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.
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- 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.
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- 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).
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