Financing Of Social Services Research Articles

From Web Site Visitor to Online Contributor: Three Internet Fundraising Techniques for Nonprofits

According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS), over 1 million public charity nonprofits existed in the United States in 2009, funded by $1.4 trillion in revenues from contributions, gifts, and grants (22 percent); program service revenues, including government contracts and fees (67 percent) and other sources, including dues and special event income (11 percent) (NCCS, 2010). A large number of these organizations are human services nonprofits employing social workers and providing mental health, housing, and other types of basic direct services to clients needing assistance. These nonprofit organizations are facing financial conditions that are perhaps the worst in the last three decades. Federal funding for social services is expected to stay flat or decrease (Calmes, 2010). States are experiencing revenue shortfalls that average nearly 12 percent less in 2009 than in 2008 (Pew Center on the States, 2009). Foundation funding has fallen (Foundation Center, 2009). Finally, individual giving to organizations that work with the poor has decreased (Center on Philanthropy, 2009). The effects of these diminished funding streams are serious. Federal grants are much more competitive than before, states are delaying payments for long periods of time to nonprofits that provide services, and nonprofits are finding themselves eating up their cash reserves, leaving them vulnerable to going out of business. Only 18 percent of surveyed nonprofits expect to break even in 2010 (Nonprofit Finance Fund, 2010). Because each of the ways that nonprofit organizations have traditionally raised funds is becoming less productive, alternative means of raising funds should be explored. This article presents three techniques derived from for-profit Internet marketing efforts that are promising additions to current efforts by nonprofits. Internet marketing is an unknown area for most nonprofits, and nonprofits have not appeared as a topic at any of the sessions of the Internet Marketing Conference since its inception in 2000 (Internet Marketing Conference, 2010). Although the techniques discussed here are used by some businesses, even in the for-profit world there is considerable ignorance about the best approaches to Internet marketing. Here, affiliate marketing, online donations and memberships, and information products are defined and discussed in turn. AFFILIATE MARKETING Affiliate marketing is a process by which an organization drives traffic from its Web site to another organization's Web site to promote a product or service for a percentage of the sale price (Brown, 2008). It is vital that the product be of significant benefit to the individual buying it, else the nonprofit will get a black eye for lending its name to an inferior or useless product. Affiliate marketing is different from hosting advertisements on a Web site because the nonprofit can make a very strong link between its mission and the sale. (This should keep the nonprofit on the correct side of the unrelated business income tax, but it is wise to consult an experienced lawyer to be sure.) With Internet affiliate marketing, the organization is really advertising one or a few products at a time, not an entire commercial entity. Affiliate marketing is not the same as signing up as a member of a company's charitable donation network, as when a local grocery store chain provides an organization with a card that is scanned, with a certain percentage of the amount purchased going to the nonprofit. Agencies should sign up for such programs and promote them. But, in this situation, there is no clear connection between the nonprofit's mission and the grocery store. It is simply a way to receive corporate donations. A nonprofit can begin affiliate marketing in two ways: (1) by linking to a company (as in the grocery store example) and (2) by promoting specific products that are directly beneficial to the targeted audience. …

Funding social services: An historical analysis of responsibility for citizens’ welfare in New Zealand

Government funding and delivery of social services increasingly fails to meet citizens’ demands. One theory is that charities alleviate this pressure by delivering services to supplement those that governments provide (Weisbrod, 1988). When the government and market fail to meet social needs, these services are funded by donations and service charges. A second theory is that charities partner with government to fund and deliver complementary services (Salamon, 1987). This article analyses the historical choices made by New Zealand’s government and charities relating to social services funding and delivery. Charities have not responded solely to what Weisbrod (1988) calls government failure, nor have they entered into continuous partnerships with government as Salamon (1987) would suggest. Instead, funding choices appear to be mutable, placing charities and beneficiaries in precarious positions when social services funding reduces. This article encourages debate about how social services should be funded: by government, charities or the marketplace.

