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Health Care of Southeastern Massachusetts

Last Updated: January 29, 2004

Name of Organization/Institution: New Bedford Family Planning/Health Care of Southeastern MA.

Keywords: organizational development, workforce diversity

Description of best practice: Health Care of Southeastern Massachusetts (Health Care) is a nonprofit health and human service organization that has been serving communities statewide since 1976. In almost three decades Health Care has grown from a small family planning clinic in Brockton to one of the largest health and human service agencies in Massachusetts.

To accomplish this, Health Care promotes positive decision-making skills, provides preventive health and social services, and encourages supportive community institutions, which optimize human potential. Health Care provides services to individuals, families, communities, groups, organizations and businesses which seek to:

* Empower individuals to identify their personal needs and strengths to develop choices to promote health and reduce risk for disease
* Enable families to reach optimal health and well-being

Health Care supports diversity within the agency and in the communities it serves and views cultural diversity as an important asset in personal, family, and community life. Health Care strives to ensure that the agency staff reflect the demographic, linguistic, and cultural characteristics of their clients.

Health Care is committed to collaborative efforts that address barriers and develop assets to effectively deliver services to families and communities served through its programs. Medical, counseling and other social services are offered to all regardless of their ability to pay - no one is denied resources because of financial barriers.

Health Care has been successful in recruiting, hiring and training staff who reflect the cultural characteristics of the populations they serve. They did this by:

* Identifying community organizations and other resources which reflect the needs of the target population.
* Targeting vacancy announcements to specific populations through those mechanisms, including direct mailing, web-based recruitment, word of mouth, Board and staff involvement, etc.
* Developing entry-level as well as more senior level opportunities for the target population and provide structured training for recruited individuals in order to enable them to meet the requirements of the position(s) to which they were recruited.
* Providing on-going supervisory support during the initial probationary period.
* Providing financial incentives to reward specific linguistic or cultural capacities as funding allows.

Health Care is funded by state and federal governments, local governments, private donations, user fees, fees for service.

Please see Health Care’s website at http://www.hcsm.org/ for more information about their programs, services, and resources available to the community. Also available on the website are current staff vacancies by geographic and program area.