Is Social Service Contracting Coercive, Competitive, or Collaborative?

Abstract

A historic concern over child welfare privatization is whether the unidirectional incentives arising from contract relations is consistent with the multi-dimensional role of protecting children. To explore how public agencies resolve this tension, I examine the distribution of casework between a department of human services and five private foster care providers. Results indicate that private contractors specialized in long-term foster care candidates, while the public sector disproportionately received cases involving serious parent behavior. These findings imply collaboration: to protect clients yet preserve contract relations, administrators allocated cases to accommodate the perceived strengths and weaknesses of private agencies.

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