Organisational Structure as Barrier or Support in the Personal Social ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Table: 28. As a result of the contact with the social services, my ability to influence my ownlife-situation is: (Percentage of all respondents)Integrated Combined SpecialisedMuch better than before 26,5 29,5 21,8Somewhat better than before 26,5 36,1 27,3Unchanged 35,3 27,9 41,8Somewhat worse than before 1,5 0 0Much worse than before 2,9 1,6 5,5I do not know 7,4 4,9 3,6n= 68 61 55Table: 29. As a result of the contact with the social services, my self-esteem is:(Percentage of all respondents)**Integrated Combined SpecialisedMuch better than before 17,9 21,3 9,3Somewhat better than before 23,9 31,1 29,6Unchanged 41,8 39,3 35,2Somewhat worse than before 11,9 3,3 7,4Much worse than before 4,5 0 7,4I do not know 0 4,9 11,1n= 67 61 54Significance: ***=0,01, **=0,05, *=0,10Tables 27 to 29 show that the clients in the combined organisation are more content with theresults, than the clients in the other two organisations. The difference is biggest compared tothe specialised organisation.All in all, the tables 23-29 illustrates that it is complicated to study and evaluate client effects.That is, it is difficult to unambiguously determine if and in what respects the contact with thesocial services led to an improvement. For example, between 70 and 75 percent of the clientsin the integrated and the combined organisation answer that their life-situation has becomebetter (table 24). But on the subsequent questions about social relations, the ability toinfluence the own life-situation and better self-esteem – which are important for most people– significantly less clients have given positive answers. However, these seemingly divergingresults do not have to be contradictory. For example it is possible to imagine that a client thathas received monetary benefits believe that her life-situation has become better, but withoutaffecting her social relations, and without experiencing increased possibilities to influence herlife-situation or increased self-esteem.If we look at the clients as one group, i.e. without viewing them by organisation, most of them(59 percent in table 24) answer that their life-situation is better as a result of the contact withthe social services. About a fourth believes that their life-situation is unchanged and almost 8percent says that the situation is worse. It could be discussed whether this is a satisfying or abad result. Even if the intention with this study is not to evaluate the client effects of theseorganisations (in such case we would have used another design of the study), we believe thatthe client effects indicate that these organisation function relatively well. The results have to26
e related to the fact that the PSS often work with people with very difficult problems (e.g.drug abuse, child abuse, racial conflicts, which have aggravated under long periods). Thusone cannot expect that all clients at a certain occasion (i.e. the period when the questionnairewas distributed) answers that the contact has led to an improvement. Moreover, from ourprevious studies (Blom & Morén, 2007, Morén & Blom, 2003) we know that clients duringthe initial phase of the contact with the PSS can feel that life has become worse, e.g. becausethey have to quit abusing drugs. Maybe that is one of the reasons way so many as 16 percentof the clients in the integrated organisation believe that their self-esteem (table 29) is worse asa result of the social services. It could – how strange this may seem – be an indication ofsuccessful social work.Summing-upTaken as a whole, the results show – almost throughout – that clients in the integratedorganisation, compared to the clients in the combined and the specialised organisation:- have had contacts with fewer social workers and units within the PSS- have experienced the PSS’ internal and external cooperation as better- have experienced the social workers holistic view and responsibility as better- have received a better encounter/treatment and been more involved in the helping process- are more satisfied with the results (except that clients in the combined organisation are moresatisfied in some respects, cp. tables 27-29)- seem to have understood the PSS-organisation, the helping process and their own situationin a better way (fewer clients have answered I do not know on questions about concretecircumstances as well on questions concerning attitudes).Hence, there are a number of significant differences between the clients in the studiedmunicipalities, which can be related to how the PSS is organised. The results indicate that theintegrated organisation is the most advantageous (or less disadvantageous) from a clientperspective. Anew we want to emphasize that the results has to be interpreted carefully,considering that the sample was not fully randomized and the limited number of respondents.Nevertheless, due to the fact that the results from the client study are fully in line with theresults from the other studies within the project (studies of social workers, politicians andsuperiors) 12 , we regard the reliability of the study as acceptable.The focus of this paper is if organisational structure is a barrier or support for clients in thepersonal social service, and more specifically whether this depends on the type oforganisation. Based on the results presented above, we discuss this question in the next part ofthe paper.The PSS as barrier or support?In the title of this paper we put forward the question if organisational structure is a barrier orsupport in the personal social services. Generally regarded, the obvious answer is that thePSS’ organisational structure function as support as well as barrier, irrespective of whichorganisational model one have in mind. The answer on that question, among other things,depends on who’s’ perspective (e.g. politicians’, social workers’ or clients’) the matter isviewed from, what one mean by support and barrier (e.g. for management or interventions),and what organisational tasks that is in focus (e.g. prevention, treatment or care).12 Morén, S., Blom, B., Lundgren, M. & Perlinski, M. (forthcoming); Perlinski, Blom & Morén (2009);Perlinski, Blom, Morén & Lundgren (forthcoming).27
Page 1 and 2: O rganisational Structure as Barrie
Page 4 and 5: Different forms of specialisation a
Page 6 and 7: In this type of organisation a dist
Page 8 and 9: fact that almost every PSS-organisa
Page 10 and 11: clients want a key-person that main
Page 12 and 13: The second step was to ask social w
Page 14 and 15: Not like an average Swede - weak so
Page 16 and 17: Trust in social and political insti
Page 18 and 19: Table: 9. Has the number of social
Page 20 and 21: Clients who were satisfied with the
Page 22 and 23: The tables 13-15 show that clients
Page 24 and 25: Table: 19. Treatment-indexes. Actua
Page 26 and 27: Table: 24. Have the contact with th
Page 30 and 31: In a previous interview study (Perl
Page 32 and 33: clients. This statement is supporte
Page 34 and 35: AppendixHow much does the PSS cost?
Page 36 and 37: Table A.Key figures for the PSS 200
Page 38 and 39: Table B. The studied PSS-organisati
Page 40 and 41: than the actual treatment. Conseque
Page 42 and 43: Börjeson, B., & Håkansson, H. (19
Page 44 and 45: Perlinski, M., Blom, B., Morén, S.

Organisational Structure as Barrier or Support in the Personal Social ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?