Organizational Leadership Community Collaboration Project on American Red Cross

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling Case Study

Introduction

West clean is a non-governmental organization that deals with offering human services that serve to provide a conducive environment to shield the youth from alcohol, substances and drug abuse. The organization has chosen to mainly focus its activities in Baltimore city given that it is the worst hit city by drug abuse and alcoholism. The organization acknowledges that crime is one of the most explicit problems in the city. The organization as managed to successfully link the high crime level to alcoholism and drug abuse among the youth living in Baltimore City (Connolly & Olson, 2012). The problem is that the youth are currently too deep in drug use and dealing such that it has become a norm. Children leave their classrooms and go out dealing or abusing the drugs.

Leadership Theory Applicable in the Situation

Looking at the nature of the problem and the goals and objectives that the organization intends to fulfill, only one leadership style of execution comes to mind. This is the transaction leadership style. Transactional leadership focuses on the supervision of a project or an organization as well as the performance differential. In this case, the leader uses a combination of both positive and negative reinforcements in the shape of rewards as well as punishments in enforcing behavior (Connolly & Olson, 2012). For instance, when the subjects show or follow an expected desirable behavior, they receive a positive reinforcement in the shape of a reward. When the subject exhibits an undesired behavior, they receive a negative reinforcement in the shape of a punishment. In the case of Baltimore city, it is clear that the youth are getting something that they desire from dealing and using drugs. This benefit has to be replaced with some other benefit that arises from not dealing or using alcohol and other drugs.

Gaps That Require Leadership

As stated earlier, the youth of Baltimore receive a benefit from dealing drugs and abusing alcohol and other subjects. This benefit could be in the form of the emotional tranquility that comes with substance and drug use or the financial benefit that comes with dealing drugs (Moos, 2017). Based on the basic human instincts, all people want to do things that are helpful in the society but the benefits and the costs that are attached to each deed direct the decisions that we take. Taking this into consideration, the youth in Baltimore just need something that will replace their benefits leaving a choice of choosing what is good or not good. This is where the transactional leadership comes in.

For Instance, the organization wants to change the focus of the youth from entering the drug league and dealing with going to school, completing education and being successful in life. The thing that stands between the youth and this is the money they receive from selling drugs. To eliminate this need for money, the organization will offer full scholarships at school and facilitate their accommodation. The qualification for this is staying clean from drug use and staying away from dealing drugs (McColl, 2017). This will serve as the positive reinforcement to motivate the youth to leave the drug life and get to education. As far as negative reinforcement is concerned, youth on the program who slide back to the drug is and dealing will risk losing their school allowances, accommodation and at the very extreme lose their full scholarship. This will serve as an incentive for them to stay away from drugs.

Socio-political and Cultural Factors Affecting Collaboration of Agencies in the Case

There are various socio-political and cultural factors that affect collaboration of organizations in this case. Majority of the issues are based on the fact that the city is predominantly made up of the black community (Brown, 2010). The black community living in the city do not trust the intentions of the non-governmental organizations of white origins that claim to provide human services to the city residents. This is the basis of all the challenges facing collaboration of agencies in the project. This limits the scope of non-governmental agencies that are sufficiently capable of running an alcohol and drug abuse programs in the city (Brown, 2010). Secondly, there is minimal interactions and missing of white and black communities in the society making it hard for the organizations to run a successful program. Programs are viewed as intended to be used by the black community making it look like tracking.

Legal and Economic Factors Affecting Agency Collaboration

One of the most prominent legal issue affecting collaboration is the extent of the willingness of organizations to be involved in student tracking. Student tracking refers to the situation where the students are separated into different groups according to their academic ability. Students that are excellent are put in one group while the rest are put in another group. The program is close to tracking given that the children that have been most affected by alcohol and drug abuse are separated from the rest. Under the US law, student tracking in education based on academic ability is illegal, however, some activities can be exempt from tracking (Brown, 2010). The agency definition of tracking affects the ability of agencies to collaborate.

The most relevant economic factor that affects the ability of agencies to collaborate in this case is that the people in the city have different economic abilities. Given the diversity of the city, there are white communities that are well of and others who are not. The same thing applies to the black communities. However, the menace of alcohol and drug abuse does not discriminate on this basis. Youth across the board are affected by alcohol and drug use either through dealing or through actual abuse. Some organization views the problem as an economic issue while others see it as Baltimore city youth problem. This makes the collaboration to offer human services against this position difficult.

Multisystemic and Multicultural Issues with West Clean

There are various Multisystemic and multicultural issues that face the organization. Multisystemic issues refer to systemic viewpoints of the organization that do not converge with the viewpoints of other organization. One of the Multisystemic issues is the issue of student tracking. Given that the organization seeks to identify the students that are affected by alcohol and drug abuse and separate them from the rest of the group for specialized human services, it does not view this as tracking (Stone et al., 2012). However, the organization around view it as pure tracking which inhibits our ability to secure partners in the project.

The most significant multicultural impact facing this program is that the residents of the city have different viewpoints about the problem that West clean intends to solve. The white community believes that the issue of alcohol and drug abuse is a black youth problem and therefore the program should be addressed to the black youth (Bahr et al., 2012). The white folks do not wish for their children to be included in the program. This affects the programs ability to attract large volumes of youth in order to obtain a bargaining power for the purposes of raising funds required in financing the project.

Role of Socio-Political and Legal Factors in Leadership Decisions

The above-stated factors are the main drivers of leadership decision making. As far as the socio-political factors are concerned, the apparent differences between the white communities affect the way that the program is run in terms of internal dynamics as well as financing (Stone et al., 2012). However, the leadership seeks to make the program appealing to both factions by dealing with an issue that cuts across the social differences. The most contagious legal factor in this program is the issue of student tracking. The decision that has been made in response to this is that the organization wishes to go it alone and later use the results of the program to seek partners and financiers after they can prove a success.

Reference

Bahr, S. J., Masters, A. L., & Taylor, B. M. (2012). What works in substance abuse treatment programs for offenders?. The Prison Journal, 92(2), 155-174.

Brown, R. T. (2010). A systematic review of the impact of adult drug treatment courts. Translational Research, 155(6), 263-274.

Connolly, F., & Olson, L. S. (2012). Early Elementary Performance and Attendance in Baltimore City Schools' Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten. Baltimore Education Research Consortium.

McColl, W. D. (2017). Theory and practice in the Baltimore City drug treatment court. In Drug Courts (pp. 3-26). Routledge.

Moos, R. H. (2017). Evaluating treatment environments: The quality of psychiatric and substance abuse programs. Routledge.

Stone, A. L., Becker, L. G., Huber, A. M., & Catalano, R. F. (2012). Review of risk and protective factors of substance use and problem use in emerging adulthood. Addictive Behaviors, 37(7), 747-775.