Family of Woodstock, Inc.
Family of Woodstock Inc. is a foundation that addresses and aids countless of Human Services issues which society faces today. This great organization was created to aid the increasing amount of issues that the inhibiters of the community were facing. In this paper, the writer will address; the factors that led the founders to create Family of Woodstock, how the Family of Woodstock specialized to meet the needs of the community, how the values, attitudes, and beliefs of this organization developed and changed over a 40-year period, and how have these changes affected the way they deliver services, and finally, in which way specialization has now become a trend across human services delivery.
The Woodstock organization adopted its name from the Woodstock Music Festival held in Bethel, New York, which was 115 miles away from the small town of Woodstock. This festival attracted an audience of 400,000 young people, brought instant fame to the surrounding towns, which began flooding with youth who would attend this massive gathering. Many young people would hitch hike and spend all of the funds they had to get there causing them to in turn, be left out with no food or shelter (Burger, 2011). Homelessness and drugs became an alarming issue. A woman by the name of Gail Varsi noticed and decided to take action. In order to prevent further imprisonment of the youth who came to the area to use or deal drugs, Gail Varsi gave the local police a hot line to contact her. She then got local businesses and residents involved and began hosting food and clothes drives. Family of Woodstock, Inc. was then founded in 1969 along with the help of Michael Berg and eight other members of a committee (Gibbons, 2011). The Family of Woodstock organization brought forward a no judgment attitude and extended its helping arms to all in need. Their mission statement says just that, “We maintain an attitude which is non-judgmental and non-directive, so that all...