CURRENT PROJECTS
  • Best Practices in Contracting for Child and Family Social Services
    This project, which began in January of 1997, supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, is designed to be of assistance to state and local government officials and to the leadership of the private agencies with which they contract. Its main focus is on the privatization of child and family social services by means of the contracting-out of publicly funded services to private non-profit and for-profit agencies. Its major purpose is to develop information and advice of potential use to those officials involved in contracting, to vendor agencies and others involved as "contractees." The ultimate objective is to improve the delivery of social services to children and their families and, thus, to promote their well-being. A first report was published in 1998: "Privatization, Contracting, and Reform of Child and Family Social Services" (Washington, DC: The Finance Project). Currently being prepared for publication: Contracting for child and family services: A mission-sensitive guide (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2000). Authors: Alfred J. Kahn and Sheila B. Kamerman. Consultant: Elliott Sclar.

  • Family Policy and Family Change (1993-2001)
    A multi-year, multi-country (20) collaboration is co-directed by Professor Peter Flora, University of Mannheim, Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn, funded by the German Science Foundation and various country sources. A contract with Oxford University Press (England) provides for a 7-volume series, five reporting on individual countries and including analytic introductions, and two comparative volumes. Professors Kamerman and Kahn are currently at work with collaborators on one of the comparative volumes. The Cross-National Studies Program produced the U.S. report for the project and edited the first country volume covering the Anglo-American countries: Kamerman, S.B. & Kahn, A.J. (Eds.) (1997). Family change and family policies in Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

  • Child and Family Policies in an Era of Social Policy Retrenchment and Restructuring
    For a variety of reasons, major industrial countries are under considerable pressure to curtail social expenditures, variously described as social protection, social security, and social welfare. The focus of the project is on how child and family benefits and services do, and will fare, under these circumstances. In press, Sheila B. Kamerman and Alfred J. Kahn, "Child and Family Policies in an Era of Social Policy Retrenchment and Restructuring," in K.Vlemincks and T.M. Smeeding (Editors), Child well being in modern nations (Bristol, England: The Policy Press).