An Ecological Paradigm

Abstract

Consultation is defined as a preventive service, the goal of which is to create a variety of social, economic, and psychological resources for the continued development of the consultee organization. Ten principles are presented for the assessment and development of the consultee organization. These principles focus upon ways to generate social support and self-direction for the individual members and for the total organization. The framework for the presentation of the principles is an ecological perspective which emphasizes the concepts of persons, settings, and events as resources for the individual members of the organization and the total organization. Ecological concepts are presented, such as interdependence and adaptation, to direct the work of the consultation. Working from an ecological perspective, the consultant focuses upon assessing the natural social processes that bind persons and social settings together, while also assessing the prospects for how new social processes can be generated. Consultation succeeds as a preventive service when the organization is able to identify and create its own resources internally and then link to other external resources. This chapter provides the orienting framework for four case examples in the following chapters.