In order to thrive over adult adversity or (ACEs: Adverse Childhood Experiences) whether personally or professionally, we must have compassion & unity across all of our life practice strategies. Too often, I have observed some colleagues & nonprofit agencies give "lip-service" support services combined with "marginal" uncompassionate efforts, which will always translate into "poor family & client outcomes".

1. COMPASSION & UNITY FORM THE BEDROCK OF FAMILY AND PEER SUPPORT
SERVICES
NOVEMBER 22, 2017
COMPASSION & UNITY FORM THE BEDROCK OF FAMILY AND PEER SUPPORT
SERVICES
Personally, during this Thanksgiving season, as I prepare my roast duck fixings and
other holiday goodies, I am grateful that my two adult children are flying off to visit
their Daddy, step-mother, brother, aunts, and cousins to enjoy a won©derful holiday
family gathering in Palm Beach, Florida,
As I reflect back with tremendous gratitude to God for the incredible peace, support,
and inspirational strength that I received from Him over the years as I navigated and
faced many family challenges and triumphs.
Basically, I have learned that our sole life purpose is not based on the attainment of
various job positions nor in the accumulation of financial wealth in properties and
portfolios but more of a rich life-based on intangible assets such as peace, love,
unity, and compassion that are more endearing, priceless, and of far greater eternity
value.
COMPASSION & UNITY FORM THE BEDROCK OF
FAMILY & PEER SUPPORT SERVICES
Cassondra Turner McArthur
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2. You see, many years ago, my nine-year marriage ended abruptly when my then
husband threw in the towel one year following the birth of our 2nd child and filed
for a divorce.
During the midst of that painful time and as hurtful as it was, it became clear to me
that there was a greater good, i.e., my children’s future potential was at stake and
that I was facing some very difficult decisions. I could focused on my pain and
seethed in emotional unforgiveness, commit acts of parental sabotage and
alienation against the kids’ father but really who was I going to hurt the most, me,
my ex-husband or our children?
The answer was “everyone” and so I had to quickly decide to give all of my hurts and
family issues over to God and in doing so, the answers to my prayers came swiftly, as
I continued to trust God each day to get me through moment by moment on how to
forgive my ex-husband and to forgive myself for our failed marriage.
I learned how to draw on God’s love, strength, and direction for supportive
resources that enhanced my own personal growth and enhanced my children’s well-
being while I slowly healed from the emotional trauma arising from the death of my
marriage. It became apparent that surrendering my will to God was key in
preventing me from lashing out at my ex and other family members with anger,
bitterness, self-pity, and self-retribution while all along allowing God’s compassion,
love, and forgiveness to fill my spirit/soul which eliminated my emotional stinking-
thinking and irrational behavior.
As I look back, I marvel on how God strengthened me in real-time to raise my two
children in a household of love, unity, and forgiveness while concurrently engaging
in a positive co-parenting relationship with my ex-husband during our children’s
formative years. You see, at first, I was going to minimize and structure my ex-
husband’s visitation rights and I even had thoughts of identifying other positive
male role models who could replace his presence in our children’s lives. BUT GOD!!!
It became crystal clear not to do that because in my family situation my ex-husband
was very much alive and he wanted to maintain his father responsibilities.
With God’s strategies, I started new family traditions, holiday outings and stayed
razor sharp with tracking each child’s academic, developmental progress, enrolling
them into various extracurricular and personal growth activities. In addition, I
agreed to 24/7 visitation access for my ex-husband to solidify his parent-child
relationship with each child and I included him in all of our children’s school plays,
music, and dance recitals. By God’s forgiveness, our post-marriage relationship was
not adversarial in nature nor did I use our children as pawns to deny or withhold
affection to the other parent.
As a result, our children did not exhibit the negative socio-demographic quality of
life indicators that are attributed to children who grow up in a divorced “broken
home” such as school dropout, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, drug
addiction, ..etc.
Currently, both our children are college graduates who have relocated, working
within their chosen professions and maintaining their own respective households
and family traditions. I continue to have a good relationship with my ex-husband
and we talk occasionally although not as frequently about upcoming family travel
events. Our adult children are loving and respectful toward one another and with
their family and I am so very grateful to God and for the inspirational support that
enables me to look back and to say as the title of a familiar old hymn It Is Well With
My Soul”.
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3. However, in my professional work, I started asking questions like how can some of
these fundamental or inspirational principles be applied to family and peer support
service delivery in impact ways that will strengthen other hurting families and
empower them to thrive?
