Life Planning Agency
The fifth agency is the Life Planning Agency. The agency’s primary focus is on facilitating the process through which participants can plan their lives, including careers and social prospects.
The Life Planning Agency gives participants the necessary advice and resources to plan their lives holistically, rather than taking each aspect independently. This, in turn, increases their chances of success in the community. Besides basic life planning, the agency also helps participants improve their education, including professional certifications, as well as arts and recreation. [1] As part of life planning, the Life Planning Agency assists participants to access health and personal insurance solutions, offered by business entities within the community.
The Life Planning Agency’s roles are participant-centered, with the participants working through the automated system to receive any services they need. The system is structured in a way that it also trains participants to use it. In instances where the automated system is unable to respond to their needs, the participants approach the district presidents, who are able to interact personally with the participants, advising them and offering additional help as needed. For instance, the system may be unable to understand a particular family structure and may give the participant a dossier that they find hard to implement.[2] The district president then advises the participant on what to do next, while also alerting the agency president on what needs to be adjusted to make the system more responsive to participants’ needs.
The Life Planning Agency, together with the Nutrition and Health Agencies, which together form the District Department, provides a continuation of the participant’s entry and integration in the system. After having been formally admitted, the participant needs to be integrated into the system and understand more clearly what the community is all about. The Life Planning Agency’s roles can be categorized into either core (performed by the Life Planning Agency by itself) or coordinated (performed with other agencies in the community).
Core Responsibilities
The Life Planning Agency ensures that each participant has the best chances available to succeed, both in their business career and in their personal life. The agency facilitates participants’ access to the following services:
- Life planning
- Insurance
- education, arts, and professional certifications
- development of education standards and curricula development
- liaison between professionals (teachers)
Life planning
The Life Planning Agency manages the system that assists participants to plan their lives. This encompasses every facet of their life, including family, social engagement with others, and religion, among others, as well as business. The life-planning process is automated and uses algorithms that process a participant’s information and return a dossier. Human intervention by the district presidents is only necessary where a participant is unable to properly utilize the system or when the system is unable to give a dossier that the participant feels is practical. The dossier suggests what a participant needs to do in every part of their life to succeed. It may recommend a change in business orientation or advice a participant to improve their academic qualifications, among other interventions. The dossier gives the participant the information needed to exploit the opportunities the community offers, whether related to economic or social empowerment. Thereafter, the district president may be called upon by a participant to help amend or advise on the implementation of a life-planning dossier.
Insurance
The Life Planning Agency enables participants to manage their insurance, education, and retirement plans. After the participant has completed life planning, the agency’s system has extensive information about the participant, which it then uses to better advise them on the best insurance they need to take out. The agency’s priority is to provide a social service through which participants enjoy social security and access to quality healthcare.[3] The automated system has embedded monitoring attributes that monitor participants’ implementation of the life-planning dossier, as well as other progress in their lives, and consider whether there are changes that warrant a change in the insurance terms. For instance, if a participant starts a habit that is detrimental to their health, the health insurance plan will need to change to reflect an increased risk of illness that the individual may suffer.[4]
Facilitate access to education, professional certifications, and arts
As part of the life-planning process, the system identifies any education that a participant requires to better seize the opportunities offered by the community. The system also gives information on teachers and the physical or online addresses of classes as applicable. Participants who wish to pursue art education or engage in art also use the agency’s system for further information and assistance. The district presidents may engage such participants to better understand their aspirations, especially due to the versatility and richness of art.[5]
Participants who wish to gain professional certifications required to advance their lives and careers go through the Life Planning Agency’s system as well. The agency provides information on accredited participants and external parties who offer certification services. Those parties who wish to provide professional courses and certifications are vetted by the system to ascertain the quality of their services before allowing them to offer these services to participants.[6]
Development of standards and curricula
The development of education standards and curricula is a public exercise, which brings together all the stakeholders involved. The Life Planning Agency facilitates the consultative exercise, as well as other discourse, to firm up the curriculum details and standards. In addition to the automated system that refers potential participants, based on their interests and qualifications, the agency system guides the process to maintain the community’s education standards and ensure conformity with community interests and ideals.[7]
Facilitate liaisons between teachers
After a participant declares their intention to be an educator within the community, the Life Planning Agency’s automated system guides them on how to practice their profession. This will include directing them to networks that help teachers collaborate so that the education services offered in the community are in harmony. The agency’s system ensures that all aspects of curriculum training are well-staffed and makes recommendations to the relevant agencies where there is a mismatch. Through the system, teachers are able to collaborate with their peers to ensure the best possible outcomes for their students. The system also encourages engagements and participation in education matters. This ensures that all stakeholders are aware of their deliverables to the students, their guardians where applicable, and to the community.
Coordinated Responsibilities
The coordination between the Life Planning Agency and other agencies is based on the desire to help participants properly integrate and broaden their capacity to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities that the community offers. Coordination is defined along three lines: horizontal (within the District Department), vertical (within the Social Support Vertical), and diagonal (with agencies beyond the vertical and department).
