Conceptualising disability: A critical comparison between Indigenous people in Australia and New South Wales disability service agencies

The lack of culturally appropriate services contributes to the low participation rate of Indigenous people in disability services. Understanding how disability is conceptualised is essential to developing culturally appropriate disability services. This study aimed to critically compare the conceptualisation of disability between Indigenous people and NSW government and non‐government disability service agencies. Indigenous and policy sources were obtained from purposive and snowball sampling. The Indigenous conceptualisation of disability was understood through representations by Indigenous spokespeople in journal and newspaper articles and audiovisual materials. The disability service agency conceptualisation of disability was represented through the annual reports and programme guidelines of the NSW government agency and seven non‐government disability agencies. The occupational justice framework guided critical analysis at the cultural interface. Four themes were identified: power and self‐determination, eligibility, otherness, and identity and labels. Data showed disability agencies promote self‐determination for Indigenous people and conceptualise disability as impairments affecting functioning, when assessing service access eligibility. Most Indigenous people do not self‐identify as disabled and are categorised as culturally different within policies. Indigenous people experience marginalisation due to their cultural identity. Indigenous people are required to conform to the conceptualisation of disability proffered by agencies to access services. To develop culturally appropriate services, agencies must collaborate with Indigenous communities.     

The relationships between organisational networking,quality of life,and community integration among people with mental illnesses in South Korea: a multi-level analysis

This study investigated the relationships between organisational networking and the outcomes of people with mental illnesses (MI) and the extent to which the relationships are mediated by availability of services. Two levels of data were collected: organisational-level data from 22 community-based mental health service agencies and consumer-level data from 431 consumers. A multi-level analysis found that organisational networking increased the availability of services. However, service availability was not found to have a mediating effect on the relationship between organisational networking and client outcomes. Service coordination in the same mental health sector should be addressed.     

Who Attends Senior Centers?

Abstract

Logistic regression analysis was used to compare users and non-users of senior centers. Variables assessing linkage to the service system were more significant predictors of senior center utilization than predisposing, enabling, or need variables. More specifically, users of senior centers were older and more likely to live in rural areas. They also had more social contacts, better mental health, and fewer ADL problems. Senior center users were also more aware of specific service agencies, more likely to consult formal resources in making service decisions, and more likely to have used other services.     

Linguistic Support Services for Immigrant Domestic Violence Victims

Intimate partner violence is increasing among immigrant women in the U.S., but because of language barriers, abused immigrant women may be unable to access formal services. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of geographical location (urban/rural) and percentage of non-native English speakers on the availability of linguistic support services in one highly diverse state-Florida. Using a sample of 258 service providers for domestic violence victims, the results show significant differences between rural and urban providers’ perceptions of the need for linguistic support services in law enforcement, legal, and mental health needs. Urban service providers perceived a greater need for these services than rural service providers. The study found that a higher percentage of non-native English speakers predicted greater bilingual linguistic service availability. Lastly, the study found the more frequently providers perceived a victim’s basic needs to be met, the more likely that providers indicated linguistic support services were frequently met in their service area. Findings indicate that immigrants experiencing abuse who reside in rural areas might endure added difficulties in accessing assistance. While it may not be cost-efficient for rural service providers to hire translators or multilingual staff, such services may be cost-shared with other agencies.     

Inequality and Service Access

Health care in the United States is of crucial concern to citizens and government officials as well as academicians. This study reviews the literature concerning stratification and inequality. The delivery of medical services is investigated as a component of social inequality as well as one component of models of change in inequality. The data used in this analysis were collected in four upstate New York counties. Interviews were done to obtain information concerning household use of various medical specialties. Socioeconomic data were also collected for the households in the sample. The inequality of medical service delivery was investigated by comparing the distribution of medical service utilization at different levels of socioeconomic status. The degree of inequality of medical service utilization is considered a function of how strongly related utilization is to various measures of socioeconomic status. Multiple regression revealed that education of head of house, family income, level of living, family size, and place of residence are all related to the use of medical services.     

Caregiver involvement in behavioural health services in the context of child welfare service referrals: a qualitative study

Human service agencies serve a growing number of adults with behavioural health needs. Despite these agencies' key role in identifying need and facilitating services, many individuals do not receive care or end services prematurely. Few studies have explored the experiences of families referred to behavioural health services by such agencies or the extent to which families' perceptions of service need align with those of treatment providers and frontline workers. This study presents findings from a qualitative study of caregivers involved with child welfare agencies who were referred to behavioural health services. Researchers reviewed agencies' case records and conducted in‐depth interviews with 16 caregivers, 9 child welfare caseworkers and 12 behavioural health treatment counsellors. Findings suggest that when deciding to engage in services, caregivers weigh not only their individual and family behavioural health needs but also potential agency intervention, including loss of child custody. Many professionals reported that involvement with a child welfare agency hindered the caregiver's disclosure of behavioural healthcare needs. Implications for managers and practitioners are discussed.     

