information. In today’s society, the use of Twitter and Facebook are all readily available with interactive tools in order for nonprofit organizations to utilize their information. With use of these websites, organizations such as Healthy Families Florida can create a website full of information and network their organization to help families in need within the community. This type of social networking can give individuals up to date information as well as other means of contact to the organization if they cannot personally go to the organization. Adding social media to an organization is valuable in that 38 percent of active Internet users think more positively about companies that maintain a corporate blog (Universal McCann, 2008).
Andrews and Edwards (2004) have made it relevant that nonprofit organizations actively need to provide ways to keep information to the public available with the use of the social media (Kanter, 2009). Waters (2009) discusses how nonprofit organizations who mainly utilize social media use it to simplify management roles, educate the public with information about the organization, and communicate with individuals in need of their services. Research shows that only 83.6 percent of nonprofit organizations utilize the use of electronic networking in today’s society (Burt and Taylor 2000; Waters 2009).
Further, Kang and Norton (2004) discuss how less than 10 percent of nonprofit organizations utilize the use of interactive functions such social media links on their websites. This means that 90 percent of nonprofit organizations do not fully utilize the use of social media. Waters, Burnett, Lamm, and Lucas (2009) found that nonprofit organizations do not utilize the use of Facebook, with could help the organization build relationships within the community in which it serves.
This is essential within the HFF organization in order to provide information about their organization to the public and families in need of this service. This can help greatly with the managerial issues within the organization and help within better communication.
Social media networking has allowed nonprofit organizations to involve their stakeholders in a way that allows information about the organization to be sent instantly along with the ability to receive fast feedback. Interpersonal implications of social media networking have been the focus of recent research; although, very little studies have displayed any variance with the use of social media networking and its involvement with stakeholders due to the limited use of technology.
It is important for HFF to involve stakeholders as much as possible and allow them to get up to date information as to what is going on within the organization, events, and how to contribute.
Greenberg and MacAulay (2009) conducted a study that found Canadian organizations utilize a dialogic capacity of social media; however, these organizations only utilize messages. Waters, Burnett, Lamm, and Lucas (2009) discussed results in a cross-section of nonprofit sectors. Applying relationship-building features of 275 random Facebook profiles that displayed these organizations did not utilize Facebook for communication with stakeholders.
Organizational-level research via Twitter is another type of social media that is not utilized as much as it could be. Cass (2009) found that only 35% of Fortune 500 companies had active Twitter accounts. Further, only 24% of these companies actively responded to tweets and utilized up to date information. However, Twitter has displayed good use for organizations to keep good relationships between management, even though that was not the intent of the organization (Jansen et al., 2009).
Twitter can be utilized to give the public, employees, as well as stakeholders live in depth and up to date information as it is happening. Providing more ways for communication to and from the organization will greatly strengthen the communicant issue.
In Conclusion, the use of social media and social media networking is vital to a nonprofit organization in order to communicate, market and reach out to the community and to individuals who need these services. Giving the public, another means of communication is essential for the organization. Because for many families in need today, they just don’t have the time between working two jobs and having to pick up their children by a certain time to get information from an HFF center. By allowing communication to be given and received through social media will fill the communication void with families, stakeholders, and other organizations greatly.
Nonprofit organizations need to utilize as many ways as possible to get the information out to the stakeholders and public. Common issues with many organizations are that the hours of operations do not fit everyone schedule and countless emails go unread or answered. Many organizations struggle with answering and returning phone calls as well. Further, many websites do not have an ease of access for the organization information due to lack of funds and knowledge staff who can crate and update these types of websites. Facebook and Twitter allow these organizations to apply the information and other means of communication such as messaging, tweeting, chatting, and emailing. Having a website that is easy to access for no cost to the organization is very cost effect and beneficial to the organization. Many questions and or concerns that individuals may have or are too embarrassed to call and discuss over the phone or in person can now quickly and effectively be answered. This type of communication is perfect for small nonprofit organizations to get their information out to the public and community in a timely manner and cost nothing to the organization.
Solutions & Recommendations
Within Healthy Families Florida, the internal stakeholders are working hard at trying to communicate in person or via email and phone. However, this comes with many challenges in order to have efficient communication that reaches the public with the most up to date information about the organization. HFF utilizes different resources in order to communicate within the organization to reach out to the community. However, here are some recommendations that may help with the communication issues HFF are having.
Recommendation 1:
Healthy Families Florida should utilize the use of an extranet system, which would provide extra ways to communicate with vendors, families in need, and external organizations (Gibson et al 2012). This recommendation would help to build a closer relationship with the partners, community, as well as the vendors that help support this organization. Further, this allows families to have direct access to information and direct access to the volunteer helping them. Finally, employees and volunteers can utilize this system to link family’s information to other volunteers or employees in case the family’s representative is unavailable or is out of town.
