Inter-Agency Collaboration in the Field of Social Assistance: Structures and Processes at the Case Level

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C14.0105
• Projekttitel Englisch: Inter-Agency Collaboration in the Field of Social Assistance: Structures and Processes at the Case Level

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Social assistance; inter-agency collaboration; network analysis; recipients' perspective

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action IS1102 - Social services, welfare state and places. The restructuring of social services in Europe and its impacts on social and territorial cohesion and governance.

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

The project investigates inter-agency collaboration in the field of social assistance at the case level. Due to the limited knowledge in this field, the project firstly intends to detect distinctive forms of collaboration and their development over the previous 12 months. Secondly, it aims at identifying those collaborative forms which forward the clients' integration. In the Cantons of Bern and Zurich, networks of 320 individual social assistance cases formed by the agencies involved will be analysed. The focus lies on networks of two client groups: young adults aged 18 to 25 and long term recipients receiving social assistance benefits longer than 3 years. Network and collaboration data will be gathered from the social workers as well as from the clients themselves and will include several collaboration aspects such as frequency, agreement on objectives, involvement of clients, etc. In addition, expert workshops will be organized in order to validate and extend the findings and develop recommendations for practitioners. The project design is multidisciplinary. It is being carried out in cooperation with Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) and the Swiss Conference for Social Aid and Welfare (SKOS). This cooperation highly ensures the knowledge transfer into the practical field. Since the COST action has established a work group dealing with social assistance, the project perfectly fit to the action and easily allows cross-country comparisons.

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

AT; BE; CZ; DK; FI; FR; MK; DE; EL; HU; IS; IE; IL; IT; LU; MT; NO; PT; RO; SK; ES; SE; UK

Abstract (Englisch)

The project investigates inter-agency collaboration in the field of social assistance at the case level. The study thereby contributes to the growing literature on specialization and professionalization in social work and social policy. Two central and related analytic questions are addressed: Firstly, we ask whether the form and the quality of collaboration depend on the policy context in which social services and their partner agencies operate. Secondly, we analyze whether the form and quality of collaboration between social services and their partner agencies is related to the recipient’s personal development. Comparing the situation in two Swiss cantons allows studying processes and outcomes of social consultation in very different policy settings: While in the Canton of Bern, the financing of social assistance as well as the setting up of activation programs are centrally coordinated and steered, in the Canton of Zurich, financing and program decisions are in the responsibility of the municipality. Data on the form and quality of collaboration between the agencies involved in the social consultation process as well as the development of the client’s personal situation stem from quantitative computer assisted telephone interviews with social assistance clients and from and an online-survey sent to the social worker in charge. In order to generate comparable data, only clients were included that received social assistance payments for at least 18 month and not more than 36 month (long-term recipients). The subjects for the survey were recruited from five communal social services in each of the two cantons. Data on the specific policy context as well as the general principles regarding collaboration with other agencies were gathered from qualitative interviews conducted with the heads of the social services included in the study. In addition, the project and its results are repeatedly discussed and validated in workshops with experts from the field. Preliminary results show that the recipients’ and the social workers’ perception of collaboration with other agencies in general is positive and that the measures taken by the different partners are considered beneficial for the recipient’s personal development. Especially with regard to activation programs the findings suggest that the policy context strongly matters: Social assistance clients in Zurich are not only more frequently assigned to participate in integration programs, they also express more satisfaction with the programs, and dropout is smaller than in the Canton of Bern. Program participation is correlated positively with improvements in client’s personal situation in the Canton of Zurich, which is not the case in the Canton of Bern. The findings therefore suggest that the more decentralized, market-oriented system in the Canton of Zurich may lead to a more effective allocation of social and labor integration programs than the centrally coordinated system in the Canton of Bern.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C14.0105