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FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions About SPEC

General Questions

FAQ for Members of SPEC-Affiliated Organizations

FAQ for Members of Other Organizations

FAQ for Individual Community Members

FAQ About the Theory and Practice of Community and Organizational Change

Answers

General Questions

What does SPEC stand for?

SPEC: Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment, Community Change.

What are SPEC's goals?

To promote well-being by concentrating on people's strengths, preventing foreseeable problems, providing voice and choice, and changing community conditions that lead to suffering.

Tell me more about SPEC's four components.

Strengths: People thrive when their strengths are acknowledged and appreciated. Concentrating on deficits diminishes people's dignity and alienates them.

Prevention: There will never be enough helpers to assist all those who need help. We need to concentrate on the root causes of health, psychological and social problems. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Empowerment: Control, voice and choice are essential for well-being.

Community change: We can never eliminate social or emotional problems one person at a time. We need to work on the very conditions that lead to problems in the first place

Why should community-focused organizations change?

The primary motivation to change community-focused organizations, especially those engaged in delivering human services, is that traditional ways of operating are not sufficient. Focusing on helping individuals one at a time can never change systemic causes of widespread distress. To become more effective, helping agencies and similar organizations must re-assess their ordinary assumptions and procedures.

Why is it so hard to change organizations?

Change is hard! Despite the best intentions and hard work of most staff members, traditional organizational settings too often direct energy and focus toward case numbers, quotas, rigid rules, and similar barriers to flexibility and imagination. Career pressures are another factor in hierarchical work settings where too often there is little personal benefit from looking at the big picture. Under these circumstances, calls to change things often meet with apathy or resistance. Moreover, many staff members likely remember past efforts to change organizational routines that turned out to make little difference for their clients.

Can SPEC make a difference?

Yes!

How is SPEC different from other approaches to organizational change?

SPEC adopts a comprehensive approach to exploring organizational functioning at different levels, taking into account both the constraints of the organizational setting and the systemic causes of the problems the agency seeks to address. Much of this website describes SPEC's tools for change.

Does SPEC only apply to working with organizations?

No! Although our team at the University of Miami has focused primarily on human services agencies, SPEC is just as useful for professionals who work with individual, group, or other organizational clients as well as those seeking broader community changes. Moreover, it is useful for non-professionals seeking to spark change at every level.

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FAQ for Members of SPEC-Affiliated Organizations

How will SPEC help my organization do its job better?

SPEC is designed to shift the emphasis in human services organizations from crisis management to the promotion of a culture of prevention. By working directly with organizations, we seek to provide personnel with the knowledge, tools, and experience to examine their organization's beliefs, structures, and functions. This collaborative project helps human services personnel change their organizations to ones that implement strength-based, preventive, empowering, and community-based approaches.

How should my organization's participation in SPEC affect me? 

If your organization adopts a SPEC framework for self-evaluation and change, all organizational participants have a role to play. Working together (with or without the assistance of Miami SPEC team members), the organization's staff members, managers, and clients attend meetings, brainstorm options, and contribute in other ways to transforming organizational functioning. See the examples elsewhere on this website. 

Where can I learn how SPEC is working in other organizations?

See the examples described in existing SPEC projects.

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FAQ for Members of Other Organizations

Is SPEC right for my organization?

Perhaps. SPEC was designed primarily with human services organizations in mind, and we have worked with many through formal arrangements. Even without such an arrangement, however, you can make use of SPEC's concepts and methods to help your organization assess its mission and methods and implement change. Our approach is relevant to any organization seeking to bring about change.

How do I get my organization to consider SPEC?

First, point organization participants to this website so they can learn more about SPEC. Feel free to contact SPEC team members with any questions.

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FAQ for Individual Community Members

Why do so many organizations designed to help the community do such a lousy job?

We know how frustrating it is when organizations in our own community leave so much undone. Problems can range from overworked or uncaring staff members and managers to bureaucratic and political constraints to a failure to understand the community the agency is supposed to be helping. Community-focused organizations never have enough resources to meet all needs - and even with more funding, traditional ways of operating typically reflect a restricted view of what is possible.

Does SPEC only work if an organization wants to change, or can I use SPEC to stimulate change from outside?

Ideally, organization participants are in the best position to make needed changes. Outside advocates and organizers can try to spark organizational efforts, and SPEC's analysis can be used to make the case for change to organizational decision makers. It can also be used to help community members create effective advocacy organizations, which can have more success instigating change than lone individuals.

 

FAQ About the Theory and Practice of Community and Organizational Change

Where can I read more about SPEC and other approaches to community and organizational change?

Here!

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