Privatization in the Human Services: Implications for Direct Practice

Abramovitz, Mimi; Zelnick, Jennifer

doi:10.1007/s10615-015-0546-1

Cited by 70 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Second, neoliberal reforms have also generated an institutional environment characterised by the organisations’ systemic insecurity and precariousness (Baines, Cunningham, Campey, & Shields, ). As Abramovitz and Zelnick (, p. 286) noted, neoliberalism has ‘pressed non‐profit agencies to cut their budgets and to “do more with less”’. Furthermore, they work in unstable funding environments, which prevents them from becoming involved in long‐term planning (Mosley, ).…”

Section: The Neoliberal State and Social Welfare Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

2016

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This article examines current inconsistent trends in social welfare advocacy literature. Some studies show evidence of widespread engagement in advocacy by nonprofit organisations, while other studies conversely offer evidence of limited advocacy activities. Another controversial aspect stems from the question whether governmental funding undermines the extent to which nonprofits engage in advocacy. We argue that these findings reflect the contradictory impact of neoliberal governance on social welfare advocacy. The article highlights and discusses three interrelated components of neoliberalism and their impact on current social welfare advocacy: marketisation, precariousness and commodification. Neoliberalism has propelled a model of market‐driven civil society that has remade the practice of social welfare advocacy in contradictory ways. With its complex rationales, neoliberalism has simultaneously undermined the ability of nonprofits to engage in advocacy but in a paradoxical way has also created conditions that induce these organisations to practice advocacy. Implications for practice and research on social welfare advocacy are discussed.

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Section: The Neoliberal State and Social Welfare Advocacymentioning

confidence: 99%

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

2016

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“…Its corollaries included privatisation and contracting as the platform for delivering health and welfare services (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2015), the rise of managerialism (Considine, O'Sullivan, & Nguyen, 2014;Smith, 2015), accountability regimes (Morris & Ogden, 2011;Saj, 2013), and risk devolution and aversiveness (Community Council for Australia, 2014). Small organisations were considered inefficient and economies of scale sought by government in a manner that encouraged waves of agency mergers and takeovers across the decades (Carey & Riley, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Amalgamations, mergers and takeovers have continued, as have downsizing and reliance on IT and communication technologies, and marketing and branding (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2015;Considine, et al, 2014). The shift of power from professional staff delivering services to managers has been a profound change in the NFP sector.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Supervision of professional staff is presenting its own set of concerns (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2015;King, Carson, & Papatraianou, 2013) as performance measures are more likely to give priority to meeting targets and accounting for these via client information systems, rather than focusing on developing expertise or creative responses to resolving client disadvantage. Increasingly, too, employment takes the form of contracts tied to funding arrangements, is part time and casual in the name of flexibility, often to the employee's disadvantage (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Increasingly, too, employment takes the form of contracts tied to funding arrangements, is part time and casual in the name of flexibility, often to the employee's disadvantage (Abramovitz & Zelnick, 2015). Compounding the clients' disadvantage is the amount of time now required for documentation and accountability processes, often needed to satisfy client information systems that are necessarily limiting in terms of the information they offer for service development (Gillingham & Graham, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

From Governance to Ground

Lehmann¹

2016

Children Australia

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Welcome to our first Issue for 2016 which comes to you as the seasons change from summer to autumn and from winter to spring – a time when we move away from extremes of heat or of cold, of flooding or of droughts. In a sense, it is the need for change from the extremes to something more moderate that underpins the topic of this editorial, which I dedicate to those who, despite their expertise and commitment to the delivery of human services, have found themselves unwanted due to management and governance processes. Indeed, this editorial commentary has been inspired by the story of a man who, after more than 30 years of dedicated and innovative work in the not-for-profit (NFP) sector, was declared redundant just prior to Christmas. It is not the particularities of his treatment that are important here, though many were disgusted by the process. Rather, it is the flow-on effects of governance within the managerialist, neoliberal environment that are my concern – especially their impacts on the ground. My commentary is in two parts: the first summarises the changes in our sector over the last 15 to 20 years with which most of you will be very familiar; the second draws attention to the processes that translate into less than optimum conditions for staff and clients.

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Beyond new public management: Empowering community‐based organisations

Mailloux

Lacharité

2020

Journal Community Psychology

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Aims: To describe how new public management practices, a global public service management trend, and a provincial community of practice, a group of people who learn from each other by interacting on an ongoing basis, affected a group of 240 community-based organisations. Methods: We conducted a holistic single case study of 240 grassroots, community-based organisations called Family Resource Centres in the province of Québec, Canada. Data was collected from 36 research interviews, 6 years of participant observation, institutional documents and a research journal, and analysed qualitatively. Results: New public management practices foster social injustice and endanger the integrity of the communitybased organisations, whereas the provincial community of practice empowered them to fight back deleterious new public management practices and reclaim their identity. Conclusion: A provincial community of practice allowed 240 independent community-based organisations in Québec, Canada to become empowered on a macro level while remaining faithful to their small scale community orientation. We hope this model can serve as an example of alternatives to current (new public) management practices.

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Privatization in the Human Services: Implications for Direct Practice

Cited by 70 publications

References 33 publications

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

Liquid advocacy: Social welfare advocacy in neoliberal times

From Governance to Ground

Beyond new public management: Empowering community‐based organisations

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