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In recent decades, social and political pressures have forced a reevaluation of the roles of health and welfare professionals throughout Europe. Policy, People, and the New Professional examines those changes and their consequences. The volume reveals how public dissatisfaction with caregivers, financial pressures from government agencies, and attempts to cope with Europe's increasingly multicultural population have led to changes in responsibilities and oversight for a wide range of practitioners. Though more changes are certain to come as Europe's population ages' Policy, People, and the New Professional provides an essential explanation of the road traveled so far.

An essential perspective on the latest shifts in roles of the health and welfare professionals throughout Europe.

Engaging with the acclaimed American sociologist Eliot Freidson's argument about professionalism's 'third logic' (a viable alternative to bureaucracy and consumerism), Dutch, British, French and German contributors to this volume bring together three political and academic debates rarely tackled jointly: professionalism, change, and policy, in the context of the increasing marketization and bureaucratization of healthcare and welfare. As attempts to cope with Europe's increasingly ageing and multicultural societies are being implemented, this first title in a uniquely positioned series provides an exhaustive analysis of the road travelled so far. - Professionals staan al sinds de jaren zeventig ter discussie. Het eerste verwijt was dat ze te veel bezig waren met hun eigen belangen. Het tweede dat ze heus niet meer wisten dan hun cliënten, die zelf veel kennis in huis hadden. Maar sinds kort klinkt een ander geluid. De professional wordt te veel ondermijnd. De nadruk op het afleggen van verantwoording, marktwerking en vraagsturing holt het beroep van arts, sociaal werker en verzorgende helemaal uit. Daar hebben burgers - ook als mondige consumenten - niets aan. Dit boek laat haarscherp zien dat de introductie van nieuwe beleidsconcepten in veel Europese verzorgingsstaten nodig was, maar in de praktijk van zorg en welzijn veel perverse gevolgen heeft. Er zijn echter ook voordelige gevolgen. Naast de trend van de-professionalisering is er ook sprake van voorzichtige re-professionalisering. Daarnaast is er meer aandacht voor de veranderende rol van burgers - ook in de multiculturele samenleving - en hoe professionals daarop reageren, of zouden kunnen reageren. Niet eerder werden drie terreinen bij elkaar gebracht - beleid, veranderende burgers en professionals - en niet eerder werd de praktijk van professionals (van arts tot maatschappelijk werker) in verschillende Europese landen onder de loep genomen.

Engaging with the acclaimed American sociologist Eliot Freidson's argument about professionalism's 'third logic' (a viable alternative to bureaucracy and consumerism), Dutch, British, French and German contributors to this volume bring together three political and academic debates rarely tackled jointly: professionalism, change, and policy, in the context of the increasing marketization and bureaucratization of healthcare and welfare. As attempts to cope with Europe's increasingly ageing and multicultural societies are being implemented, this first title in a uniquely positioned series provides an exhaustive analysis of the road travelled so far.

The Dutch child protection system has been the target of harsh criticism in recent decades. The legitimacy of child protection services seems to have eroded. In this article, we analyze this changing legitimacy of child protection against the background of declining parental authority and in relation to the disappearance of positive pedagogical ideologies and the mainly bureaucratic response of child protection agencies. Two recent inquiries in the Netherlands on child sexual abuse within child protection-related services have emphasized the position of children as vulnerable victims of negative pedagogical practices, mirroring a general trend of "victimization". It is concluded that reinforcement of the professional role of child protection workers may be a start towards building new trust in child protection and establishing a newfound legitimacy.

In spite of active labour market policies, a considerable number of welfare recipients in the Netherlands are long-term unemployed. In order to investigate the job search behaviour of this group, we developed a model of job search behaviour, inspired by the theory of planned behaviour, expectancy value theory and self-determination theory Survey data relating to 193 individuals receiving welfare benefits for at least one year were collected. A model, consisting of six social-demographic and eight social and psychosocial variables, was tested with hierarchical multiple regression. Seven factors were found to be positively related to job search behaviour: being a non-Western immigrant, having recently started receiving welfare benefits, receiving encouragement in searching for work from an intimate social network, having a job search requirement imposed, having an expectation of finding a job, individual work valence and job search attitudes. Of these, duration of welfare assistance, the encouragement of an intimate social network, work valence and job search attitude appeared to be mediating factors. The article concludes that activation policy might benefit from a combination of improving job searching attitudes, for instance by discussing ideas about the valence of employment and expectations of success or by considering potential barriers to finding employment within social networks, and introducing a clear requirement to search for jobs, in particular for native Dutch, single mothers and people who have been in receipt of benefits for a long period of time. Such policies have been absent in the Netherlands for a long time, priority being given to those with better chances in the labour market.