Anderson (1998) notes that utilizing extranets helps organizations share information, decrease costs of operations, helps to save and utilize time and resources, and customer service improves.
However, there are a few drawbacks to utilizing extranet into an organization. The high cost to maintain and train employees to use this system makes it difficult for nonprofit organizations to set up a system such as this. Another drawback to extranet is the amount of time that it takes to creating and maintaining the system, which can cause delays within communication.
This recommendation would help build relationships with partners, vendors, and the community. Strengthening the organization even more, customers will have direct access to up to date information at time and at any location. Further, this recommendation will strengthen communication by allowing employees to work from any remote location and link up to date information on families to other employee’s accounts in case the family’s representative is unavailable.
However, a few weaknesses of this recommendation are that the cost to start up an extranet system is very costly. In addition, the amount of time it would take to create accounts and to train employees on how to utilize the system will be time consuming.
Recommendation 2:
The second recommendation would be to utilize the use of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. With use of these social media websites, organizations such as Healthy Families Florida can create a website full of information and be able to network their organization to help families in need within the community. This type of social networking can give individuals up to date information as well as other means of contact to the organization if they cannot personally go to the organization. Adding social media to an organization is valuable in that 38 percent of active Internet users think more positively about companies that maintain a corporate blog (Universal McCann, 2008). Social media networking has allowed nonprofit organizations to involve their stakeholders in a way that allows information about the organization to be sent instantly along with the ability to receive fast feedback. Further, the use of social media provides yet another way for individuals to get information about the organization who may not be able to do so over the phone or in person (Gibson, et al, 2012: 443).
Greenberg and MacAulay (2009) conducted a study that found Canadian organizations utilize a dialogic capacity of social media; however, these organizations only utilize messages. Waters, Burnett, Lamm, and Lucas (2009) discussed results in a cross-section of nonprofit sectors. Applying relationship-building features of 275 random Facebook profiles that displayed these organizations did not utilize Facebook for communication with stakeholders.
Organizational-level research via Twitter is another type of social media that is not utilized as much as it could be. Cass (2009) found that only 35% of Fortune 500 companies had active Twitter accounts. Further, only 24% of these companies actively responded to tweets and utilized up to date information. However, Twitter has displayed good use for organizations to keep good relationships between management, even though that was not the intent of the organization (Jansen et al., 2009).
With this said, the organization must understand that there are some cons that come with use of social media within their organization. Social media communication major drawback is that once information is posted, within seconds any user around the world can read and comment on the post (Gibson et al 2012). Depending on what is post could harm the organization.
Further, Gibson et al (2012) discusses how social media has become a distraction for our everyday work. Social media is causing employees to become distracted, therefore, leading to missed phone calls, and emails not sent in a timely manner.
This recommendation would help the organization reach out and connect to millions of people and other organizations quickly and effectively. Strengthening the organization even more, the organization can send and receive fast feedback to stakeholders, which is essential in many factors to the organization. Post upcoming events, starting a discussion, and providing up to date information on the organization will strengthen the void in communication.
However, a few weaknesses of this recommendation is that everything that is posted can be seen by the public and this can hurt the organization if something negative or bias was posted. Another weakness is that employees would become distracted and less attention would be given to answering phone calls or checking emails.
Recommendation 3:
The third recommendation to improve communication would be to utilize the use of cell phones for employees to communicate via text message. Gibson et al (2012) discusses the many reasons why text messaging has many more advantages when compared to the traditional methods of email, radio, or TV. Gibson et al (2012) also discusses other benefits of utilizing text messaging in an organization. For one, any employee can text a potential client from anywhere and at any time; which help those individuals who work during the organizations hours of operation and cannot make phone calls during work or come in. Further, Gibson et al (2012) discusses how text messaging is less expensive when it comes to marketing and networking compared to advertising on the radio or TV. Further, Gibson et al (2012) states this form of communication is favored by the younger families in need of service.
Philling and Barrett (2007) found that electronic text messaging was used the highest from people ages 19-29 years old and 30-49 years old. For young adults ages 15 to 18 and 19 to 29 this the most frequent form of communicating. The families that need to utilize HFF the most are the younger adults who have children at early ages. Some are single parents and need assistance in caring for their children. Utilizing text-messaging services for HFF will help these young adults get information about the organizations and ways they can get in contact with a volunteer to aid then at home.
Some cons that come with text messaging are the cost to give every employee a cell phone. Most non-profit organizations have little to no funds so it would be impossible to fund every employee and volunteer with a cell phone. Another issue with text messaging is that there is no way to make sure that individuals who text the organization for information after hours are receiving the information. Many employees work nine to five and once they go home they do not want to work after hours. It would be hard to make employees answer text messages after hours.
