Service Blueprinting X Chatham County Homeless Authority
Duration: 10 Weeks Team Members: Sparsh Jain, Katie Rowell Role: Service Design
Objective: For this class, we worked with Chatham County Homeless Authority (CCHA) and SCAD SERVE, a student volunteer organization, to better understand the approach that SCAD was taking to recruit student volunteers for local projects. We were looking for unmet needs and opportunities for better interactions.
Research Methodologies: Expert Interviews, Process Analysis, Ethnographic Research
Our group had the opportunity to visit the site for CCHA’s latest project, the Tiny House Project. This was an ongoing effort in construction to build tiny homes for homeless veterans.
“There’s no training for the volunteers, so a lot of their work has to be undone and rebuilt.”
Executive Director CCHA
Barriers:
1. Multi-channel communication inconsistencies
2. No adequate training program for volunteers, work has to be undone and rebuilt by paid workers during the week
3. No platform for student volunteers to guarantee attendance, participation expectations, and transportation
How do we fit in?
We narrowed down insights from interviews with the Executive Director of CCHA, the Site Superintendent , and the SCAD SERVE Student Coordinator. We established some key motivations.
Work with federal and local agencies to abolish homelessness in Savannah and advocate for the needs of the CCHA and
public perception of their work.
Better coordinate activities of individuals on site by providing better training and coordinating with all program directors to ensure completion of
project.
Encourage more student volunteer enrollment and make volunteering easier and more exciting.
FINAL BLUEPRINTS
Takeaways: This project was a great lesson on reigning in the scope of the investigative lens we were looking at our problem with. Since we chose to work with a government entity, we quickly learned that there are many complex systems of people and offices that have to constantly interact with one another. Taking a human centered approach to our investigation helped us to capture the current state of the relationship between CCHA, SCAD SERVE, and their contractors.