The Relationship between Teacher Self-Efficacy and Violence toward Students as Mediated by Teacher's Attitude

School violence is an issue of national and international concern, especially because of its adverse impact on students' physical and emotional well-being (Akiba, LeTendre, Baker, & Goesling, 2002). However, little attention has been paid to victimization of students by their own teachers (Hyman & Perone, 1998). Previous studies that examined this issue found that students are exposed to high levels of corporal punishment by school staff in different countries around the world, such as Australia (Delfabbro et al., 2005), Korea and China (Kim et al., 2000), and the United States (Office for Civil Rights, 2006). Khoury-Kassabri, Astor, and Benbenishty (2008), in a study of 27,316 students in grades 4 through 11 in Israel, found that almost one-third of Israeli students reported emotional maltreatment by a staff member. Close to one-fifth of all students reported being a victim of physical maltreatment. This study examined both physical and emotional maltreatment. Emotional maltreatment may be verbal or nonverbal and includes name calling, mocking the student's appearance and disabilities, humiliating the student in front of classmates, and behaving in blatantly discriminatory ways against certain students (Benbenishty, Zeira, Astor, & Khoury-Kassabri, 2002). Hyman (1990) defined corporal punishment in school as the infliction of pain or confinement as a penalty for an offense committed by a student. Some forms of physical maltreatment may be regarded as intentional and acceptable corporal punishment. In many other instances, physical maltreatment by staff in school is not part of an educational policy advocating corporal punishment. Rather, staff may react to infractions of discipline and provocation by using various degrees of force, such as pushing, shoving, slapping, pinching, punching, or kicking (Hyman & Snook, 2000). Previous studies that attempted to identify the risk factors for staff maltreatment have not examined teachers' characteristics. The aim of the current study was to examine the association between teachers' reports on use of violence toward their students and teachers' characteristics. More specifically, in this study, the contribution of teachers' self-efficacy, attitudes toward violence, and background variables (for example, gender, teaching experience) to the understanding of child maltreatment by teachers is explored. MALTREATMENT WITHIN ARAB SCHOOLS This study focused on Arab homeroom teachers in Israel. In previous works in Israel, it was found that children in Arab schools reported much more staff maltreatment than children in Jewish schools (Khoury-Kassabri, 2006), and a preliminary analysis of this study by the author (Khoury-Kassabri, 2008) found that Jewish teachers reported almost no violence toward their students. Physical violence was reported by 1.9% of teachers, and emotional maltreatment was reported by about 3%. Because of these low numbers, the current work focuses on Arab teachers. It should be noted that Arab students are being maltreated by Arab staff.' There is almost no Jewish staff in Arab schools and vice versa (Benbenishty, Zeira, & Astor, 2002). Some of these differences were attributed to the socioeconomic differences between Arabs and Jews in Israel. Arabs in Israel form a minority that is characterized by higher rates of poverty and unemployment and much lower expenditure of public funds for social services (such as education) compared with the Jewish majority (Hareven, 2002; Kop, 2004). However, previous studies found that, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, there were still clear gaps between Jewish and Arab students in reports of perpetration. The aim of the current study was to examine the contribution of the teachers' characteristics to their reports of violence toward students. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Teachers Self-Efficacy Many studies on teachers' self-efficacy were influenced by Bandura's (1977, 1982) conceptualization of self-efficacy in his cognitive social learning theory. …

Judges and Religious-Based Reasoning

Is it ever acceptable for a judge in a secular liberal demecracyto rely on, and explicitly refer to, religious-based reasoning in reaching a decision? While it is unlikely that many Canadian judges will be seized with the desire to include religious-based reasoning in their judgments, we raise this issue because it allows us to examine the appropriate role of religious-based discourse in a challenging context, where arguments about unconstitutionality are strongest. In a previous article, we concluded that there are no ethical impediments to citizens using such discourse in discussing public affairs. We argued that it is no less virtuous (although it may sometimes be less persuasive) to reason from one’s religious convictions than from any other comprehensive set of values, when advocating for or against public policy alternatives. We would suggest that this is generally also the case for elected representatives. Thus, in our view, it would be perfectly acceptable for a member of a legislature to buttress a call for increased funding for social services by reference to Proverbs 19:17: "One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the Lord." However, it is unconstitutional for a legislature to pass legislation for a religious purpose; therefore, legislators must recognize the distinction between advocating legislation designed to achieve a religious purpose and using religious arguments to support or oppose legislation designed to achieve a public purpose.

