Social Service Web of Life; Survival of Outsourcing

Since I have started working, I have been asking myself, "Why am I here?" Not only why am I, Renee Smith, here at this agency, but why is this agency here? It seems to me a brain drain on the county. Once the rockstars of clinical practice, people here now sit at desks making more money than their cubicles would suggest. I often wondered why the many agencies providing the same services competed for resources rather than uniting.

Assessing our different counties, we found five that were doing extraordinarily well in one particular practice area. Attempting to capture what it is they do that they could share with other agencies, we found that all five counties use providers for this particular practice. The county calls upon a small agency that was created to do what the county essentially does in this one area.

Normally I would bemoan the separation. This time, though, I pictured the web of service providers like our broader ecosystem. Then it made sense that certain agencies would specialize, just as species have endured by specializing. And perhaps, as in nature, there is a certain (social) security to this sort of diversity.