The art of being careful: “A qualitative research on the effects of the construct of social neighborhood teams in relation to the Dutch municipal youth care policy success”.

Abstract

Since early 2015, Dutch municipalities have been responsible for designing and implementing youth care. A much-used form of organizing this is by making use of a social neighborhood team. These social neighborhood teams come in various different shapes, or models. In this study, the relationship between the municipality and the social neighborhood team has been elaborated by identifying structural factors: form of cooperation, relational complexity, degree of power, dependency and degree of discretion. It was studied to what extent these structural factors influence the success of the local youth care policy. Policy success can be divided into three dimensions: policy as a process, policy as a program and policy as politics. Data was gathered through interviewing local policy makers and youth care professionals, as well as analyzing policy evaluation documents. The elaborated structural factors do have an influence on the potential youth care policy success. However, this success can be obtained through all social neighborhood team models. This means that there is no so-called golden standard. No set of structural factors that make a social neighborhood team successful. It is important to make clear choices when creating a social neighborhood team, since diffuse constructs may lead to confusion. Furthermore, the importance of the youth care professional was stressed. This is seen as the core of the actual youth care and should be secured as the number one priority.