The Economics of Religious Interpretation: The System of Taqlid

The role of religion cannot be sustained without some degree of scriptural exegesis or interpretation over time. In Islamic Shi’a tradition, the process of interpreting scripture in order to deduce Islamic law is called ijtihad. This process is performed by a select few of highly specialized jurists, called mujtahids. Every believer who is incapable of engaging in ijtihad, is required to choose among the group of available mujtahids, and follow the jurist’s interpretation and judgment in all matters of law. This ‘emulation of another in matters of law’ is called taqlid. In return, believers are obligated to pay a religious tax to the jurist, where the proceeds are primarily used for the development of religious institutions and the funding of social services. In a rational choice framework, we analyze the interpretation of religious scripture as a public good problem. The Shi‘a System of taqlid alleviates the public good problem by compensating the few who practice ijtihad on behalf of the unwilling majority. Taqlid also serves to preserve the religious identity and political independence of the Shi’a community. We also examine possible rent-seeking practices by mujtahids, and the impact of religious competition among mujtahids on the Shi’a community. Key words: Rational choice; Public good; Religion; Exegesis

Social deprivation and use of mental health legislation in New Zealand

Low socioeconomic status has consistently been associated with poorer health outcomes. Few studies have used ecological analysis to explore relationships between area measures of deprivation and use of mental health legislation. We used an ecological design to explore associations between two area measures of relative deprivation and the two most commonly used sections of New Zealand mental health legislation. High levels of relative deprivation were positively correlated with use of both acute and long-term community care provisions of mental health legislation with the correlation with long-term care achieving significance (r = .518, p = .016). Low levels of relative deprivation showed negative correlations with use of both provisions. The correlation of -.493 between low levels of relative deprivation and acute care provisions was significant at p = .023. In stepwise regression, the proportion of the population aged 15-64 contributed to the model for section 11, but ethnicity contributed to neither model. Mental health legislation is used disproportionately in areas with high levels of relative deprivation. The results have implications for regional allocation of funding for mental health and social services to support community-based care. Further research is needed to explore other factors that may account for the regional variation.

Maternal and Fetal Outcome of Obstetric Emergencies in a Tertiary Health Institution in South-Western Nigeria

Objective. This study was carried out to determine the pattern of obstetric emergencies and its influence on maternal and perinatal outcome of obstetric emergencies at the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Nigeria. Method. A retrospective study of obstetric emergencies managed over a three-year period at Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH), Sagamu, Nigeria was conducted. Results. There were 262 obstetric emergencies accounting for 18.5% of the 1420 total deliveries during the period. Unbooked patients formed the bulk of the cases (60.3%). The most common emergencies were prolonged/obstructed labour, postpartum haemorrhage, fetal distress, severe pregnancy-induced hypertension/eclampsia, and antepartum haemorrhage. Obstetric emergencies were responsible for 70.6% of the maternal mortality and 86% of the perinatal mortality within the period. Conclusion. Prevention/effective management of obstetric emergencies will help to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in our environment. This can be achieved through the utilization of antenatal care services, making budget for pregnancies and childbirth at family level (pending the time every family participates in National Health Insurance Scheme), adequate funding of social welfare services to assist indigent patients, liberal blood donation, and regular training of doctors and nurses on this subject.

Slicing Up the Pie: Allocation of Central Government Funding of Care of Older People

The allocation of central government funds is a critical element in the equitable provision of local authority-commissioned and -provided services. A variety of approaches to allocating funding for social services for older people have been used over the years, most recently founded on ‘needs-based’ formulae. In 2004, the Department of Health for England commissioned research to help inform the improvement and updating of the formula. The results of individual-level analyses were compared with the results obtained from analyses of small area (ward-level) data on service users. Both analyses were affected by problems of data availability, particularly the individual-level analysis, and the Department of Health and the (then) Office of the Deputy Prime Minister decided that the formula calculations should be based on the results of the small area analysis. However, despite the differences in approach, both methods produced very similar results. The correlation between the predicted relative needs weights for local authorities from the two models was 0.982. The article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and developments that could allow a normative approach that would incorporate future policy objectives into formulae that, to date, have inevitably been based on historical data and service patterns.

