Street-level bureaucratic behaviour when supporting parents
Date
2015-12-18Author
Coen, Liam (William)
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Abstract
Although popular in the 1970s and 1980s, policy implementation as a focus of analysis fell out of fashion in the 1990s. However, the concept of the street-level bureaucrat has remained resilient. In furthering the analysis of street-level behaviour, Jewell and Glaser developed a framework from an analysis of workers in California implementing activation policies with the clear goal of client employment. This thesis takes this framework and applies it in a different context, where the policy is less clear, where it is ambiguous: namely family and parenting support policy in Ireland. The central question of the thesis focuses on the utility of the framework: does it help us capture what family support workers do when supporting parents, parenting and families. The thesis argues that the Jewell and Glaser framework does have some purchase in analysing what these street-level workers do. However, it requires adjustment to take account of the nature of family and parenting support policy and principles. These workers are professionals, not just low level administrative staff, and are very cognisant of their need to maintain a balance between supporting and empowering parents, and supplanting them. A greater role for the client in the implementation process needs to be built into the framework, and I suggest the concept of co-production offers a useful way of doing this.