Information is Power

 Dave Duncombe has been working this past year at the Greater Douglas United Way as their Resource Manager through the AmeriCorps VISTA program. His job has been to implement the 211info service in Douglas County. As his VISTA year is coming to an end, he says he's been reflecting on the impact of 211 service on the community it represents and wanted to share his thoughts on our blog. Here is what he wrote:

Sometimes people ask me: How can a referral service like 211info that does not actually provide a direct service to clients raise the quality of life for the 16.6 percent of Douglas County residents who are living in poverty? Social services in this area are going to exist with or without 211info.

My answer lies in the Latin maxim scientia potentia est, roughly translating to knowledge is power. Applying this maxim to what we do here at 211info, you could say information is power. Increasing a person’s knowledge can increase that person’s potential. So, increasing access to information opens doors that were previously closed.

The main focus of my job is to research all the health and human services in this area. I admit that when I first started, I was naïve, just like most people who do not know much about the service provider community. I thought it would be an easy job. I would just need to look at a couple of resource directories, enter the information into the database, do a victory dance, and move on to the next task.

One year later, I am still working on expanding the database. I estimate that I have collected detailed information on at least 300 different services so far. These services aim to help individuals with their current struggles, and also work with them to improve their lives in the future.

The infrastructure is in place to raise the standard of living for those in poverty. However, the knowledge of what services exist and how to access them is lacking.

How can we expect people who are struggling and down on their luck to navigate through such a complex mesh of services on their own? How can we expect them to find a resource that can help them when it took me a year to fully research these 300 plus services? The answer, obviously, is we can’t. People who are unemployed and struggling to feed their families need access to the information that can improve their situation – and they need that information fast.

211info is a way to connect people to resources with just a simple phone call. Not only can they get answers on what services could help with their specific problem, but also the staff at 211info can work with them to problem solve and discover solutions in ways that callers may not have considered.

At 211info, we are using our knowledge to give callers access to the information that can improve their situation. I think that is quite a powerful concept.