Differences between paid and unpaid social services for beneficiaries

ABSTRACT

In many Western welfare states, social work services that have traditionally been provided by paid employees are being replaced by family support, community support, informal networks, and volunteering. For the field of social work, it is relevant to know what it matters to beneficiaries whether services are provided by volunteers or by paid employees. The central question of this article is therefore as follows: What are the differences between unpaid and paid social services for beneficiaries? The article is based on literature review and focus groups. Our results suggest that beneficiaries do experience some differences regarding the advantages of volunteer services for beneficiaries that can be summarized in three propositions: (1) services provided by volunteers are more relational than are services provided by paid employees, and they are therefore perceived as more equal, flexible and sincere. (2) The effects of volunteer services for beneficiaries are not exclusively positive. (3) Although particular tasks may appear to be interchangeable to some extent, the relative advantages of a given task depend upon whether it is performed by a paid worker or by a volunteer. Additional research is needed in order to provide further validation.

SAMENVATTING

In veel westerse verzorgingsstaten wordt sociale dienstverlening die tot voor kort werd uitgevoerd door beroepskrachten, vervangen door mantelzorg en vrijwilligerswerk. Voor het brede werkveld van het sociaal werk is het relevant om te weten wat deze verschuiving uitmaakt voor de gebruikers van de dienstverlening, de clienten. Centrale vraag voor dit artikel is daarom: Wat zijn voor clienten, de verschillen tussen door vrijwilligers en door beroepskrachten uitgevoerde sociale dienstverlening? Het artikel is gebaseerd op literatuuronderzoek en focusgroepen met beleidsmedewerkers, vrijwilligers, sociale professionals en clienten. De uitkomst van dit onderzoek doet vermoeden dat clienten inderdaad verschil ervaren. Diensten aangeboden door vrijwilligers lijken meer relationeel georienteerd te zijn, dan een vergelijkbare taak uitgevoerd door beroepskrachten. Hierdoor lijkt de dienstverlening uitgevoerd door vrijwilligers gewaardeerd te worden als meer gelijk, meer flexibel en meer oprecht. De toegevoegde waarde van dienstverlening uitgevoerd door vrijwilligers lijkt overigens niet alleen positief te zijn. Hoewel taken ogenschijnlijk uitwisselbaar lijken tussen vrijwilligers en beroepskrachten, suggereert dit onderzoek dat de uiteindelijke geproduceerde waarde van een taak afhankelijk is van de uitvoering door vrijwillligers of door beroepskrachten. Meer onderzoek is nodig om bovenstaande uitkomsten te valideren.

KEYWORDS:

• Social work
• volunteering
• beneficiaries
• organizations/management

TREFWOORDEN:

• Sociaal werk
• vrijwilligerswerk
• informeel vs formeel
• management
• client-perspectief

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Judith Metz is Professor of Urban Youth Work at the School of Social Work and Law of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. She is the (co)author of many books including the recently published ‘Volunteering and Youth Services’ – and articles on youth work, volunteering, and social work.

Lonneke Roza is Ph.D. student and Lecturer at the Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands and is affiliated with Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy. Her main research interests include NPO-business collaboration, CSR, corporate volunteering, and volunteer management.

Lucas Meijs is Professor of volunteering, civil society and businesses at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), and Professor of strategic philanthropy at ERIM’s Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy (ECSP). His current research focuses on issues related to strategic philanthropy, volunteer/non-profit management, and volunteering.

Eva Baren van is Researcher and Lecturer at the Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands and is affiliated with Erasmus Centre for Strategic Philanthropy (ECSP). Her main research interests include volunteer management, volunteering, and specifically, episodic volunteering.

Niek Hoogervorst is Assistant Professor at the Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands. His research interests include leadership, social psychology, ethics, and volunteering. He has published articles in The Leadership Quarterly, Human Relations, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and other management and psychology journals.

Notes

1. For purposes of scientific substantiation, 8–14 focus groups are necessary (Deacon, Pickering, Golding, & Murdock, 1999), with block sizes ranging from 6 to 10 participants (Morgan 1998).

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of a research project on the value of volunteers in the pedagogical civil society that was funded by [grant number 70-71700-98-411] the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW).