Susan E. Grettenberger

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Faith-Based Welfare Agencies: Methodological Challenges and Possibilities

Abstract This study examines the methodological challenges associated with conducting research on faith-based organizations. The arguments advanced are based on a group of comparative case studies conducted by the authors on secular and faith-based providers in three different social service domains: (1) transitional housing, (2) parent education, and (3) residential substance abuse treatment programs. All case studies utilized the same research protocol. The study identifies the lessons learned from comparative case study research on faith-based organizations when a similar protocol is implemented to examine a variety of social service domains and provider types.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Faith-Based Welfare Agencies

Abstract This study examines the methodological challenges associated with conducting research on faith-based organizations. The arguments advanced are based on a group of comparative case studies conducted by the authors on secular and faith-based providers in three different social service domains: (1) transitional housing, (2) parent education, and (3) residential substance abuse treatment programs. All case studies utilized the same research protocol. The study identifies the lessons learned from comparative case study research on faith-based organizations when a similar protocol is implemented to examine a variety of social service domains and provider types.

Faith-Based Versus Secular Support for Fragile Families: Parent Education in the Rural South

The first stop on our tour of the service provision landscape in post-welfare America is rural Mississippi. In many respects, Mississippi is an ideal state in which to begin our investigation. Mississippi has long been known for its inordinately high poverty rate and its large proportion of female-headed families. Mississippi, sometimes referred to as the buckle of the Bible Belt, is also one of the most religious states in the country. The dominant faith traditions in Mississippi are those of the conservative Protestant variety, including denominations often described as fundamentalist such as Baptists. Pentecostals such as Church of God in Christ are also well represented. United Methodists, the primary mainline Protestant denomination in the state, enjoy a significant share of the religious market as well, although Mississippi Methodists are generally more conservative than their methodists in other parts of the country.

Conclusion: Promising Partners or Strange Bedfellows? Faith-Based Providers and Government Funders

Our volume has set out to examine the dynamics of social service delivery with a principal focus on faith-based organizations. Our qualitative and comparative approach has analyzed the contours of welfare service provision across different social service domains (family, housing, addiction recovery), provider types (faith-intensive, faith-related, secular), and locales (Mississippi, Michigan, and Washington-Oregon ). A consistent analytical theme has also been explored throughout this volume in the form of the three C’s of social service provision. Using what we called a layered case study approach, we have been mindful of programmatic content (service delivery dynamics), organizational culture (agency mission, values, etc.), and ecological context (community environment, religious landscape, etc.).

Faith-Based Initiatives Reconsidered: The Complicated Relationship Between Religion and Social Welfare Service Provision

More than two decades after the passage of welfare reform law and Charitable Choice, what is known about faith-based initiatives? What questions remain to be addressed, and how might we benefit from a reconsideration of critical issues on this topic? In this chapter, we seek to shed light on these questions. We begin by reviewing research that is most germane to the focus of our study, namely, service provision dynamics in faith-based and secular organizations. Given the rather sizable research literature on faith-based initiatives, we do not aim to provide comprehensive coverage when reviewing previous work. Rather, we select the more limited body of studies that bears directly on our efforts to contrast faith-based and secular social service provision.

Does Faith Matter? Client Transformation in Parenting, Housing, and Addiction Recovery Programs

Having surveyed the contours of service provision in three different locales across the United States, we next turn to questions of change and transformation. These issues are at the heart of current debates over social service provision. Regardless of the particular policy domain in which social service agencies are situated or the type of provider in question, these organizations inhabit a political world in which results and performance are the paramount criteria by which their activities are evaluated. And, in the wake of welfare reform, performance is typically gauged in terms of the numbers of lives changed and the measurable scope of community transformation. Yet, despite the virtues of statistical measurement, a myopic focus on numbers leaves the social processes responsible for client and community change unexamined.

Across the Continuum of Care: Transitional Housing Programs in the Midwest

For the next stop on our tour, we travel to Michigan. The state of Michigan offers a dramatic counterpoint and distinctive ecological context when compared with our Mississippi case study. Situated squarely in the Midwest, Michigan is the original home of the American automobile industry.

Faith-Based Persistence and Permutations

Faith-based initiatives first entered the American lexicon over two decades ago, and the practice of government has been significantly altered ever since. This initiative’s genesis, effectively Faith-Based 1.0, formally began under Charitable Choice, a provision in 1996’s Welfare Reform Law. This provision offered clients of government funded job placement, housing, food distribution, and other programs the choice of receiving services from a faith-based or secular provider. It also reversed the longstanding requirement for faith-based organizations to secularize themselves before becoming eligible to bid for government service contracts.

Faith-Based Social Services: Measures, Assessments, and Effectiveness

Abstract This study examines the methodological challenges associated with conducting research on faith-based organizations. The arguments advanced are based on a group of comparative case studies conducted by the authors on secular and faith-based providers in three different social service domains: (1) transitional housing, (2) parent education, and (3) residential substance abuse treatment programs. All case studies utilized the same research protocol. The study identifies the lessons learned from comparative case study research on faith-based organizations when a similar protocol is implemented to examine a variety of social service domains and provider types.

Evaluating the effectiveness of faith-based welfare agencies

Abstract This study examines the methodological challenges associated with conducting research on faith-based organizations. The arguments advanced are based on a group of comparative case studies conducted by the authors on secular and faith-based providers in three different social service domains: (1) transitional housing, (2) parent education, and (3) residential substance abuse treatment programs. All case studies utilized the same research protocol. The study identifies the lessons learned from comparative case study research on faith-based organizations when a similar protocol is implemented to examine a variety of social service domains and provider types.