Journal 4: Organizational Analysis

Based off of Bolman and Deal’s Four Frames I chose to use the Human Resources one since the attributes are expressed through the dynamic seen at Crisis Text Line. Human Resources stress the importance of using the right people who have acquired the right skills. The organization that I volunteer with does a great job of screening individuals who are trying to become crisis counselors. We have to undergo a background check before we’re approved to train to text others on the platform that we use to communicate. Once we pass the background check our training does an efficient job at preparing us to take conversations with others who are reaching out. Things like risk assessing, how to handle conversations dealing with trauma, and next steps are discussed.

Crisis Text Line does a great job at making sure their volunteers have what they need to succeed. One of the strengths I’ve observed at this organization is that they seem to really care not only about those reaching out to us, but their volunteers as well. I always get notifications about workshops that they’re hosting to help deal with conversations or our own mental health. The organization does a good job at checking up on us to make sure our well-being is taken care of as well as trying to give us resources to help our skills improve. A weakness that I could say has been seen would be I wish they recruited or promoted their need for volunteers a bit better since we’re running low on crisis counselors especially when it comes to night shifts. I haven’t seen much marketing on the roles that this organization offers so I would recommend their team try to express their need for more volunteers since we do have lots of people texting into our line that have to wait until a counselor is available.

Another great way this organization makes sure that we have good dynamic is by hiring supervisors to watch over us 24/7. If there’s a problem with one of our conversations or something else that we need advising on, we can chat with one of the supervisors on shift. Implementing this system has allowed us counselors to have the resources needed to make sure we’re fully understanding the work that we’re doing while volunteering. We even have ways to track our progress on the platform that we’re using by showing us how many conversations we’ve completed, and how many people we’ve helped which stands as the perfect motivator.