Showing papers on "Service system published in 1974"

The Management of Service Operations.

Abstract: This paper has three objectives. First, it documents the rapid growth of the private service sector in the United States. Second, it compares and contrasts the management tasks within a service ope...

Denying or Delivering Services

Abstract: SOCIAL WORK More than most other professions, social work has concerned itself with the goal of delivering services to all who are in need. At the same time, social workers are acutely aware that the current service system does not adequately meet the needs of many who seek assistance.1 This system is made up of a variety of loosely linked service organiza tions, each dealing with a specific popula tion group or a specific type of human prob lem.2 Instead of aid of all kinds being dis pensed to all people by the medieval priest —and later by the Charity Organization So ciety or the neighborhood settlement house —there are now many different agencies dealing with such problems as autism, alco holism, marital conflicts, unemployment, poverty, child abuse, sexual relationships, and mental illness. A basic difficulty with this system is that those seeking assistance from an agency frequently are denied ser vice or are merely referred elsewhere. The helping professions have expressed their concern with this problem, mentioning gaps in provision of service, breaks in con tinuity of care, lack of coordination of ser vice, and cracks in service systems through which clients are lost.3 Social workers, par ticularly, have been sensitive to these issues and have repeatedly stressed the importance of access to services and of interagency co ordination in service delivery.4 This ar ticle reviews the major dimensions of the problem of access and offers an organza tional analysis of it. A tabulation of some major studies of the outcome of applications for service indi cates the major consequences of processing applicants through the service delivery sys tem.5 Table 1 shows, for each study, the kind of agencies involved and the kind of responses made. Across the varied social agencies studied, an average of one-third (37.6 percent) of all persons who applied for service neither received it from the agency they approached nor were referred else where. The agency approached did not necessarily refuse services to these appli cants although they are listed in Table 1 as "rejected." Under "rejected" are appli cants whose contact with the agency may