Frontline Staff as Social Innovators

Abstract

Frontline staff people are largely untapped resources as potential social innovators. This article describes how one staff person strengthened the ability of low-income clients to become more self-sufficient by adapting a cost-effective and capacity-building educational strategy to her daily work environment. The same educational strategy can lead to “microdemocracy” in which individuals use essential democratic skills in ordinary encounters with public agencies. The article concludes by presenting several criteria that must be met in order to make it possible for frontline staff to become social innovators.

Dominique had recently moved to Philadelphia when her landlord insisted that she immediately sign a document he presented to her. She hesitated, thought about what she was being asked to do, and refused to sign.

Her hesitation saved her, because the document would have effectively forced her to vacate her apartment in 30 days so that it could be rented to another tenant. Had she signed, Dominique might have found herself in a homeless shelter. She could have been one of many standing in line for a Section 8 certificate, or appealing to an overwhelmed Legal Aid lawyer for help to get back into her apartment. She did not have to disrupt her life or access additional social services to put her life back in order.

What is most inspiring about this story, though, is that Dominique’s refusal to be coerced resulted from skills that she had just learned in her GED and job training class. In effect, in addition to teaching reading and math skills, Dominique’s instructor taught her taught her how to ask her own questions and pay attention to decisions affecting her — how to be her own advocate.

In teaching Dominique these self-advocacy skills, the GED instructor, Ms. Earldine Tolbert, demonstrated how frontline staff in social and human service agencies can become drivers of innovation in daily practice. She took initiative to adapt an educational strategy to her workplace and began to work in a different way — and, in the process, demonstrated the great potential for frontline staff to build the capacity of clients and consumers to become more self-sufficient. The important individual, programmatic, and social outcomes resulting from this increase in self-sufficiency and self-advocacy can all be accomplished without additional funding, personnel, or resources that would be required if creating a separate discrete program.