Monthly Archives: May 2019

Lives Transformed — PART 4

Here’s the last of a four-part series focusing on Circle Leaders who have changed their lives with Circles.

“There’s so much support. It’s a ‘push’ support. They want to see you succeed. They want to see you reach your goals.” —DeShawn Daniels, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania


I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, the second of four kids. And while we grew up in subsidized housing, I didn’t notice we were living in poverty— my mom never showed the struggle. She always had a job. We had a supportive stepdad who was a constant presence in our lives. And we went on outings as a family. I was practically a teenager before I learned we received food stamps.

I completed high school and the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC). At 19, I received rental assistance, moved out, and started working full-time at a childcare center earning $6.25 per hour. I had a boyfriend and was shocked when he became physically violent. I had never experienced anything like that growing up. Threats from him forced me to move back home.

Still working, I ventured out on my own again at age 24. I got an apartment and a new boyfriend. At age 25, I had a baby girl. When my daughter turned 2, I started college for nursing, but I couldn’t make it work between my job, going to school, studying, and getting her to and from daycare each day. After two semesters, I dropped out but later completed a certified nursing assistant (CNA) program, which helped me get a job at an adult rehab center.

During the next 10 years, I had two sons and continued to work full-time, supporting three kids. I was earning too much money to receive food stamps but was unable to save any money. I had no hope of owning a home until I was invited to a homeownership class, a class that led to Circles.

About five years ago, many families living in the East Liberty neighborhood were displaced and moved into Section 8 housing to make room for a new development. I was one of six people eligible for a program that helps single moms become homeowners. I was in this program when Circles first began in Pittsburgh, and my initial reaction to Circles was no, I didn’t need more meetings. But Circles included childcare and a meal each week, so I agreed to attend.

At the first Circles meeting, I wanted to leave because it seemed the others in my class were struggling with issues much worse than mine. I didn’t talk during the first two meetings, but by the third or fourth meeting, I started opening up. Before we met our Allies, we had 12 weeks of training where we shared our stories and learned about all the barriers that keep people in poverty.

We were nervous the day we met our Allies. I thought, “What can they possibly do for me? These people were born into money. How are we supposed to make this work?” Then I realized they were just as nervous as we were.

I discovered my Allies truly cared about me so I kept going back. I was matched with Quianna, who knew all about homeownership because she had just purchased her first home, and Sarah, who is a budgeting queen and knows a lot of people.

The biggest challenge for me was saving money. I was wasting money eating out and buying little, unnecessary things. I didn’t realize it until I wrote it down. They make you write it all down. It was hard to get a paycheck and put the money away. But I was 42 and had no savings. I didn’t have student loans, but I did have some credit card debt. I didn’t know it was hurting me until I saw my credit score.

When the second Circles group started, I stayed. The program got better with each session. I’m now in the fifth class, and Circles is thriving here. Much of the material I know, but I still need all that support. Our Circles has been so much fun we even have a relay team for the Pittsburgh Marathon. I never would have tried this on my own. There’s so much support. It’s a “push” support. They want to see you succeed. They want to see you reach your goals.

At the end of 2018, I purchased a home of my own. My sons’ father is very involved with all three of my kids, who are now 19, 9 and 5. My daughter is a freshman at Seton Hall University. I’m now in charge of scheduling and payroll at the rehab center, and I earn $18.23 per hour. My credit score is 740. I still get excited when I check my credit score every two weeks. It’s a great feeling.

© 2019

Systems-Thinking and Continuous Quality Improvement

Poverty and many societal problems faced today in the United States and around the globe are complex and interconnected. For example, children living in poverty are at greater risk for poor academic performance and retention; abuse and neglect; and behavioral, socio-emotional, and physical health problems (1). As we know, the challenges faced by individuals and families living in poverty rarely arise individually. And yet, our institutions and programs historically were designed to address a specific need or limited subset of poverty-related challenges. This approach has resulted in a collection of siloed poverty management programs instead of a true poverty reduction system.

Furthermore, change is a natural phenomenon we experience daily. Many of us can still remember when phones were tethered to the wall and mobility while on the phone was limited to the length of a telephone cord. We, as consumers, rapidly change our preferences, demanding increased technological innovation in support of improving the effectiveness or efficiency of our activities of daily living. The ongoing pressure for technological innovation, in consequence, drives global competition, transforming local economies and the nature of available jobs. In a world of complexity and constant change, linear thinking is insufficient.

