Michael R. Sosin

Decentralizing the Social Service System: A Reassessment

In recent years, Title XX of the Social Security Act and the Social Services Block Grant decentralized the social service system. This is claimed to be an improvement because decentralization strengthens the match between needs and services, adds to the flexibility of workers and agencies, and increases efficiency. However, it is argued in this article that decentralization also contributes to some problematic service delivery patterns, such as specialization and selectivity, a lack of responsiveness to major shifts in patterns of needs, and a loss of effective advocacy to sustain appropriations. This argument is used to explain dilemmas in serving the homeless in Chicago and to question general assumptions about decentralization.

Administrative Issues in Substitute Care

Although 1980 federal legislation mandates some new administrative procedures for substitute care (foster care, group care, etc.), the implementation of the mandates in a representative sample of local agencies has not been studied in detail. Using survey data from Wisconsin county offices, this paper examines whether local administrative systems are now consistent with the mandates and whether they implement the general philosophy of the legislation in the administrative system. It also considers whether the adopted administrative mechanisms help reach one of the prime goals of the legislation, limiting the time that children spend in substitute care. Results suggest that most Wisconsin counties have made significant administrative changes, some of which seem to reduce the proportion of children who are in long-term care.

Juvenile Court Commitment Rates: The Role of Organizational Factors

This paper examines the impact of organizational factors on the rate at which juvenile courts commit referred youth to institutions. Analyzing data from a national sample of courts, the paper demonstrates that both the rate at which cases are handled informally and the rate at which judges commit those youth who appear before them independently influence the overall commitment rate. It also discovers determinants of each of these two components of the commitment rate. The data help suggest some policy choices for those who wish to alter commitment rates.

Delivering Services under Permanency Planning

Many authorities favor the use of permanency planning procedures in substitute care systems. Designed to limit the proportion of children who remain in substitute care for long periods, the recommended procedures include the extensive delivery of services by workers. This paper uses survey data from Wisconsins counties to analyze the effect of delivering services. It discovers that permanence is more readily achieved in agencies in which workers generally make use of many sources of information in planning but that permanence may be less readily achieved in agencies in which workers frequently focus their contacts with the biological parents on adoption. No relation exists between achieving permanence and the delivery to the biological family of such family supports as respite care. Policy implications are suggested.

Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in the AFDC System

This paper studies emergency assistance and special needs programs that are tied to the AFDC grant system. It notes that the specialized programs are currently more common in states that have high AFDC benefits and reduced commitments to a standardized calculation of income-maintenance grants. On the other hand, it finds that AFDC emergency programs are apparently larger in states with low AFDC benefits and more emphasis on standardization. These results are explained in the terms of historical trends toward bureaucratization and resulting state strategies designed to strike a balance between discretion and standardization and between meeting needs and controlling expenditures.

Social Welfare and Organizational Society

The dominance of the large-scale formal organization is a central feature of contemporary American society. This article overviews those societal trends that are bound up with organizational dominance and presents some implications for social welfare. It argues that the combination of large-scale organizations and traditional industrial arrangements results in the formation of a stable yet chronically underfinanced welfare system whose level of support and character is crucial to the lives of an increasingly alienated lower class. Organizational dominance implies that changes in bureaucratic rules have important consequences for large segments of society; however, strong social forces militate against any significant changes in those rules affecting public welfare.