How 211.Org Can Help with Public Service

211.org

Alice Mary Ouzenian

Post University

211.org

There are many different service trends/settings that are described in our textbook. A few are aging, housing, confronting death and dying, sexual orientation, and the workplace (Woodside, 2015). I live in Glendale, CA, and the great thing about 211 in my area is that all of the services provided are not targeted towards one specific population, but instead, there are a lot of resources to help everyone in need. For example, when I looked for services for the elderly, I found help for the aging to get healthcare, assistance to live at home, end of life care, and food. Some of the programs offered for the elderly include medicare, medical, hospice care, as well as In Home Supportive services, (IHSS) and transportation services like Access, which provides free and low-cost transportation to seniors (211LA, n.d.). As far as confronting death and dying is concerned, Los Angeles Department Of Social Services offers hospice care, as well as assisted living facilities along with therapy and supervision by physicians in order to make sure that an individual’s quality of life is still great until they die (211LA, n.d.).  What was surprising to me was all of the different resources there were for Gay, and Lesbian individuals. According to 211.org, there are programs that provide advocacy, such as the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the GLBT National Help Center (211LA, n.d.). There are talk lines, such as Children Of The Night, and The Trevor Project, whenever someone needs to talk about his or her sexual orientation (211LA, n.d.).  Community Clinics, as well as Women’s Health Centers provide health care to the LGBT community (211LA, n.d.). As far as different resources for the workplace are concerned, there is helping finding employment, managing money, helping those get skills to find work, and resources to help make it possible to work in spite of having difficulties like having children and such (211LA, n.d.).  One way that 211 can help others find employment is through agencies such as worksource centers, which not only help you find jobs, but they help with building resumes, and setting up small businesses (211LA,n.d.). Employment support that is offered is child care referrals to help with the cost of childcare, as well as classes to further a person’s education so that they can make more money doing work they love (211LA,n.d.). Money management services offered include credit counseling, debt management, and tax filing, and information (211LA,n.d.).

A trend that I believe is not being represented by the Los Angeles county in regards to providing support is the racial and ethnic diversity trend. The reason why I say this is because when I looked up resources in my local area, there was help offered for all sorts of different things such as healthcare, GLBT issues, mental health, transportation, food, and shelter, yet there was no mention of cultural support. The 2012 U.S. Census report revealed that for the first time ever, there were more nonwhite births when compared to the number of white births in the united states (Woodside, 2015). So I feel that this is something that should be addressed, or support should be offered to those that feel they might be different than everyone else in their community, as well as to those that are racist and do not like the fact that there is diversity where there didn’t used to be.  

Technology was really used in the way that those that needed help can gain access to it. In the past, everything was done using paperwork that had to be filled out and returned to an office, mailed in, and the people looking for resources had to wait a long time before the paperwork was processed in order to get help. Nowadays, almost every resource that is available in my community can be accessed via the internet through the organization’s website, as well as processed and submitted instantly. An example of this is when someone needs help with grocery expenses and want to apply for food stamps, they just call the hotline to request an application and at that time are given the option of visiting the organization’s website in order to fill the application out online, access the application to see the status of their application, and even to upload documents that are needed by the department in order to prove that they qualify for food stamps. By using this method, instead of going back and forth and waiting for paperwork to be processed, a person has access to see what is going on with his or her case and to provide supporting documents instantly rather than waiting for these sorts of issues to be resolved via regular mail and interviews.