Purpose– Long-term welfare recipients in the Netherlands are either long-term unemployed or part-time employed in jobs that generate incomes below the subsistence level. The question is whether reintegration policies aiming at their return to – a fulltime – job should consider individual social network factors besides psychological and human capital factors. The purpose of this paper is to investigate welfare recipients' job search behaviour, in particular how individual social capital is distributed, and whether it is related to job search activities.Design/methodology/approach– Standardised and structured interviews were conducted with 189 long-term unemployed welfare recipients. An adapted version of the Resource Generator instrument was used to measure individual access to social capital.Findings– Social capital scales measuring domestic social resources, status-related social resources, expert advice on regulations and financial matters, and advice on finding a job were developed and psychometrically tested. Status-related social resources were more easily accessible to men and higher educated persons. Advice on finding a job was more easily accessible to recently unemployed individuals. Domestic social resources were less accessible to ethnic minorities. Persons with more social capital, specifically status-related social resources and advice in finding a job, showed more active job search behaviour.Social implications– The differences in job search activities between respondents with more social capital and those with less social capital were present but to a small degree, and therefore there is no argument for reintegration activities to focus on enlarging social capital.Originality/value– This study addresses the instrumental functions of the social network by multidimensionally scrutinising the resources that social relationships provide access to.

In 2006 new social policy legislation was introduced in the Netherlands, under which employees with chronic health problems may be allocated a 'double identity', being assessed simultaneously as partly sick and partly able to work. Employees in this situation receive a proportion of disability benefit according to their assessed loss of earning capacity and are required to engage in paid work in order to earn an income over and above this. Our central research question is: Which factors elicit the labour market participation of these partially disabled employees? This article reports results from a survey of 772 partially disabled employees. We analyse our data using structural equation modelling and find that labour market participation of partially disabled employees is particularly strongly associated with perceptions of their capability to work and of their chances of returning to work. The results are considered in relation to Parsons' (1951) classical theory of the sick role and are elaborated on the basis of Sen's (1993, 1999) conceptualisation of capability.

After decades of promoting the reconciliation of work and family life from a gender-equality perspective, to date discourses and related social policy paradigms replace and reframe the once European agenda on gender-equality and put the gender issue in a much broader policy agenda of new social risks. This working paper first states that a gender-neutral social policy on reconciliation of work and family life stagnates because of four crucial dilemmas. New social policy paradigms have developed since the 1990s, each having particular assumptions on risk-sharing, public and private responsibility and the position of the individual vis-à-vis the state and the community. These paradigms will be analysed in relation to the European Union policies regarding reconciliation of work and family life. We will detect some traces of these paradigms in the Lisbon agreements and its amendments. We will conclude that indeed the gender-equality agenda, as well as family life, has been submitted to the new convention of the competitive knowledge based economy; The social investment paradigm is the most prominent of the three paradigms in this new agenda, however it is mixed up with elements from the other paradigms and therefore current policies agendas lack coherence.

This report derives from the work of coordinators of Work Package 9 of the FP7 programme bEUcitizen coordinated by Utrecht University (NL) and the University of Turin (IT) and is based on the findings of four work packages focusing on the economic (WP5), social (WP6), civil (WP7) and political (WP8) citizenship rights with regards to gendered and generational biases in the access to these citizenship rights. These findings have been discussed at a panel meeting in the Oviedo work conference of the bEUcitizen consortium in June 2016. Contributions have been presented by the University of Trento (WP5; IT), the University of Oxford (WP6; UK), University of Oviedo (WP7; ES), and Utrecht University (WP8; NL). In addition, the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (WP4; ES) and Utrecht University (WP3, NL) have contributed to the panel meeting. This report presents the findings of these WPs as well as the discussions during the meeting. It first presents the questions the WP9 coordinators have raised regarding gendered and generational biases in the access to the four citizenship rights to each of the representatives of WP5 to 8. Second, it summarizes the reactions to these questions. Third, the discussion at the panel meeting is presented and finally some conclusions are drawn.