Review: The Tar Sands Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent

THE TAR SANDS Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent Andrew Nikiforuk Vancouver: Grey stone and the David Suzuki Foundation, 2008. 214pp, $20 paper ISBN 978-1-55362-407-0When it was published in 2008, Andrew Nikiforuk's latest book, The Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, co-published by Greystone and the David Suzuki Foundation, caused a sensation. Hailed in some quarters as a wakeup call to Canadians and the world about the social, economic, and political perils of oil sands development, Nikiforuk's book lambasted federal and provincial politicians and institutions alike for their perceived laxity and complicity in creating an environmental, social, economic, and political disaster. Nikiforuk's harsher critics, on the other hand, derided The Tar Sands as little more than environmental agitprop whose preconceived political and social agenda distorted facts and produced, at best, a misleading and incomplete picture of the industry.To be sure, The Tar Sands is not an academic piece, nor does it aspire to be one. Nikiforuk is animated by the same impulses that drove Ida Tarbell, the infamous muckracker for McClure's Magazine, to tackle John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Unlike Rockefeller's creation, which effectively dominated the world's petroleum industry at the beginning ofthe 20th century, however, Alberta's modern oil sands industry operates on the margins of an international petroleum order as a capital-intensive player dependent on economies of scale for profitability. While daily production reached 1.3 million barrels per day in 2008, this represents approximately 1.5 percent ofthe world's daily demand of 85 million barrels per day. Nevertheless, oil sands projects and investments have grown dramatically since 2005 and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers estimates that total investment will reach $10 billion in 2009 - one quarter of the total investment in the province of Alberta.Despite claims by the provincial government that it is effectively managing development, Nikiforuk asserts that Alberta's unconventional oil deposits are being recklessly developed by an uncaring oil industry while government agencies and officials at both the federal and provincial levels turn a blind eye to what is taking place in northern Alberta. In places, the analysis is sharp and penetrating and the issues he raises deserve careful consideration. In a province where tar sands-derived royalties and revenues top billions of dollars, deficiencies in funding for social services, health care, and education raise troubling questions about provincial management. So too does the moribund status of vital infrastructure projects, such as the twinning of provincial highway 63 from Edmonton to Fort McMurray, a topic Nikiforuk tackles in a chapter that metaphorically and literally suggests tar sands development is like travelling down a highway to hell. The Tar Sands is intended to provoke a visceral reaction to tar sands development: Nikiforuk is mad as hell and wants everyone to know it.But this passion, which is so clearly evident on every page ofthe book, occasionally leads him astray. He presents energy politics as a zero-sum game in which development proceeds at the expense of every other social, political, economic, and environmental goal. Without a trace of irony, Nikiforuk concludes that Canada's natural resource wealth has imperilled freedom of speech and democratic institutions, and leads him to draw a lazy - and highly suspect - analogy between Canadian public policies and those of other petro-dictatorships, including Vladimir Putin's Russia, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. …

The Case for Better Maps of Social Service Provision: Using the Holy Cross Dispute to Illustrate More Effective Mapping

Third-sector organizations provide essential services, but not all types of organizations operate equally well given different intensities of public problems. This article argues for maps that would help social service funding bodies. Those maps would include three elements: (1) a measure of service demanded by a community, (2) data on the full range of organizations able to supply those services, and (3) a chart that identifies those organizations that provide services at different intensities of need. By providing information about the supply of organizations in a community, with measures of demand for services, state funding bodies, foundations, and individual philanthropists can make informed decisions about where to allocate funds. An ideal map is illustrated by using the case of the Holy Cross Dispute (2001), whereby a host of voluntary sector organizations provided a voice for residents in this divided Belfast community. The result is a call for more intensive mapping exercises of voluntary sector social service provision.

The Limits and Potential of Nonprofit Organizations in Participatory Planning: A Case Study of the New York Hiv Planning Council

ABSTRACT:In addition to providing a wide range of essential services in local communities, service-providing nonprofit organizations play an important role in shaping de facto local social policy through their participation in community-based planning processes that guide or determine the distribution of federal funding for health and social services. This social policy role has become increasingly important in the United States as the federal government continues to privatize health and human services through providing grant funds to states and cities that are ultimately used to support local nonprofit health and social service organizations. The important role of service-providing nonprofits in shaping local social policy has been understudied, as most studies on nonprofits and policy-making focus on citizen advocacy organizations and their lobbying and protest activities, primarily at the national level. This study uses the case of the New York HIV Planning Council to address this gap in the literature, highlighting the benefits and pitfalls of an urban community planning process dominated by service providers from local nonprofit social service organizations whose own organizations are affected by the planning group’s decisions. Factors that contributed to nonprofit providers’ dominance as well as factors that limited their self-interested behavior are reviewed. The relationship between the HIV nonprofit service system and the AIDS social movement is explored in light of theory on new social movements to help explain why nonprofit providers were sometimes able to promote attentiveness to the general public good while also advocating for their more self-interested organizational needs.

