This book provides students and practitioners with a theoretical and methodological foundation for implementing client- and family-centered `partnership' approaches in human services. Unlike other texts in the field, the author integrates the principles and practices of sociology with applied work in the helping professions and shows how key sociological concepts can be used to explain the nature of clients' perspectives and expand client opportunities.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Análise comparativa sobre parceria público privada e contrato de serviço social nos seguintes locais: Reino Unido, Estados Unidos, Suécia, Dinamarca, Alemanha, Austrália, Ásia.

Now that business, government, and other fields are embracing Total Quality Management (TQM) as their management philosphy, TQM may also hold the solution for problems that exist in human services organizations today. After a brief history of TQM, the author discusses the philosophy of management, quality as an organizational goal, the challenges of determining an organization′s customers, and collecting and using customer quality data. He also describes how to achieve quality improvement through teamwork and shows how to use brainstorming, cause and effect diagrams, check sheets, and pareto analysis. Among the other topics examined are contractor involvement, training top management personnel, training middle managers and staff, and selecting an implementation strategy. All the examples used in this volume are drawn from the fields of public administration, gerontology, public health, and management of nonprofit organizations. Total Quality Management in Human Service Organizations is a good "backgrounder" for human service administrators and organizations prior to undergoing a more detailed agency discussion of, or training in, TQM. It is also of great value to students and faculty in social work administration programs who are interested in the basics of TQM.

Organizations today { whether public or private { exist in environment s where the pace of change is dizzying. Human service organizations fa ce both external and internal challenges: The public demands better se rvices at more reasonable costs. Clientele is more diverse, more strat ified, and more vocal than ever. The organizations themselves must kee p up with rapid changes in technological innovation and labor-manageme nt relationships. Organizational Change: The Human Services Challenge looks at the context of organizational change, describes how individua ls and systems change, and pinpoints keys to successful change. Author Rebecca Proehl then presents a proven model of organizational change, built on lessons learned from both the public and private sectors, bu t tailored for human service organizations. Proehl also discusses in d epth labor union-management issues, the political strategies leaders m ust use to implement change, and how to build collaborative relationsh ips in human services.

Like its well-known predecessor, Financial Management for Nonprofit Human Service Agencies, this new and expanded edition, with a slight title change, continues to reflect the author�s efforts to provide the critical knowledge needed to communicate with the "experts" The central organizing theme of this book is the acquisition, distribution, and reporting of agency resources within a systems framework. Divided into four sections, Section I is an overview that covers historical and sociopolitical context of nonprofit organizations and financing as well as the systems concept and unique characteristics of nonprofits. Section II covers the planning and acquisition of resources by human service organizations. Budgeting, marketing, and grantwriting skills are examined. Section III details the distribution of the acquired resources through internal control, budgeting, and investments. Section IV presents basic accounting techniques, fund accounting, financial reporting guidelines, and financial statement analysis, including the recording and reporting of organizational financial activities. New topics include fees for services, purchase of service contracting, breakeven analysis for costing services and activities, third-party payments, internet resources, and a glossary.

In the last 35 years, governments around the globe have increasingly contracted with nonprofit and for-profit entities designed to provide a portion of the public sector’s portfolio of goods and services. This trend can be traced to a variety of factors, including perceived or actual economic efficiencies in outsourcing goods and services, values concerning the role and size of government in society, and the financial and organizational constraints of many government entities. In the United States, child welfare services adopted a pro-contracting approach early, and a variety of other human services have followed suit, including mental health care, job training, homeless services and others. Although there is strong evidence to suggest that human service contracting is growing over time, scholarship continues to lag on topics related to human service contract management, policy implementation and innovation, performance-based contracting and evaluation. This new volume in the Public Solutions Handbook series is the first volume-length treatment of human services contracting issues, integrating both policy and practice, and exploring a broad range of issues that includes the fields of history, growth, innovations, results and outcomes, best practices and the future of government human service contracting. Chapters in this book examine specific human service contracts, both in the U.S. and abroad, geared to practitioners in the public sector—from local government service contractors to municipal employees—as well as MPA students and those enrolled in courses on intergovernmental relations and nonprofit management.