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Beyond Contracting: Linking the Public and Private Sectors

When public and private sector social agencies join to provide a public service, the union is frequently not as successful as it might be. If individuals rather than agencies were establishing a partnership, an attempt would be made to establish trust, honesty, and integrity. Yet, when public and private sectors meet for a common task, these basic considerations are often not broached; there seems to be a need to disguise the realities of the association. The reason may be a sense of hyper-professionalism. Whatever the cause, when basic trust and honesty are lacking, the foundations for a solid working relationship cannot be laid and the partnership is weakened by doubt and suspicion. This article explores one experience in linking public and private services, frankly acknowledges the difficulties involved, and shares the methods that helped the program survive and eventually prosper. The setting for joining the services was an effort to establish a statewide group home program for juveniles within the Oklahoma juvenile justice system. The effort began as perceived needs were thrust upon the Oklahoma Department of Human Services from a variety of sources both internal and external to the agency. After serious study and needs assessment, it was determined that group home services for juveniles could best be provided by a mixed approach of public-agency-operated group homes and offering contracts for privateagency-operated group homes. This determination was based on several factors. In some geographic areas of the state, no private agency was available to undertake the challenge. A decision was made to develop two basic tracks of group home services. One track would provide "halfway house" service for youths released from the state's institutional program, the other track would provide an alternative to institutionalization. Staff of the Department of Human Services decided that the post-institutional group home service could best be provided as a part of the continuum of state services while pre-institutional group home service could be assigned to private contractors where available. It was felt that such a public-private partnership would continue the philosophy of juvenile services being "a shared concern" between the public and private sectors. This view was an intricate part of the plan developed in the early 1970s by the Oklahoma Council on Juvenile Delinquency and expressed in its assessment and planning document titled Youth in Trouble ... A Shared Concern.