Describes child protection systems in England and ongoing changes in their services. Considers effects of a market force approach on the organization of child protection services in relation to coordination versus fragmentation and profit versus professionalism. Concludes that the idea that a market force approach to child protection will lead to…

Defines the criteria of economy, effectiveness, efficiency, and equity for making choices about resource allocation, locates them within a conceptual framework, and examines reasons for the increasing interest in them. Explains and illustrates the evaluation methods of cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness, cost-utility, and cost-consequences analyses.…

Discusses the need to examine effectiveness of services to children and families in central and eastern Europe, focusing on programs in Hungary. Notes that financial considerations and differences in objectives have increased the importance of outcomes measurement. Reports that the pilot implementation of "Looking After Children"…

Examines the "Looking After Children" approach in child protective services in England. Maintains that the approach provides a method for assessing child outcomes based on well-developed theory and sound research. Concludes that it is necessary to clarify which aspects of the materials are useful in assessing outcomes for children not in…

Discusses policy factors in child and family social services that still serve to maintain biases--toward child protection in the UK and toward institutionalization in Romania--at the expense of family support. Discusses how the interaction of national and local conditions and professional and personal priorities shape the way that general…

Summarizes the comprehensive approach to tackling problems of poor neighborhoods developed by the British government's Social Exclusion Unit (SEU), analyzing neighborhood decline and describing the SEU's National Strategy for Neighborhood Renewal, which emphasizes improving public services in England, building inclusive partnerships locally that…

Managers in English social services agencies (n=10) identified themes related to their use of humor in social care settings: asserting invulnerability; coping with reality; controlling anxiety; working with ambiguity, paradox, and incongruity; resisting the dominant order; and making sense of organizational absurdities. Implications for business…

Evaluated how British health and local authorities integrated mental health services into general health and social services. Stakeholder interviews and surveys showed that the recurrent theme of culture meant different things to different people. Shared culture was widely believed to lead to seamless service and collaboration, but low staff…

Developed and tested key indicators for collaboration between health and social services in mental health. Surveys of stakeholders indicated that collaboration was most effective when there was an agreed-upon strategy. Barriers to collaboration included differences in funding, accountability, governmental guidance, and the status and control of…

In recent years, considerable attention has been devoted to the value of unpaid work in the economy. One very important aspect of unpaid work is caregiving for chronically ill or disabled people and the question of whether or not family-and-friend caregiving eases the burden on the publicly funded system. Using data from the 1996 General Social…

Poland is going through tremendous changes in its educational and health-care systems. These changes may bring reforms in the care of orphaned children, because the new politics and economy are forcing educators to look for new solutions and forms of care. There are many problems with the care of orphan children in Poland in both Children's Homes…

Background: A growing shortage of residential care for people with learning disabilities leads to placement funded by one authority in another authority's area. Such out-of-area placements are governed by guidance from different government departments in respect of different funding streams. Method: This paper presents an analysis of this guidance…

Objectives: This article examines the "geography" of reported cases of child maltreatment in Israel by determining its frequency and rates according to nationality, area of residence, and size and type of locality. Method: The study collected data at the local level in Israel based on reports to social services of cases of child…

Objective: This study examined the relationship between personal characteristics of 276 potential entry-level social service workers and their decision to report child maltreatment to Child Protective Services (CPS). The personal characteristics of interest were: age, gender, parenthood, mother's education, father's education, college major,…

The present study examined the effects of performance feedback on the behavior of front line supervisory employees at a social service agency. A multiple baseline across three participants was used with three different feedback procedures consisting of verbal feedback, verbal plus individual comparative graphic feedback, and verbal feedback,…