Secure Attachment to Family and Community

ABSTRACT

Disproportionately large numbers of high risk clients from Multiple Problem Families (MPFs) utilize a disproportionately large percentage of Medicaid, Health and Human Services. Clients from these families are involved in domestic violence, addiction, child abuse and neglect. They are over represented on the caseloads of state protective service agencies. The approach outlined in this paper is based on social attachment theory models. It stresses the use of long-term, home-based therapy, and community support agencies to establish and maintain safe secure attachment for these fragile families. The therapeutic goals are to foster attachments that lead to increased mentalisation, and to decrease the crisis-driven behavior that often results in high cost utilization of state services. A placement prevention model, outlined as an alternative “mentalising social system” approach, is proposed for treating disruptive MPF children. Family oriented, in-home, community-based treatment is found to be more cost effective and therapeutically helpful for these children than costly inpatient psychiatric admission followed by residential care.     

社会工作督导：有效且必需

社会工作督导是社会工作的一种间接服务方法。社会服务机构的非营利性及其公信力需要社会服务机构对其员工进行行政性督导、教育性督导以及支持性督导，以促进机构目标的实现，服务质量的提高。     

Social Service Outreach Programs Using Elderly Korean Immigrants' Church Ties

ABSTRACT

This study examined how Protestant Korean-American churches and their pastors can serve as ties between Korean seniors and agencies that offer social services. Working in partnership with the North Central Texas Area Agency on Aging (NCTAAA) and 2-1-1 services at United Way, the researcher asked 53 Korean pastors in two counties in North Central Texas to participate in the study. Each was asked about his willingness to host an outreach program. Thirty telephone surveys and 11 face-to-face interviews inquired about current services and pastor willingness to serve as gatekeepers for seniors. Translation and transportation were the top social service needs. All pastors in the study agreed that their churches should be a vehicle to provide social service information to seniors. Indeed, five churches accommodated program outreach offered by the NCTAAA and 2-1-1 services. The host churches tended to have highly structured, regularly scheduled programs (e.g., ethnic senior schools) already in place. A total of 405 Korean seniors participated in the outreach events, and 28 seniors were assisted in benefit counseling by telephone. Altogether, the results suggest that social service agencies can use the church ties of Korean seniors for program outreach.     

Lessons learned implementing community‐based comprehensive case management for families surviving homicide

Family members of homicide victims often experience a wide range of adverse reactions to the homicide. This study reports on the Traumatic Loss Response Team, a project conducted by a community‐based, mental‐health agency to provide comprehensive case‐management services to meet homicide survivors' complex needs. To conduct the study, we abstracted service/process data from open client cases in 2013 (most recent year with available data) and conducted interviews with the project's implementing agencies. Interviews revealed both initial challenges and factors facilitating successful implementation. Main challenges to overcome included gaining credibility and trust from police and issues around overlap of services provided to families by numerous agencies that may become involved in a homicide. Partners view the project providing a range of important services to families, including intermediary/buffer between families and police. Concerning service data, of the 131 cases open in 2013, most were referred directly by police and involved community violence, an adult victim and a firearm. Most of the 164 clients receiving services were female, adult, African‐American and parents of the deceased. Grief support was the most common of numerous services provided. We hope that this study will catalyse sharing of similar data and experiences among organizations providing services to homicide survivors.     

The impact of declining resources and purchase of service contracting on private, nonprofit agencies

The increasingly precarious and vulnerable position of the private, nonprofit social service agency in an environment of government contracting and declining funding has been the subject of a number of articles over the past few years. Nonprofit agencies have been characterized as being controlled by powerful government agencies that dictate the terms and conditions of contracts, the types of services to be provided, the methods of delivery, and the price to be paid for services. One would expect to find nonprofits anxious to terminate their relationships with various units of government, and return to a more independent status. That is not happening. If anything, purchase of service contracting (POSC) with nonprofit agencies is increasing. This national study of nonprofit agencies explores the impact of declining funding from all sources (including POSC), and seeks to determine its impact on clients, staff, and organization.     

Families on the brink: the effectiveness of family support services

This paper presents findings from a study of the costs and effectiveness of family support services offered to 40 families with a high level of need, in two neighbouring local authorities in North Wales. It describes the level and type of services offered by different agencies in each of the authorities, estimates the costs of these services, and assesses outcomes for the families receiving them after three months. Information is also provided about families’ experience of the support they received, and the kind of help they would have liked. Parents’ well‐being and family functioning were found to improve over the intervention period in both authorities, although only to a limited extent. Improvements were greater among those who were living with partners, and less among families identified by social workers as having financial difficulties or problems with drug or alcohol abuse. Respondents who rated their problems as very severe showed less improvement. The pattern of service provision and the costs involved turned out to be similar in both authorities, so it was not possible to reach conclusions about the relationship between services and outcomes. However, a number of themes emerging from the data are discussed, including the role of day care services in supporting families with young children, the impact of poverty and deprivation on parents’ ability to provide good care for their children, and the importance of an interagency response to children's and parents’ needs. The article also includes a discussion of problems encountered in undertaking comparative outcomes‐based research and cost‐effectiveness analyses in the social welfare field.     