Horizontal coordination
The Life Planning Agency coordinates with Agency 6 – the Health Agency for complete information as it facilitates insurance for participants. The information available also enables the Life Planning Agency to determine the premiums that participants should pay for coverage. The Life Planning Agency coordinates with Agency 5 – the Nutrition Agency to include food and nutrition as an integral part of participants’ life plans. The two agencies also work to incorporate food and nutrition in the education curriculum, so that participants are acutely aware of the importance of nutrition to other facets of community objectives.
Vertical coordination
The Life Planning Agency coordinates with Agency 1 – the Human Relations Agency to advise participants on how best to position themselves within the community, with reference to their capacity in academic qualifications, professions, and skills. The Life Planning Agency coordinates with Agency 7 – the Capital Fund Agency as it aims to include savings and investment into the community as an integral part of life planning. The Life Planning Agency works with Agency 16 – the Underwriting Agency to assess risks presented by participants as they apply for insurance coverage. The information received enables the Life Planning Agency to determine the right premium for participants. The Life Planning Agency also works with Agency 19 – the Underwriting Agency to assess participants’ risk exposure, before advising them on the best insurance solution.
Diagonal coordination
The Life Planning Agency coordinates with Agencies 2 and 20 – the Stewardship and Business Planning Agencies respectively as participants prepare their life plans so that they can be advised on the best course of action when planning to start or develop a business. In connection with this, the Life Planning Agency also coordinates with Agency 14 – the IP Agency to help participants establish their prospects of including IP development as part of their life plans. Agency 21 – the Data Management Agency provides the data analysis and presentation tools that the Life Planning Agency needs to give easily understandable and practical dossiers to participants.
Conclusion
The Life Planning Agency’s main objective is to ensure that participants are thoroughly grounded in the community’s ideals and that they have the right tools to succeed. The agency does this by providing the participant with a highly sophisticated system to guide them, as well as district presidents as needed. The system helps participants plan their lives by playing to their strengths, while giving solutions to mitigate their weaknesses, including low academic or professional qualifications or poor health, among others. It is only then that participants can effectively exploit the unique opportunities the community offers, both socially and economically. The Life Planning Agency needs the input of other agencies to fulfill its mandate, given the complexity and interconnection of the issues at hand.
[1] By giving participants the opportunity to develop their careers through academic advancement and professional certification, the community will enable them develop more realistic career goals. This is also important for participant satisfaction in the community, when it is assumed that increased learning will give them a better chance to exploit the opportunities offered by the system (Berkeley. Human Resources. Berkeley: University of California – Berkeley, 2018).
[2]The dossier which the system will generate for the participant will be in some respects similar to automated personality tests. The tests are currently used by companies to better understand their employees’ needs, and enable them plan their careers better. However, they do not have the emotional intelligence required to carry out accurate assessments. In the community, this might require the district president’s intervention to be fully practical (Morgeson, F., et al. “Reconsidering the Use of Personality Tests in Personnel Selection Contexts.” Personnel Psychology 60 (2007): 683–729).
[3] Beyond the profit and legal requirements for insurance to exist, the service also serves as a safety net. Insurance helps protect society from dramatic loss that would effectively prevent the sufferer from ever recovering. An example is given of families which, though they live a decent middle class life in a developing country, are pushed back into poverty by a medical emergency, for instance (Olson, D. Insurance as a Social Good. 09 11 2016. 17 06 2019).
[4] The insurance policy will need to change to reflect changing health prospects in participants. This will help the community deal with the rising healthcare costs, while continuing to offer the participants the appropriate healthcare cover needed. Inversely, those who have better health prospects are expected to pay less, since their chances of falling ill are less (Rezayatmand, R. “Patient Payment and Unhealthy Behavior: A Comparison across European Countries.” Biomed research International (2017): published online).
[5] The community will doubtlessly attract people from different backgrounds, who are expected to live and work together. The use of art as a cultural exchange tool cannot be understated. The Life Planning Agency will look to promote interaction with art, even in instances where the participants involved have other stewardships (Brault, S. Determined to Increase the Impact of the Arts on Society. 17 01 2017. 16 06 2019).
[6] Accreditation works as a quality assurance measure. The party being accredited is also able to use the certification as a marketing advantage. Assuming that the Life Planning Agency will partner with other accreditation bodies for uniformity, the service will give community businesses with accreditation international recognition needed to boost its reputation (IAS. Why Accreditation? 2019. 17 06 2019).
[7] It is important to give education stakeholders the chance to have their say when developing curricula and education standards. This enables them to own the process, and have more motivation in improving it to meet their needs. A public participation exercise in the community will bring together the stakeholders, and give them the additional advantage of being on the same level, that is, there will be no overriding voice, but rather, a consensus-building exercise to forge the best way forward (Young, J. “Teacher participation in curriculum development: What status does it have?” Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 3.2 (1988): 109-121).