It’s all about Cinderella – and the Prince?: Women’s NGOs in Bulgaria

The fall of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 generated fundamental political and socio-economic transformations. The introduction of the free-market economy in the region led to the closure or privatization of state corporations and, consequently, to an increase of the unemployment rate, while reductions of state funding for social services resulted in the erosion of former securities. Simultaneously, Western and international agencies and organisations have transferred billions of US dollars of financial aid into the region. Among the receivers of Western funding were Eastern European non-governmental organisations (NGOs) aiming to support local women through the transformations and to advocate their rights. Several authors, however, have pointed out that many of them pursue what they and/or their Western donors think is best for women rather than focusing on what women themselves consider their needs and wishes. This paper critically reviews two Bulgarian women’s NGOs, including a discussion of their representations of women, the influence of Western donors, and the issue of who benefits from the NGOs’ work. I argue that both NGOs, although they claim to advocate equal opportunities for women and men, pursue a ‘women-only’ approach by ignoring gender relations – an issue that is also largely overlooked by the critics presented in this paper. I conclude that NGOs, if they want to assist and support local women, ought to implement a ‘women-and-men-together’ approach, consider what women themselves view as their needs, and challenge neoliberalism.

Two Women, Two Visions of Nationhood for Taiwan: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and Hsiu-lien Annette Lu

This essay discusses the ways in which social feminism in postwar Taiwan has been used as a means to further the nationalistic goals of Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the former vice- president of Taiwan, Hsiu-lien Annette Lu. As social feminists, both Madame Chiang and Annette Lu envisaged the extension of homemakers' maternal roles from the domestic realm to the public arena to serve the nation. Since 1949, Madame Chiang urged women to contribute their sewing skills to mending military uniforms and to raise funds for social services to assist military families in order to support the campaign of the Chinese Nationalist Military to recover China from Communist occupation. In contrast, Lu proposed the peaceful coexistence of Taiwan and China and conceived of women's contribution to democratic political participation, human rights, fund-raising for humanitarian aid and international peace as Taiwan's “soft national power’ in the international community.

Geriatricians – a role reappraisal?

Geriatricians – a role reappraisal?

Charitable Choice at Work: Evaluating Faith-Based Job Programs in the States and Faith, Hope, and Jobs: Welfare-to-Work in Los Angeles

Charitable Choice at Work: Evaluating Faith-Based Job Programs in the States. By Sheila Seuss Kennedy and Wolfgang Bielefeld. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 248p. $44.95 cloth, $26.95 paper.Faith, Hope, and Jobs: Welfare-to-Work in Los Angeles. By Stephen V. Monsma and J. Christopher Soper. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2006. 240p. 26.95 paper.In 1996, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a law designed to reform the prevailing welfare system. Although Section 104, known as the Charitable Choice Provision, allowed religious and faith-based organizations to compete for federal funding for social services, little was done to create the specific means by which this could be implemented. No surprise, then, that one of the first actions of the new President, George W. Bush, was to sign two Executive Orders in 2001 that established such a mechanism: the Faith-Based Initiative.

Homelessness in the Czech Republic

This article discusses homelessness in the Czech Republic. In doing so the authors have used an operational definition common in the European Union. In order to explain homelessness in the Czech Republic, the article examines the relevant laws and governmental policies. Then the article discusses some causes of homelessness in the Czech Republic, a recent census of the homeless in the nation, the activities of service‐providing organizations, the financing of social services in the nation, health and health care among homeless people, a new food bank, and the harmonization of the Czech Republic with the common objectives of the rest of the European Union.

The Consumer Culture of Poverty: Behavioral Research Findings and Their Implications in an Ethnographic Context

