Jon Singletary

Public-Private Partnerships: Interactions Between Faith-Based Organizations and Government Entities

Abstract The earliest days of social service in American history included elements of religion and government, working together in efforts to address human needs. In recent years, with devolution, privatization, and an overall reduction of public spending on human services, government entities have acknowledged their shared role with religious organizations in efforts addressing human needs. Recent social policies, known as faith-based initiatives, have emphasized these relationships, calling for more involvement from religious organizations and more public support of these organizations. This paper offers initial analysis of qualitative data that focuses on the nature of relationships between government entities and religious organizations.

Finding Homes for Their Dreams: Strategies Founders and Program Initiators Use to Position and Sustain Faith-Based Programs

This grounded theory study of 15 faith-based programs in four urban cities examines how initiators and founders find homes for their visions of addressing unmet community needs, especially those of children and their families. Founders can be congregations, individuals, or groups with diverse characteristics. This study suggests that they place their visions in viable contexts through developing new organizations in which to place their programs, temporarily incubating them until a new organization can be formed, tethering them to congregations, or birthing them in well-established faith-related agencies with deep historical roots in the community. These programs have the potential to become legends, influencing the identity of their organizational homes and the larger communitys images of those homes.

Strategies for Supporting Orphans and Vulnerable Children: An Exploratory Study of an Exemplary Model of Care in Kenya

This qualitative study explored the extent to which programs in a religiously affiliated agency in Kenya incorporate 12 internationally sanctioned strategies for supporting orphans and vulnerable children in Sub-Saharan Africa (Olson, Knight, & Foster, 2006). The results indicated that all 12 strategies were being employed, though to varying degrees. The authors describe how each strategy was used by the agency and make recommendations for practice and future research.

Competency-Based Education And Shared Academic Freedom For Transformational Education

Curricular revision consistent with program mission and goals and that also fulfils accreditation requirements is essential for social work programs. In this article transformational education, shared academic freedom, and competency-based evaluation are described as central to effective preparation of students in social work education. The authors provide an overview of the transformational education literature and one school of social work’s curricular revision process that demonstrates facultywide ownership of the revision process. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the faculty ownership and student evaluation process helped the school avoid the reductionist pitfalls in competency-based education in their pursuit of transformational education for programmatic impact.