This recommendation would strengthen communication within the organization because
in today’s society many young adults are having children and need ways to find help from an organization and these young individuals are too afraid to be seen in public or to call and get information, so this recommendation would help the void in communication with the younger families in need. The cost to have a texting service within the organization to help promote information and communication is far less expensive than other methods and this recommendation can be utilized at any location at any time of day. This helps families whose schedules do not allow them to make it to the main organizations business before it closes for the day. Finally, this recommendation has less spam that can corrupt a whole system in a matter of seconds, which would cost the organization more money to fix.
However, a few weaknesses of this recommendation are that if every employee received a cell phone this would cost the company more money if the employees lost or had their phones stolen or damaged. Another setback would be that some employees might not be able to answer text messages after hours, which would delay communication.
For more information on communication solutions, and the strengths and weaknesses see Table 6 below.
The final recommendation is to implement all three of the recommendations discussed above, in order to have efficient communication within the organization. Special attention would be to utilize social media first, since it is quick, easy to navigate, and free. To achieve these a team of social media advisors will set up accounts on Facebook and Twitter; this will allow the organization to reach out and connect to millions of people and other organizations by sending and receive feedback to stakeholders, families, and other organizations effectively and efficiently. Employees will be trained on what is allowed to be posted on these social media websites. If an employee posts or makes any type of rude comments or post that may affect the organization, proper action will take place to discipline the employee. Further, there will be certain times of the day that each employee is allowed to log on and make comments or posts on these accounts, these employees will sit at a certain social media section within the building that is designated solely for the purpose of social media comments and posts. After their time is up the employee must go back to their assigned desk and finish out their other daily duties.
Further, setting up on ten employees with cell phones at first will help with the initial costs of utilizing cell phones for text message communication. Utilizing cell phone will have less spam then sending and receiving emails. I would then recommend asking volunteers that do not get cell phones (e.g. new employees still in training) to utilize their own personal cell phones in order to help alleviate the other employees. There will be teams of employees and volunteers that will rotate different shifts for helping to utilize the text messaging after hours. This will alleviate the day shift from having to be paid over time and or exhausting them.
Finally, utilizing the extranet system will allow employees to work from any remote location and can link information on families to other employee’s accounts in case the family’s representative is unavailable. This helps to build a positive relationship with vendors, families, and coworkers but allowing them to receive effective and efficient answers to questions or problems. Sine an extranet system is very costly, numerous grants will be written to the state requesting more funds to be utilized in the organization. Further, in the beginning much the monies received will be utilized to start up these recommendations, leaving future budgets to help fund them.
Implementation Plan
Many challenges occur within an organization when trying to have efficient communication that reaches the public with the most up to date information. Healthy Families Florida utilizes different resources in order to communicate within the organization to reach out to the community. The implementation plan below will discuss the recommendations regarding communications within HFF.
Three recommendations in the implementation plan will be discussed such as the use of an extranet system that will help provide an alternative way to communicate with vendors, families, and external organizations. The second recommendation would be to utilize the use of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. With use of these social media websites, organizations such as Healthy Families Florida can create a website full of information and be able to network their organization to help families in need within the community. Finally, the third recommendation in order to improve communication would be to utilize the use of cell phones for employees to communicate via text message.
In order to implement these recommendations within an implementation plan Healthy Families Florida will need to hire communications specialists along with a social media advisors and a training coordinator. These three positions will be crucial for the organization to send and receive information, along with utilizing and setting up the extranet system as well as utilizing social media, and the use of cell phones in order for effects ways to communication with the public as well as the stakeholders and other organizations.
Utilizing communication specialists as well as social media advisors will help the organization develop a smooth transaction and continuing communication. The implementation plan below will examine the budget costs, activities, schedule, as well as who will be responsible for each task needed.
Table 7 gives details on the activities, personnel in charge of that task, budget cost, and schedule. Since this communication proposal is for a nonprofit organization, the implementation plan will begin every year starting October 1 and go on for three months. All managers will conduct the interview process for communications specialists, social media advisors, and training coordinator prior to the start of this implementation plan and the cost to hold these interviews will be done during normal business hours and will not be included in part of this implementation plan. For a more detailed view of the implementation plan, see Table 7 below.
Continuous training for employees once a month for 8 hours will cost $160.00 a month and $1920 Annually. Upkeep and repairs will include any maintenance and repairs on the extranet system will cost $62.50 a month, upkeep, and up to date information on social media websites once a week will cost $ 120 a month, and cell phone plan cost and insurance on 10 cell phones will cost $ 320 a month this will total to be $6030 annually. Total charges for upkeep, repairs, training, and maintenance will cost $662.50 per month and $7950 annually. See Table 8 below for monthly and annual costs with training and maintenance.