In an industrial society groups are stratified in terms of the material assets or resources they control, the benefits and privileges they receive from these resources, the cultural experiences they have accumulated from historical and existing economic and political arrangements, and the influence they yield because of those arrangements. (Wilson, 1) The devastation to the city of New Orleans from hurricane Katrina sent shock waves around the world. Vivid images of ruined homes, flooded streets, and crowded emergency shelters were broadcast widely, causing even developing nations in the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa to send donations to US relief agencies. However Shelby Steele, writing in the St. Petersburg Times, states that another kind of human wretchedness was on display. In the people traversing waist-deep water and languishing on rooftops were the markers of a deep and static poverty. The despair over the storm that was so evident in people's faces seemed to come out of an older despair, one that had always been there (1). Steele suggests that this tragic situation was exacerbated by the reactions of a largely impoverished citizenry who lacked the necessary coping skills to overcome such calamities. He comments further that here was poverty with an element of surrender in it that seemed to confirm . . . that the modern world is beyond our reach (1). As a consequence, the circumstances of the impoverished were considerably worsened because of faulty judgments about where and how to live, when to leave and where to go, and what to bring and how to act once they got there. Of course, more affluent persons had more and better options after evacuation, leaving their less affluent counterparts to scramble for the limited FEMA resources that were so badly managed and distributed. These natural disasters often reveal the underbelly of society, with an emphasis on differences between haves and have-nots. Candidates for the causes of human misery vary from a lack of adequate funding for social or physical services to personal character weaknesses that lead to joblessness and poverty. The extant consumer-behavior literature provides some discussion of structural and individual explanations for poverty (e.g., Hill and Stamey), along with some historical perspectives (e.g., Hill, Hirschman, and Bauman). The purpose of this article is to bring a subset of this scholarship together in order to examine the concept and reality of the consumer culture of poverty as derived from ethnographic and qualitative investigations of various subpopulations of poor American consumers. The next section presents a literature review, followed by descriptions of the research that inform our paradigm. The consumer culture of poverty then is provided, and the article closes with implications for American cultural studies. Consumer Culture The concept of a consumer culture has historical roots in the writing of Thorstein Veblen and his use of conspicuous to describe material possessions as status markers for the developing leisure class. was the Industrial Revolution that gave rise to the modern culture of consumption through the widespread distribution of a broad range of consumer products at prices affordable to the expanding middle class. As a consequence, our values, aspirations, and behaviors moved away from citizenship, religion, or military rank for guidance to our standing in the material world: It is partially through the use of goods and services that we [now] formulate social and display these identities (Slater 31). Grant McCracken concurs with this perspective for postmodern society, and he suggests that consumer products represent signal objects for the self as well as others. According to Sharon Zukin and Jennifer Maguire, this expansive view of consumer culture over time reveals an intimate connection between our sense of self and the ability to consume. …

Saving souls, serving society: understanding the faith factor in church-based social ministry

As public funding for social services has been slashed, there has arisen an unprecedented interest in the potential (and dangers) of faith-based institutions as agents of social change. Now, as President Bush begins his second term, he has placed government funding of faith-based programs at the top of his domestic agenda. What distinguishes church-based from secular social activism? What is particularly religious about church-based social services? How do churches express their religious identity in the context of social services, and how does this affect their access to resources and partners? This book, based on a Lilly-funded study of fifteen Philadelphia churches with active outreach, seeks to answer these and other pressing questions surrounding this important and controversial issue. Providing a far more objective understanding of faith-based initiatives than previously available, this study will be of interest not only to scholars of sociology of religion, social work, and social policy, but to denominational leaders, non-profit professionals, social policy analysts, community development practitioners, and others with the common goal of aiding struggling communities.

Immigrant women family caregivers in Canada: implications for policies and programmes in health and social sectors

Migration has become a profound global phenomenon in this century. In Canada, uncoordinated policies, including those related to immigration, resettlement, employment, and government funding for health and social services, present barriers to immigrant women caregivers. The purpose of this paper is to share relevant insights from individual and group interviews with immigrant women family caregivers, service providers and policy influencers, and discuss these in relation to immigration, health and social policy, and programme trends in Canada. The present authors conducted individual interviews with immigrant women family caregivers (n = 29) in phase 1, followed by two group interviews with women family caregivers (n = 7), and two group interviews with service providers and policy-makers (n = 15) in phase 2. Using an inductive approach, the authors employed thematic content data analysis. Immigrant women experienced barriers to health and social services similar to Canadian-born family caregivers, particularly those who have low incomes, jobs with limited flexibility and heavy caregiving demands. These immigrant women family caregivers avoided certain formal services for a variety of reasons, including lack of cultural sensitivity. However, their challenges were compounded by language, immigration and separation from family in the home country. The identified barriers to support reinforce the importance of modifying and expanding policies and programmes affecting immigrant women's ability to care for family members with illnesses or disabilities within the context of Canadian society. Participants recommended changes to policies and programmes to deal with information, transportation, language, attitudinal and network barriers. The various barriers to services and programmes which were experienced by immigrant women caregivers underscore the importance of reviewing policies affecting immigration, caregiving, and access to health and social services. Intersectoral collaboration among agencies is essential to reduce the barriers identified in the present study, and to establish services which are linguistically and culturally appropriate.

The challenge of social services development – the establishment of welfare pluralism in social services

The goal of the paper is to present the development of welfare pluralism in the area of social services in EU and Lithuania. The characteristics, benefits and limitations of actors are analysed in the paper. The literature analysis was done in order to obtain conclusions. The results of analysis suggest the existence of different modes of social service provision in different European Countries. The different actors are dominating in the welfare market. The requirement for welfare pluralism is the equality of conditions and opportunities to participate in social service provision. The transition to welfare pluralism requires the establishment of social service funding and purchasing system.