Ventura Family Case Study: Department Of Social Services

Case Policy Analysis and Recommendation
The case study outlines some of the issues that were found in both a public and private setting pertaining to child protective work. The companies played a role in contributing to the neglect of case work, this led to the unfortunate case, which was the Ventura family case that took place in Boston in 1994. The companies took different actions that contributed to the outcome of the Ventura case and the protection of the children that were involved. The first organization would be the DSS, or the Department of Social Services. The Department of social work was created to protect children and their families in order to keep them intact. In the mid nineteen eighties, the DSS started to contract with privately
The people who were part of the private organization were skeptical when it came to privatization under the DSS. Many people did not like the idea because they did not want to abide by the strict rules of the DSS and move away from what made them special and not just a state ran organization like the DSS. La Alianza was also hesitant to work for the DSS because they were afraid they would get buried with large caseloads and they would not be provided with the training and technology that they needed. The main reason that La Alianza Hispana accepted the partnership, was so they could be paid a better wage, this way they could keep people and not have such a high turnover
First, it says that the commissioner gave La Alianza thirty days to come up with a corrective action plan, when really it should have been sooner than the thirty days. The DSS could have given them a shorter time for them to get their action plan together since La Alianza said that they had already corrected most of the actions all together. In the case study it reads “La Alianza’s administrators were full of reassurances that most of these problems had already been corrected, or well on their way to being corrected” if this were the case then the Ventura incident should not have occurred only two weeks later (Varley, 1994). Besides making an earlier deadline for organization, the commissioner at the DSS could have also looked into the reason for the high turnover rate, they could have also investigated the funding to make sure it was going towards the right things. There is mention in the article that money the private organizations are given is divided up as the company sees fit. Knowing this, it would be in the interest of the DSS to know how the money for the organization is being distributed, this could also explain some of the turnover rate and if there is any injustices happening with the finances. Something else that the commissioner could have done on the behalf of the DSS, is proving the proper training and technological support that they promised they would