WA DSHS privatization of Children’s Administration

On July 1, 2014, DSHS must fully implement the privatization of Children’s Administration. This requires DSHS to give preference to nonprofit and privatized agencies when entering into performance-based contracts. What does this really mean? More importantly, what does this mean for youth that are stuck in the system? Most of us already know that CA has a variety of problems; by moving supervision of innocent children to other agencies will this solve them? Or, are they just going to end up moving their problems from Box A to Box B? The idea behind privatization of CA is to save the government money and to move kids through the system faster; these seem like good ideas on the surface but what if it does neither? Is there a plan B and for that matter C, D, & E? After all, we are talking about children here, and disruption in care is not an option. In recent years, because of massive budget cuts, social service agencies have tried to steer more towards the business model rather than client centered model; the business model identifies problems and attempts to solve them. That being said, the final question that I would like to propose is, if the new business model of CA succeeds in solving the current CA’s problems, what problems are going to be created, and will they be worse than the where they started? 

 

Lisa I.

MSW Student at UW

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