Clustering Services for Services Intergration:

This paper demonstrates an empirical method for clustering human services into more general categories. Nine clusters of services are obtained by factor analyzing 66 human services provided by the agencies in urban and rural counties in New York State. The structure of the particular nine clusters is then examined as a means of understanding how services "naturally" combine and cluster. The particular groupings suggest several characteristics about the organization of services that may assist in planning for service delivery. Regardless of whether nine clusters are the right number to describe service networks, the application of factor analysis to services data shows the usefulness of empirical clustering techniques in the study of service delivery networks and in the development of services integration plans.     

The power of boards in service providing agencies: three models

Tensions in the relationship between boards and staff are a common feature of voluntary and nonprofit agencies which deliver services. Many of the difficulties reflect lack of clarity about the power of boards. The author describes three models of governance: traditional, membership, and entrepreneurial. Each model has different implications for the power of a board in relation to staff. Practitioners in nonprofit service delivering agencies in the UK have found the models to be a useful tool for explaining the practical difficulties they experience.     

Communities respond to elder abuse

This article traces the development of services to prevent and treat elder abuse over a twenty-year time span. It begins by describing the various forms of elder abuse and the challenges they pose to service providers and program developers. Also described are abuse reporting statutes, the roles of various agencies involved in abuse investigations and responses, services commonly needed by victims, funding sources, and common impediments to service delivery.     

Packaging effective community service delivery: the utility of mandates and contracts in obtaining administrative cooperation

Voluntary agreements, mandates, and contracts integrate networks of social service organizations, allowing them to function as coordinated wholes. The author reviews the history of contracting and mandating in the public sector. It is hypothesized that contracted relationships formalize agreements between local organizations dependent on others. Mandated relationships are perceived to be important by policy-makers at a state or federal level. The differential acceptance and rejection of these relationships in the community is explored. Data from social service agencies are used to compare administrators' assessments of the effectiveness of mandated and contracted relationships used to coordinate a group of agencies delivering services to children. When a mandated relationship has been formalized into a contract by a local administrator the perceived effectiveness of that relationship is higher than any other relationship in the community. If the mandated relationship has not been formalized by a contract this relationship is perceived to be the least effective. Important mandated inter-organizational ties without monetary incentives are less likely to work. Local administrators having developed the contracted ties see these ties as producing a higher level of performance.     

The Elderly Blind:

This paper discusses some of the problems faced by the elderly blind in society. It is pointed out that the definition of blindness as well as the development of blind services mainly for the young and employable adults have contributed to public misunderstanding of blindness and the magnitude of visual problems among the elderly. It is also noted that with coordinated efforts between blind service agencies and social service agencies future problems among this group could be minimized.     

The impact of managed care on Massachusetts mental health and substance abuse providers

Medicaid managed care programs are becoming more widespread. To investigate the clinical, organizational, and financial impacts on service providers, a stratified, random sample of providers in the Massachusetts Managed Mental Health/Substance Abuse Program were surveyed by phone in Years 3 and 4 of the initiative. Providers reported that they were making widespread clinical changes such as more use of group, brief, and episodic therapies. They were increasing utilization review, Total Quality Management, and outcomes measurement. They were increasing in size, affiliating with other agencies, and providing a greater range of services. They were preparing for capitation. Compared to before the program and a year earlier, about 40 percent of providers were doing better financially and a quarter were doing worse. The study documents the hypothesis that a widespread and continuing transformation is taking place in response to managed care.     

Gender Identity and Social Services: Barriers to Care

ABSTRACT

Transgender people seek social services for a variety of reasons. This literature review highlights needs assessments and social science research articles (N = 30) from the last 16 years that demonstrate the many ways in which social services are further revictimizing transgender people. Studies indicate that transgender people often encounter ignorance, hostility, and transphobic environments while attempting to access social services, and these environments can dissuade transgender people from gaining needed care. Suggestions are made to address these inequalities and include simple measures that social service agencies can begin with to make their services more transinclusive. Future research should address the bias in social services more directly and also develop a clear plan of action and best practices to help agencies remove discrimination from social service settings.     

Service Process and Quality in Therapeutic Foster Care: An Exploratory Study of One County System

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the quality of services in the therapeutic foster care programs used by one county in the Midwest. Using a consultative quality assurance review methodology, evaluators examined 67 randomly sampled cases across seven agencies to assess the service quality issues experienced by children. Following interviews with staff, foster parents, and children, and a review of case records, reviewers observed failures in service and in adherence to national program model standards and state regulations. The research indicates the need for consistent monitoring of child-placing agencies and the need for additional research linking service quality with foster care outcomes.