The Street-Level Organisation in-between Employer Needs and Client Needs: Creaming Users by Motivation in the Norwegian Employment and Welfare Service (NAV)

Employer engagement is increasingly emphasised in the context of efforts to bring more disadvantaged people into work. A new approach in the Norwegian Employment and Welfare Service (NAV) combines demand-side and supply-side measures in a ‘combined workplace-oriented approach’. Through qualitative interviews with frontline staff – including job coaches following the Supported Employment (SE) method – the paper examines the intermediary role of the street-level organisation (SLO) through the targeted use of SE methods directed at young users and employers. The findings suggest that young users are ‘creamed by motivation’ into the SE programme, which can be explained by the importance the SLO places: on maintaining inter-organisational relationships with employers, on job coaches’ performance goals and the need to uphold an organisational structure in the SLO that seemingly works efficient to shift caseloads of young unemployed into work. Hence, creaming is not specific to outsourcing but can also occur when insourcing employer engagement services into a public SLO. Although relational work directed at both employers and young clients is seen as the benefit of a combined workplace-oriented approach, it appears a rather flimsy foundation for successful ALMPs unless supported by more structural demand-side measures.

Comparing Government Social Welfare Service Acquisition Regimes: Marketisation and Bases for Competition in Canadian and English Homelessness

When governments acquire third-party social welfare services (SWS), they create institutions of acquisition. The rules and practices that governments adopt define who is able to participate, on what basis, and how prices are determined. This paper conceptualizes the institutions of SWS acquisition, their variations, and implications, in order to contribute to a deeper understanding of the link between contracting and nonprofit commercialisation. Institutions of SWS acquisition include rules of entry, participation, and assessment. Resulting acquisition regimes can be marketised to a greater or lesser extent, and this is influential through its effect on nonprofit competition. Drawing on interviews with public servants and nonprofit staff, the paper compares acquisition regimes for homelessness services in England, a regime that closely resembles a market, and Canada, a regime which is not marketised. In contrast to their non-marketised counterparts, this paper finds that marketised SWS acquisition regimes create incentives for participants to reduce prices by loss-leading or ratcheting down service quality.

Mattering as a Political, Scientific, and Professional Basis for Welfare Services

The dominant political ideology of recent decades, neoliberalism, have resulted in diminished sense of mattering for several groups in the society, not at least people outside the labor market. This has left its mark on vocational rehabilitation programs in welfare states like Norway. Higher requirements shall be set for benefit recipients, and compulsory work are more often applied. The problem with this policy is that it suggests that benefit recipients have a guilt to make up for and are themselves to blame for the unemployment. However, the majority of people in need for vocational rehabilitation, have had poor living conditions since childhood, and have failed in education and employment for or reasons they have no control over. They often do not feel valued and have a lot of experience with not being able to add value. The problem with blaming the victims, is that it reinforces their sense of worthlessness, and thus reduces their ability to believe that they can contribute with something of value. In this way, the policy becomes counterproductive. Some even respond to these humiliating pressures by becoming more depressive or aggressive. To make vocational rehabilitation programs effective, we must make sure that everyone in need for it feel valued, we must align the political, scientific, and professional basis for welfare service politics thereafter. We must balance adding value to self with the opportunity to adding value to others, work and community. Mattering is suggested as a political, scientific, and professional basis for welfare services.

Discussion on the Transformation Strategy of the General Welfare Service Ministry of MND-The Case of Taiwan

The Army Welfare Service (AWS) has been one of the important policies promoted vigorously by the R.O.C. (Taiwan) government. With the full implementation of the Mercenary System, how to improve the quality of welfare work will resonate with all the military officers and soldiers of the National Army, and its effect will directly affect the effectiveness of recruiting. Among them, the welfare stations and military camp stations created by the General Welfare Service Ministry of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) R.O.C. in various regions are the only service organizations in the National Army that can directly benefit military officers, soldiers and their families. In the face of the rapid growth of retail channel operators and changes in the overall sales pattern in the current market, how should the General Welfare Service Ministry of MND’s business model transform to meet the needs of consumers on the product side and the shopping model. This research explores the literature to understand how the General Welfare Service Ministry of MND R.O.C. can effectively transform its business model under the prerequisite of limited sales objects, so as to adopt more flexible business models and marketing strategies that can resonate with consumers, and ensure product quality and expand service categories at the same time, creating a win-win situation between the General Welfare Service Ministry of MND R.O.C. and consumers. This study adopts a qualitative research method, and conducts in-depth interviews with three different types of subjects that are closely related to the transformation of the General Welfare Service. It is hoped to explore the value of the research, and provide specific transformation recommendations to be used as a reference for the future decision-making by the General Welfare Service Ministry of MND R.O.C. This study found that in addition to emphasizing product quality and price lower than the average market price, it should also focus on product promotion, and comprehensively upgrade the interior of the store with modern designs to attract young consumers. In addition, through the establishment of the NRA’s own brand image, the use of big data to create more diversified promotion methods, the provision of on-line payment consumption options and other active operational transformation measures, it can ensure sustainable operation and continue to benefit service recipients.

