Privatization and the resistance to change : technological, political, and sociological issues.
Both Florida and Texas child welfare systems function heavily off of legislative mandates. In 1996, the Florida legislature mandated four pilot programs that privatized child welfare services through contracts with community-based agencies (McCullough and Associates). Since then Florida has privatized the entire state through 22 regionally defined lead agencies. Their role as a lead agency is to provide and/or sub contract all services related to maintaining children referred to them by the state or private investigators. In a similar fashion, Texas has pushed towards privatization with Senate Bill 6 which requires that all functions of foster care, adoption, and case management be moved to the private sector, with TDFPS (Texas Department of Family Protective Services) focusing only on abuse investigations. This thesis compares the Florida and Texas privatization story and through interviews with leading experts decides whether or not privatization is doomed to failure before it is initiated.
Child welfare -- Texas -- Case studies., Child welfare -- Florida -- Case studies., Privatization -- Texas -- Case studies., Privatization -- Florida -- Case studies.
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