I believe some inspirational attributes such as ‘compassion, unity and agape love”
can be translated or embedded into the human services framework without
proselyting for program service development, service delivery, agency policy
development and training programs that will educate front-line workers and
administrators on how to identify, promote and foster protective factors and
strengthen family resiliency for the “bounce back” from traumatic events.
FRAMEWORK /BEDROCK ATTRIBUTES FOR HUMAN SERVICE DELIVERY:
I. COMPASSION:
Wikipedia states that “compassion” motivates people to go out of their way to help
the physical, mental, or emotional pains of another and themselves. The etymology
of ‘compassion’ is Latin, meaning “co-suffering”. The difference between sympathy
and compassion is that the former responds to suffering with sorrow and concern
with the latter responds with warmth and care.” The English noun compassion
meaning is “to love together with” which again comes from Latin.”
HUMAN SERVICES PRACTICE
Strong Technical/Analytical Hard & Soft Skill Development-
In terms of transfer of services and/or for service delivery application, this means
providing services with “warmth and care, dignity and valuing each family member
for his/her future potential not only to each other but for their community.
Provide consistent performance management reviews of program service data,
treatment & prevention outcomes and socio-demographic data within each
neighborhood to determine if the agency’s delivery of family and peer support
services genuinely alleviate suffering for distressed families and determine are
these services building protective factors.
Ensure that all agency team members receive support, education, training and on-
going leadership development training that enable all workers to work in a positive
and supportive workforce environment. Implement customer focused training so
that agency team members treat each other with compassion and support.
Furthermore, it means that the executive staff works collaboratively and collectively
with community and intra-inter agency partners to secure agreements that will
provide staff and clientele with a comprehensive continuum of care.
2 . UNITY:
Dictionary.com - The world’s favorite online dictionary! defines “Unity” as the
state or fact of being united or combined into one, oneness of mind, feeling as
among a number of persons, harmony or agreement.
HUMAN SERVICES PRACTICE:
Senior Management – Performance Management -Collective Impact Approach
Shared Measurements -Community Hub Modeling - Local University Evaluation
Partnerships
This means having clearly stated long-range strategic goals & objectives with clear
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4. benchmarks and performance indicators that all staff and board members are
monitoring and tracking on a regular schedule.
It means offering a full array of comprehensive family and peer support services
either provided internally and/or linkages externally via through “Memorandum of
Understanding”(MOU) agreements with additional community partners.
Develop and promote inclusive strategies that incorporates “customer and client
voice” within long-range strategic plans and yearly short-range work plans for
corrective action steps and implementation of innovative evidence-based practices.
3. AGAPE LOVE:
According to the blog, ‘What is Agape Love?’ by Mr. Jack Zavada, he reports that
there are four types of love:
1) Eros- the word for sensual or romantic love
2) Philia- means brotherly love or friendship
3) Storge- describes the love between family members
4) Agape- It is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible. Agape love is selfless,
sacrificial, unconditional. Agape is the term that defines God’s immeasurable,
incomparable love for humankind. Agape love is a selfless love for another without
sexual implications. Agape love is active. It demonstrates love through action.
HUMAN SERVICES PRACTICE:
Continuous Quality Improvement- Stakeholder “Lived Experience”
This translates into establishing and tracking daily customer service feedback
protocols and conduct structured focus groups within your targeted neighborhood
obtain service data from individuals, youths, businesses & families on what is
culturally relevant to them.
Customer Focused Training-
This also means training staff and establishing policies and practices that are in
alignment with the agency mission, statutes, and customer needs. It means
providing research evidence-based services and curricula with outcomes that
enhance the quality of life.
Client Engagement-
This translates to providing service outreach, client advocacy, mentor-mentee
positive role-modeling linkages within traditional and non-traditional settings.
Providing prevention and other crisis intervention services that are accessible,
swift and targeted. Developing and implementing a comprehensive
communications plan that incorporates social media and print media
strategies.Disseminating service materials and program access points for clientele
that is current and easy to read
In closing, these are just a few identified bedrock inspirational attributes that can be
embedded within the human service program design and daily performance
management activities. The overarching goals are to provide compassionate,
unified, and unconditional family & peer supportive services that are customer
focused, inclusive, engaging, impact and moves the needle and taps into specific
family resiliency assets while strengthening additional protective factors that help
families heal from trauma while concurrently strengthening caseworker’s
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5. workforce/leadership skills.
SOURCE:
https://www.thoughtco.com/agape-...
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