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Is Social Service Contracting Coercive, Competitive, or Collaborative? Evidence from the Case Allocation Patterns of Child Protection Services
Abstract
A historic concern over child welfare privatization is whether the
unidirectional incentives arising from contract relations is
consistent with the multi-dimensional role of protecting children. To
explore how public agencies resolve this tension, I examine the
distribution of casework between a department of human services and
five private foster care providers. Results indicate that private
contractors specialized in long-term foster care candidates, while the
public sector disproportionately received cases involving serious
parent behavior. These findings imply collaboration: to protect
clients yet preserve contract relations, administrators allocated
cases to accommodate the perceived strengths and weaknesses of private
agencies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)
(journal abstract) m = 2
Journal
(2006)
vol30
no3
pages25-42
Categories
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Managing External Relations
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Public-Private Partnerships
