Human service agencies are charged with the responsibility of providing care to those who are in need. Care recipients represent all walks of life. However, those who provide the services are not reflective of those they serve. This study focuses on affirmative action training and its effect at a selected facility of a human services agency. There is a general notion that racism and discrimination have contributed to the lack of minorities (particularly blacks) obtaining their fair share of positions of authority and influence. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts had directed all of its agencies to implement affirmative action in 1972. However, by 1989, this human service agency and the selected facility had not achieved their respective affirmative action goals. The search, in part, revealed that (1) the agency had to be subject to a Federal conciliation agreement to initiate its affirmative action activity six years after being directed to do so by the State; (2) the majority of blacks hired at the facility during the early 1980s were confined to entry-level paraprofessional and service maintenance jobs; and (3) the facility conducted its first and only comprehensive affirmative action training in 1989. The training was developed to provide key managers and supervisors with knowledge and awareness needed to fulfill the agency's mandate. Each training participant responded to a pre- and post-training attitudinal questionnaire and examination. Interviews were conducted with five randomly-selected trainees. Results indicate that: the agency has been slow and, in some cases, reluctant to implement the affirmative action mandate; the facility suffered from the residue of the agency's inactions; however, it has more recently demonstrated that affirmative action can be implemented successfully; and affirmative action training can be beneficial in enhancing knowledge of affirmative action while raising levels of sensitivity and awareness of key managers and supervisors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-7763 |
| Date | 01 January 1990 |
| Creators | Kennedy, Haskell Odell |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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