The Community Service Council's Mission, History & Roles

MISSION 

The mission of the Community Service Council (CSC) is to provide leadership for community-based planning and mobilization of resources to best meet the human service needs of the greater Tulsa area.
 

ROLE

Prevention is the Council's guiding principle. The Council mobilizes collaborative community-based planning and action to prevent problems, and to improve human service systems and the policies and funding which affect them. The Council identifies needs; conducts research; informs the community about conditions, needs, services, best practices, and opportunities to help; advocates for effective decision making; develops pilot/demonstration projects; develops resources; supports service providers through technical assistance and networking opportunities; and links people with helping resources.

FUNCTIONS

-   Studies issues with an eye on improving the future
-   Researches steps for improvements and solutions
-   Mobilizes action, leadership, funding and other resources
-   Educates and engages the broader community
-   Assesses progress and stimulates new directions
-   Provides early, easy access to help through telephone assistance, publications, and presentations
 

HISTORY & HIGHLIGHTS

Community Service Council has been a United Way member agency ever since it was founded in 1941. Throughout CSC’s history, its essential core functions have provided the necessary infrastructure for the Tulsa community to plan and act effectively to address a wide range of emerging human service issues and concerns. The Council’s unique role within the community is to bring together service organizations, units of government, business, civic, religious, health, and education institutions, and concerned individuals, to shape more effective action to meet some of Tulsa’s most critical needs. CSC’s overall strategy is to serve as a leadership catalyst for improved community action to best support people in need and stimulate greater investment in human development—helping individuals and families become self-sufficient and successful.

Planning councils across the country originally were formed to bring social agencies together to communicate, identify issues of shared concern, and explore ways to work cooperatively to better serve people in need. This role as a neutral, knowledgeable and trusted convener, bringing diverse groups together around the same table to focus cooperatively on the common good, remains a key Council strength. The Council’s first project, in 1941—preparing a “Directory of Welfare Services”—demonstrated two other unique and enduring Council roles. First: undertaking activities which are beyond the scope of any single agency, but which benefit the overall human services community and/or the people it serves. Second: increasing access to community services by collecting and maintaining information about resources, and making this information available both to those who need assistance and to service providers. Today, CSC’s resource publications (available in print and online) and CSC’s general and specialized telephone information and referral services help link people with needed assistance in a coordinated, comprehensive and efficient way, providing early, easy access to help.

Coordinating services and helping reduce unnecessary duplication, to improve service systems while also assuring efficient use of funds, are other key Council roles. The first of many examples came during CSC’s second year, when the Council assisted the merger of the Children’s Service Bureau and United Family Service Association to become Family and Children’s Service.

Identifying community needs, conducting research, and planning and mobilizing for needed action are other ongoing Council roles. The first Council study, back in 1942, focused on the child care needs of women working in WWII. In the 40’s and 50’s, focus areas included veterans’ needs, juvenile delinquency, and mental health. In the 60’s and 70’s, targeted issues included poverty, alcoholism, child abuse, needs of recent immigrants, integrating ex-offenders back into the community, and parent education. Issues receiving Council attention in the 80’s included domestic violence, unemployment, homelessness, long term care, perinatal care, teen pregnancy, youth development, women’s concerns, and HIV/AIDS. In the 90’s the Council’s focus expanded to encompass maternal/child health, early childhood development, family support, school-linked services, youth development, community inclusion for persons with disabilities, preventing youthful drunk driving, family planning, welfare reform, child poverty, and school readiness, with an overall emphasis on prevention. The complex problem of child poverty, and Tulsa’s growing Hispanic population, were additional focus issues as the new millennium began. Additional challenges now being addressed by CSC groups include health care for the uninsured, Medicaid changes, reduced state and federal funding for human services, and needs of Tulsans who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. The Council addresses these and many other community issues through an array of efforts including task forces, coalitions, research studies, reports, pilot projects, resource publications, awareness campaigns, training events, resource development, information dissemination, building community partnerships, public policy advocacy, technical assistance, mobilizing community and volunteer support, and other activities. The capacity for sustained involvement and leadership necessary to address complex problems over time is a key traditional strength of planning councils and something for which CSC is widely respected.

Promoting informed decisions about the allocation of funds to address human service needs has been a main Council role ever since 1944, when the Council’s “Analysis of Budget Procedure by Community Fund” led to more focus on needs and agency accountability. Policy makers and funders have long sought the Council’s information about community conditions and needs, and its guidance about allocating resources most effectively. In 1981 the Council convened the Metropolitan Human Services Commission (MHSC). Its partners now include the United Way, the City of Tulsa, Tulsa County, Tulsa Public Schools, Union Public Schools, Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Tulsa Health Department, and Tulsa Community College, as well as the Metro Chamber, Founders & Associates Foundation, and Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry. MHSC partners have since worked to coordinate their efforts to identify community needs and direct their resources accordingly, and to join with others in public policy advocacy to bring about needed changes.

Many times, Council recommendations have led to the creation of new community entities to more effectively address specific community needs in a coordinated and innovative way–often working closely with the United Way and/or other funders, both public and private. Most often, the Council’s roles are those of planner, catalyst, convener, partner, and advisor. Sometimes the Council incubates a new entity and helps it become either a freestanding organization or part of a partner organization. Other times, the Council manages it on an ongoing basis. Among the many notable entities created as the result of the Council’s involvement over the years are the Tulsa Planning Commission (1951), the Mental Health Association (1953), the Community Hospital Planning Council (1965), the Central Child Abuse Registry (1970), the YWCA Multicultural Service Center (1976), Helpline (1979), the Tulsa Volunteer Center (1983), the Day Center for the Homeless (1985), the Long Term Care Authority (1986), the Child Abuse Network (1989), the Northside Family Resource Center (1989), the HIV Resource Consortium (now Tulsa CARES) (1992), Healthy Start (1997), the Tulsa County Partnership for Early Childhood Success/JumpStart (2003), Children’s Behavioral Health (2005), Conecciones (2006), and Tulsa Area Community Schools Initiative (2007). Providing consultation, technical assistance and staff support for many local and state planning initiatives (recently including the Governor’s Task Force on Early Childhood Education, Oklahomans for School Readiness, Step Up Tulsa, the Olmstead Disabilities Planning Group, the Rogers County Coalition, and many others) is another important way the Council supports, informs, and guides planning and action addressing community goals.

Over the years the Council has recognized that to reduce complex social concerns, we must use a much broader array of approaches, increase our own and our community’s focus on prevention, and engage additional partners. Having begun as a trade association of social agencies, CSC now works not just with service-provider agencies but also with departments of government, legislators, foundations, corporations, for-profit service providers, consumers, civic and community groups, the media, and leaders from other sectors.

The Council’s overall emphasis integrated throughout its work is on building the community’s human capital—creating conditions and opportunities that increase the potential for people to take better care of themselves, their families and children, and each other.
 

Revised January 2008