Article

Social service programmes that offer consumer choices are intended to
guide service efficiency and customer satisfaction. However, little is known
about how social service consumers actually make choices and how providers
deliver such services. This article details the practical implementation of
consumer choice in a Canadian workers' compensation vocational retraining
programme. METHOD: Discourse analysis was conducted of in-depth interviews and
focus groups with 71 injured workers and service providers, who discussed their
direct experience of a vocational retraining system. Data also included
procedural, policy and administrative documents. RESULTS: Consumer choice
included workers being offered choices about some service aspects, but not being
able to exercise meaningful discretion. Programme cost objectives and restrictive
rules and bureaucracy skewed the guidance provided to workers by service
providers. If workers did not make the "right" choices, then the service
providers were required to make choices for them. This upset workers and created
tension for service providers. CONCLUSIONS: The ideal of consumer choice in a
social service programme was difficult to enact, both for workers and service
providers. Processes to increase quality of guidance to social service consumers
and to create a systematic feedback look between system designers and consumers
are recommended. Implications for Rehabilitation Consumer choice is an
increasingly popular concept in social service systems. Vocational case managers
can have their own administrative needs and tensions, which do not always align
with the client's choices. Rehabilitation programmes need to have processes for
considering what choices are important to clients and the resources to support
them - Canada

Langue : ANGLAIS