What Does Good Service Look Like For Formerly Incarcerated People?
Good service can come in multiple ways from doing charitable acts to mini projects to fighting for social change. But we view good service as a quick good deed that we can do that makes us feel happy and make it seem we did something. Before having the chance of volunteering with Francisco Homes I used to think that short-term charitable work was the best/only solution because it was able to make an immediate impact on the problem. But it only gives a transactional and temporary feeling of relief. After volunteering with the Francisco homes , I realized that charitable acts work but we need to add on to it to create a deeper change. Advocating for social change and doing charitable acts gives a better solution to the problem because it addresses the immediate needs but also targets the root causes due to you being more connected with the community.
The Francisco homes is a project based organization that creates a chance for people who were incarcerated to go back to the real world, “offers hope and multi-faceted, holistic support to formerly incarcerated individuals aspiring to reintegrate back into the community.”. They do this by doing project based work which is their transitional housing program. But the service I do with the francisco homes is spending time talking and hanging out with these individuals. Doing this charitable act has its pros and cons when looking at what is good service.
Charitable acts are defined as “the provision of direct service where control of the service (resources and decisions affecting their distribution) remains with the provider.” (Morton). These acts play a big role with volunteering with the Francisco homes due to you having a choice from doing a writing workshop to actually hanging out with them for a little bit. These writing workshops or just little events can actually benefit the recipient, in the article Busted Halo a formerly incarcerated person talks about how charity acts can make someone’s day by just being there, “Moments of encounter with another can be personally transformative, and that is one of the greatest blessings”. While doing the workshops you did see a sense of happiness due to them meeting new people and getting to express how they feel but just being there overall. This version of service is generally labeled as spending a time with a person which is good but it sometimes shows the lack of commitment or lack of concern with the root cause of the problem. Morton points how charitable work does not attempt to try to make a change in the problem but just only puts a bandaid over it to make it seem like you did something, “planning and delivery of service are limited and fragmentary, the decision making process is closed, and little, if any, attempt is made to understand or effect the structural cause of the problem”. These writing workshops or just spending time with these formerly incarcerated people does give a little sense of care and somewhat help. But it doesn’t help out the issue of making it easier for formerly incarcerated people transition, due to it not focusing on the root of the problem. Which is why charitable acts aren’t the best but is social change any different?
Social change is defined as the advocacy for change and actually helps reach the root cause of the problems. The Francisco homes don’t really apply social change to their work but they should since it helps give a better understanding of the environment. Morton explains that social change helps by “ building relationships among or within stakeholder groups and creating a learning environment that continually peels away the layers of the onion called the root causes.” This really helps connect with the group you’re trying to help with and shows that you’re trying to eliminate the root cause of the problem, however the problem with that is the person helping can develop a hero complex and can cut contact all together after they helped fight for social change. In the Despostions book they describe some people having a savior complex, “believe in the native that a single person can drop into an unjust situation … and “save the day”.” This shows that the people helping can have a bit of entitlement with them and create a feeling of belittlement from the recipient. It can also create a lack of care after fighting for social change due to the person thinking they did “enough” so they can stop. Although social change is good it does have some drawbacks to it which raises the question: does having an equal balance of Charitable acts and fighting for social change create the best way of service help?
Finding the balance between charitable acts and advocacy for social change is the best and most effective way of good service for the francisco homes. Advocacy for social change helps fight and go straight to the root of the problem but it can create a hero complex with the community, one way to fight that is make the community get involved too. Morton says “those people affected by the change should be involved in making that change”, the way we do this is by doing charitable acts and showing we’re here for the long run. The way we i can relate this to the francisco homes is to do chatibale work such as spending time or doing writing workshops with them to get a deeper connect then fighting for social change together like go to town hall meetings to help change laws, then after rather just leaving the community alone you keep on checking up on them to give them a since of a strong bond and not be belittled.
After volunteering with the francisco homes, the idea of good service has changed from it being just spending temporary time and looking at it from a transactional approach to finding the balance between doing charitable acts and advocating for social change due to you creating a deeper bond with the community and help fight the root cause of problem. The francisco homes has a great cause and does a lot of great work but it needs to find a balance between charitable acts and fighting for social change with people that want to help other than just writing workshops.