In-home Child Welfare Services

In-home services represent a wide range of approaches to supporting and strengthening families that child welfare agencies implement to achieve the important outcomes of child and family well-being, safety, and permanency. In-home services are an essential component of the child welfare service system, but often receive less explicit attention in child welfare practice and research than other system components such as foster care, adoption, and child protective investigation. In-home services have been known by different terms over time, from services to children in their own homes, home-based, family-based, or family-centered services, family preservation, or others. Child welfare service systems differ considerably across states and localities, and in-home services probably demonstrate the highest degree of variability in target population, design, and implementation. New federal legislation, the Family First Prevention Services Act (2018), has renewed interest in in-home services. Family First creates mechanisms for states to access federal Title IV-E funds, the primary funding stream for foster care, to use for preventive services, but it also requires that these services demonstrate a sufficiently high level of research evidence of their effectiveness. With increasing emphasis on evidence-based practice, the field is challenged to implement programs and practices that demonstrate efficacy as well as practicality within the budgetary and bureaucratic constraints of public child welfare systems. This bibliography reflects a changing landscape for in-home services. The focus is on specific program models, and the extant evidence base of these models. Most are used with families who are receiving in-home services because the child welfare agency opened a service case due to an allegation of child maltreatment with the goal of preventing repeat maltreatment or the child’s removal from home. Some jurisdictions also use in-home services, including some of the specific program models described in this bibliography, prior to a report of child maltreatment, during the assessment or investigative process, or as part of an aftercare program to facilitate family reunification following a placement. Some attention is also given to in-home child welfare services provided when a child’s behavior, rather than the parent’s, poses a risk for removal. Included in this review are differential response systems, which numerous states have implemented to provide in-home services earlier and without formally opening a child welfare case; however, home visiting and family support programs of a more primary prevention nature are excluded from this review.

Factors that the Effect of Social Welfare Service on Poor Family Stress Reduction

There is no choice for a person being born in a family. Currently, the situation of family poverty is getting serious. Lots of low-income population is children stuck in poverty. The weakness of family economy results in the bad development, e.g. low social economy, poverty, cultural capital, and family structure disadvantage, to affect children not receiving sufficient family resources in the enlightenment stage and being the inheritors of inter-generation poverty. Poverty gap drives clearer social stratification, and the adverse nature environment becomes a secret concern in children’ future development. Aiming at poor families in Hubei, as the questionnaire analysis objects, 280 copies of questionnaire are distributed, and 214 valid copies are retrieved, with the retrieval rate 76%. The research results are summarized as below: Top five indicators, among 22, are sequenced in-kind subsidy, visit care, self-help groups, community activity, and sponsorship for education; Overall speaking, poor families receiving social welfare service show the highest satisfaction with financial subsidy; besides, sponsorship system is correlated with financial subsidy that poor families are satisfied with sponsorship system; Psychological behaviors involve in individual single parents and the children. Under the emphasis of single parents on the children and the support for single parents’ personal emotions, single parents are obviously satisfied with psychological behavior service. According to the results to propose suggestions, it is expected to benefit the government promoting various social welfare services to fully take care of public welfare and promote people’s quality of life.

Managing social policy in the emerging welfare regime of governance: What Indonesia can learn from South Korea’s experience

Although Indonesia and South Korea have parallel narratives concerning their political-economic order that influenced social welfare arrangements, they have had different welfare outcomes. The main purpose of this study is to survey the possibility for Indonesia to adopt key features from Korea that can be applied to catch up in terms of its welfare outcome improvements. We argue that the key to the success of Korean social welfare development is closely related to the adaptive and responsive capacity of existing political institutions in responding to global changes, leading to a collaborative model of governance in welfare service.