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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on March 28, 2007
The European Journal of Public Health 2007 17(5):532-536; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckm001
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Miscellaneous

Co-operation as a strategy for provision of welfare services—a study of a rehabilitation project in Sweden

Christina Norman and Runo Axelsson

Nordic School of Public Health, P.O. Box 12133, SE-402 42 Göteborg, Sweden

Correspondence: Runo Axelsson, PhD, Professor of Management, tel.: +46 31 693924, e-mail: Runo{at}nhv.se

Received March 7, 2006 , accepted January 2, 2007

Background: During the past 15 years, there have been many initiatives to improve the integration between different welfare agencies. This study is describing and analysing the co-operation between agencies involved in a rehabilitation project in Sweden, and discussing such inter-agency co-operation as a strategy for provision of complex welfare services. Methods: The study is based on a process evaluation, where the co-operation between the agencies was followed and documented during the time of the project. Different kinds of data were collected through interviews, focus groups and diaries. The contents of these data were analysed in order to evaluate the process of co-operation. In addition, there was also an evaluation of the effects of the co-operation, based on official documents, statistics, etc. Results: The evaluation shows that it was possible to co-operate across the organizational boundaries of the different agencies, but there were obstacles related to organizational and cultural differences of the agencies, divided loyalties of the officials and limited resources available to deal with the complex needs of the clients. At the same time, the commitment and the relations between the officials were facilitating the co-operation. Discussion: Based on the evaluation of this project, it seems that co-operation could be an effective strategy to deal with clients who need services from different welfare agencies. At the same time, however, it is clear that inter-agency co-operation requires a lot of time and energy and should therefore be used with caution.

Keywords: co-operation, integration, rehabilitation, welfare services


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