Learning Organization and its Impact on Psycho Social Rehabilitation: A Case Study

Abstract

This study brings about the effect of learning organizational practices and its impact on rehabilitation endeavours at a psychosocial rehabilitation centre working with the displaced street dwelling psychiatric patients in Kerala state in India. Most of the residents here come from different walks of life. Some are rescued from the trains; others are from the streets and a few of them are displaced mental patients from the neighbouring states. The methodology adopted for this study is a case study approach where the interview with professional staff, management team, and other stakeholders were done to understand the level of learning organizational practices in the organization after one year of learning organizational intervention.  As part of the research, in-depth interviews and Focus group discussions were conducted with the beneficiaries and multi-disciplinary team to understand the level of rehabilitation and to understand the attitude of the people directly involved in the rehabilitation process. The result of the case study shows that learning Organizational practices changed the organization from its charity vision to a human right approach coupled with social work intervention resulted in scientific rehabilitation. The consistent effort of the management changed the organization as a learning organization where Peter Senge’s five principles of learning Organization such as team learning, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, and system thinking gave rise to professional approaches in organizational management, rehabilitation, and social work intervention. Out of the 235 abandoned mental patients, 100 of them are truly rehabilitated in one way or another ensuring dignity and self-worth. The findings of the research underline the need to replicate this professional rehabilitation model based on the Learning Organization to other regions of the country. This a good model for various Residential Institutions across the globe to change their traditional way of looking at their services as Human Waste Management and converting them into Human Resource Management.