Systems thinking is a foundational requirement for transformational leadership. Systems thinking is based on theory and methods used to optimize the performance of any collection of objects (e.g., in nature, society, or science) that are interdependent and work together to produce an outcome or result.(2) Optimization in systems thinking generally focuses on increasing the efficiency and/or effectiveness of a system in pursuit of a specific outcome or goal (e.g., reducing child poverty by 10% and having families reach 200% of the Federal Poverty Levels).

Systems theory explicitly acknowledges that perfect performance at the system level is unobtainable. Our goal, therefore, should be the creation of a learning system that is continually working to improve. System thinking, when more broadly viewed as a philosophy, can lead positive disruption towards changing the culture of an organization or system. Peter Senge described a learning organization as one “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together.” (3)

In the Poverty Reduction Lab program, participants receive training and coaching to become adept at applying Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) principals, methods, and tools. CQI, as a discipline, is fundamentally grounded in systems theory and the principles of creating a learning organization.

W. Edwards Deming, an American engineer, is one of the fathers of systems thinking and its application to continual improvement of quality in industrial systems. His early work, starting in 1950 in Japan, is credited as a primary driver of Japan’s post-World War II industrial recovery. His work directly contributed to Japan becoming a world economic power. (4) As an engineer, Deming focused on manufacturing applications. Today, CQI principles and methods are standard practice in industry. CQI methods and tools are used to ensure planes take off and land safely, our food and medicines are safe, and a size 12 pair of women’s slacks has a consistent waist circumference (OK, maybe more work is needed for that last one!).

CQI, as a discipline and management philosophy, has also broadly been adopted by service organizations, including in the fields of education, healthcare, and public health. Consequently, there is a strong evidence base in support of the benefits of creating a culture of quality and applying CQI methods and tools to optimize system efficiency and effectiveness. However, CQI might be a relatively new concept for public agencies and nonprofit organizations, at least as compared to the decades of experience in industry and healthcare. For many public and nonprofit organizations, the introduction to CQI arrives when a desired funding source requires it as a condition of receiving a grant or other financial award.

As staunch advocates for the transformative power of systems thinking and the discipline of CQI, CQIU (5) is consulting with Circles USA on Poverty Reduction Labs and other initiatives. Our goal, with you and other regional partners, is the development of a coherent, continually improving, poverty reduction system. CQIU has a combined total of more than 30 years of experience in supporting healthcare and social care organizations and networks begin the journey of culture change and implementation of CQI methods and tools.

Today’s problems are often yesterday’s solutions.

— Peter Senge

By focusing on events, we become reactive, seeing only the tip of the iceberg.(6) Instead, systems thinking leads us to transform our mental models and redesign underlying systematic structures. This change in mind-set and approach can then be leveraged to optimize a system, even when the system is immersed in a dynamic, seemingly chaotic, environment or seems intractably broken.

In practical application, systems theory can be applied at many levels. You, yourself, reside in a system, interconnected to others through work, home, family, friends, and the religious, civic, and social organizations in which you belong and participate. By examining your life as a system, you can more efficiently and effectively work toward having a happy, balanced life that follows your values and meets your goals, simultaneous to and in alignment with the development of a poverty reduction system in your community or region.

Darcey Terris Founder and Principal Consultant of CQIU Quality Work. Quality Life.

————————————————————

The content for this Blog Series is drawn from the Poverty Reduction Lab program, a collaboration with CQIU.

The program’s focus includes:

    • Dismantling the poverty management system,
    • Leading your community through the four stages of change, and
    • Creating a pathway to end poverty.

To stay tuned, sign-up for The Big View Newsletter, our monthly bulletin about poverty research and policy change.

1 “Effects of Poverty, Hunger and Homelessness on Children and Youth,” American Psychological Association, available at: www.apa.org/pi/families/poverty.aspx.

2 Systems theory, as a general area of study, originated in part through the work of an Austrian biologist named Ludwig von Bertalanffy.

3 Source: “The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge,” 1990 (updated in 2010). New York, NY: Random House.

4 Deming is often called the “father of the third wave of the industrial revolution.” The Deming Institute, www.deming.org.

5 CQIU includes the “U” in their name, as CQI is a universal approach that can be applied to address many of the seemingly intractable societal issues that public agencies, nonprofits, and businesses face on a regular basis.

6 Source: Adapted from “The Iceberg Model” by M. Goodman, 2002. Hopkinton, MA: Innovation Associates Organizational Learning.