Are Florida's children safer? : a public management perspective of the decision to privatize child welfare services in district 7

Abstract

ln 1998, the Florida state legislature mandated the privatization of child welfare services. The decision to contract child welfare services to non-profit organizations was done as an effort to attain lower costs, effectiveness, and quality in service delivery. The 1998 initiative came to be known as "Community-Based Care" and was based on the idea that local communities would have incentives to be more accountable for children than the state. The federal government requires that safety be the paramount goal for all children in the child welfare system. The purpose of this study was to assess if Community-Based Care was indeed effective in this principal objective with the use of the researcher's own developed definition of "safety" and three safety performance measures relative to her definition taken from the Florida Department of Children and Families online performance dashboard application. This research focused on the Community-Based Care initiative in district 7 (Orange, Osceola, Seminole, and Brevard counties) and drew attention to the question, are district 7 's children safer now since the privatization of child welfare services? From a public management perspective, this study showed that privatized child welfare services are both capable and incapable of keeping children safe due to various factors. The findings from this study are important as they can give national, regional, and local public managers a significant and unique view on privatized child welfare services along with associated benefits and shortcomings in ensuring children's safety.

Notes

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Thesis Completion

2008

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Korosec, Ronnie L.

Degree

Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

College

College of Health and Public Affairs

Degree Program

Public Administration

Subjects

Dissertations, Academic -- Health and Public Affairs;Health and Public Affairs -- Dissertations, Academic

Format

Print

Identifier

DP0022231

Language

English

Access Status

Open Access

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Document Type

Honors in the Major Thesis

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