The first step is to develop a meeting for ideas on utilizing the three different types of communication scheduled for August 1 – August 10, which will include the managers, communication specialists, and the social media advisors utilizing a max of eight hours within this period. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss and come up with ideas and concepts on how to utilize the three types of communication within the organization and how to utilize the budget to set these up. August 11 – August 13 will be for the managers, communication specialists, and the social media advisors to put together the final decisions and presentations on how they want to utilize these services utilizing a max of four hours within this period. August 15th, the director, managers, communications specialists, and social media advisors will discuss and agree on the concepts decided in the previous week to use to set up these tools for communication utilizing a max of four hours within this period.
The second step is to develop a meeting to discuss what types of extranet system, social media websites, and cell phone company and phones will be utilized in this plan. This will be scheduled August 20 – August 30 and will include the managers, communications specialists, and the social media advisors utilizing a max of eight hours within this period. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss what extranet system is the best for the organization, what social media websites will be used, and what cell phone company and types of cell phone will be utilized. September 1 – September 3 will be for the managers, communication specialists, and the social media advisors to put together the final decisions and presentations on what system, websites, and cell phone company and cell phones to use utilizing a max of four hours within this period. September 5th, the director, managers, communications specialists, and social media advisors will discuss and agree on the systems, websites, and cell phone companies and cell phones that were decided in the previous week to use for this plan utilizing a max of four hours within this period.
The third step will be to develop a meeting to discuss what types of training will be needed in order for employees to be well trained in all of these devices. This will be scheduled September 10 – September 20 and will include the managers, communications specialists, and the social media advisors utilizing a max of eight hours within this period. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss what types of training is needed for employees to be able to utilize these devices. September 21 – September 23 will be for the managers, communication specialists, and the social media advisors to put together the final decisions and presentations on what types of training they agree will be beneficial and cost effect for the organization utilizing a max of four hours within this period. September 25th, the director, managers, communications specialists, and social media advisors will discuss and agree on the training types needed for employees to utilize this plan utilizing a max of four hours within this period.
The fourth step will occur during October 1 – October 10 in which all the different types of devices will be installed, purchased, and set up. An extranet specialist will come in, set up the software on all computers, and link them all together for every employee to utilize. The social media advisors will create accounts and administration access as well as design and add employees to websites. Finally, the communications specialists will purchase cell phones and cell phone plans and work with the social media advisors to help add the social website apps to each of the ten cell phones.
The fifth step will utilize the training officer during the time period of October 15 – October 31st. Within that period, the training coordinator will utilize one eight-hour day or two four-hour days to train all employees on these devices and software programs. Continuous training will be held every month utilizing a max of eight hours within this period.
The annual budget will be released every year in the beginning of September, allowing one month for Healthy Families Florida to make changes or addition to their plan. The budget will consist of funding through several sources. The majority of the organization will receive at least part of their funding from Federal TANF and Government (tobacco settlement funds). Two-thirds of the HFF program will receive funding from Florida state general funds, and third party reimbursements. One third of the organization will receive funding from grants or other sources (e.g. local in-kind and cash contributions). For funding and expansion of HFF program see Table 9 Below.
Conclusion
For this case study, Healthy Families Florida covers the program’s initial development through a mature, fully functioning, and stable program. Florida Legislature passed legislation creating Healthy Families Florida (HFF) in order to decrease the number of child deaths from child maltreatment. Healthy Families Florida is a nationally credentialed community -based, voluntary home-visiting program designed to allow families to raise healthy, safe and nurtured children. The program is to prevent child maltreatment, promote parenting skills, and help parents set and achieve goals for themselves and their children.
However, managerial issues arise due to lack of communication with the targeted families in need. Getting the information to these families is essential to the organization and has been the biggest issue in this organization. This case study has provided information such as a critical analysis, summary of literature review as it relates to the communication issues within HFF organization, solutions and recommendations, as well as an implementation plan for this organization to have successful communications with its clients, families, the public, stakeholders, and other organization.
With the utilization of an extranet system, social media websites, and texting from mobile phones in order promote more ways of communication both within the organization, as well as with the community, families in need, vendors, and stakeholders. This will help not only to fill the gap of communication in which HFF was experiencing, but also to reduce the number of child deaths from child maltreatment but promoting HFF services to the community.
Implementing the plan discussed in this case study will allow for further research on communication. Researcher can send out surveys or questionnaires about how effective these types of communication are working. Further, a separate study can be done on the effectiveness of social media as well as text messaging to find out, which provides the best method of communication. From there, HFF can gather their committee together to develop other means of technological communication that can be utilized. It is always good to survey the employees to see if they are able to utilize these types of technological communications. Further research can be done to see if the use of social media is too distracting in the work place. It will be interesting to see how well this implementation of communication works out for HFF.