Cooperative working practices and empowerment in

family services (Sub-study II)

In Finland, the responsibility for providing family services lies with the municipalities. The services are provided by various branches of the municipality, as well as the private sector, parishes, and NGOs. All those services, multidisciplinary professionals are about supporting family empowerment

and well-being in various everyday situations. In this study, the sample was compiled from Finnish municipalities that provide maternal and child health care, school health care, daycare, and pre-and primary school services.

According to this study, cooperative working practices and empowerment in management offer good conditions for parents’ empowerment in all studied units. In this study, cooperative working practices were at a moderate level.

Cooperative working practices were found most often within the service and less frequently between services or with the third or private sectors. Common practices need to be created more widely between different actors.

Employees’ awareness of services

In this study, the employees’ awareness of services was quite good in all studied units. The results showed that the better employees rate their awareness of services, the more likely they were to be able to support parental empowerment within all studied levels. Employees were highly aware of family counseling, child protection services, and special education.

This makes sense since these are services that are the most commonly used or needed by families in Finland. However, the employees’ awareness was poor regarding various social services, such as services for people with disabilities or mental health issues.

Furthermore, the employees had less knowledge of the services provided by nonprofit organizations, and there was relatively little collaboration with them. However, parents were encouraged to meet each other regularly.

This may be a result of differences in the roles of public and nonprofit organizations, as well as ongoing organizational changes of these services.

The lack of knowledge in this area may also be related to the voluntary nature of nonprofit organizational activities. In Finland, NGOs play a significant role as providers of parenting and relationship services and as developers of new forms of services. Organizations work close to people’s everyday lives, and with the partnership of organizations, it is possible to get activities closer and closer to people. The interaction and community provided by the organizations generate social capital, and the voice of the people who are otherwise poorly heard will be heard in the organizations.

These results are consistent with previous studies, which indicate that employees’ better awareness of services may enhance families’ abilities to applying for help (Halme et al., 2014; King & Meyer, 2006). In all studied units, parents were encouraged to interact and support each other as well as to contact service providers regularly. Knowledge and use of existing services and seeing peers can improve parents’ sense of their ability to cope in their daily lives with their children. These results confirm the idea that family service professionals should be better aware of all the service options available for families, including those provided outside the public sector. This is critical, especially when working with families who use multiple services, as they are at greater risk of receiving fragmented or poor-quality care. (Institute of Public Health, 2011; Munro, 2011.)

Commitment to common goals

In this study, there were more shared cooperation practices such as agreements and more common goals within services than between services.

Cooperation with the third sector was almost non-existent. Within sectors, there may be more stable multidisciplinary teams, that meet regularly and work close together (Axelsson & Axelsson, 2006). It has been shown that membership in these well-structured teams, where the members usually have similar values, interests, and goals, prevent the intention to leave the job, reduce employee stress as well as increase job satisfaction (Buttigieg et al., 2011).

Collaboration across organizations or between municipalities was more difficult. This may be related to the existence of different administrative boundaries, different rules, laws, and regulations, as well as different budgets and financial streams, and differences in databases and information flow (van Raak et al., 1999, 2003). Moreover, there may be differences in organizational or professional cultures, values, and interests as well as differences in the commitment of the individuals and the organizations involved (Glendinning, 2003). Despite these obstacles, this study showed that commitments to common goals, written agreements on shared goals, and joint practices were all associated with better support of parental empowerment in service

situations and service systems. Based on these results those may enhance parents’ outcomes of services. To collaborate effectively, professionals may benefit from training and should be mindful of common barriers to collaboration. This requires managers to take an active role. It is important that the manager supports collaboration across the organization and between municipalities, setting an inspiring culture of support and learning. (Alimo-Metcalfe & Alban-(Alimo-Metcalfe, 2001.)

These findings highlight the need for more education and cooperative working practices between services. The provision of services and access to services for families with children in the municipality would be clarified by jointly agreed goals, resources, clear responsibilities, operating methods, and a monitoring system that enables uniform practices and monitoring of activities in the service as a whole, not just individual services (Perälä et al., 2013a; 2013b). As the number of private service providers increases in the future, it is necessary to develop national monitoring and quality control. This ensures the evidence-based nature of operations regardless of the service provider.

Empowerment by managing

Supervisory support seems to be essential in providing professional and high-quality health care. This study found that the more empowered employees felt, the more able they considered themselves to be in supporting parental empowerment. Such empowerment increases employees’ own professional growth and development (Manley, 2004; Manley et al., 2011). The results are consistent with previous research that found it important for the managers to empower, encourage and motivate employees to successfully develop processes to improve the quality of care (Cummings et al., 2010).

In this study, employees not working as an immediate superior evaluated their ability to support parental empowerment better than those working as managers. It seems that working in a managerial position is very demanding.

Although many supervisors also work with families’ they have their duties and responsibilities as a supervisor and their evaluation may arrive from the strategic perspective whereas employees arrive at their evaluations from the

level of customer perspective (Atkinson et al., 2007). Therefore, to cope at work, it would be important to pay attention to the support of managers as well. This could be providing social support and treating people fairly.

Most of the respondents in this study assessed their relationships with managers as positive. Supervisory support was perceived as fair. According to employees, they have the opportunity to make decisions about their work and influence decisions about to their work activities. Those views can be considered important as they affect the quality and efficiency of services provided to families (Axelsson & Axelsson, 2006; Halme et al., 2014; Perälä et al., 2011). In addition, the importance of the views is underlined by the fact that they can increase the meaning of work and increase the willingness of young people to seek employment in these municipal services in the future.

This all is important, while employees are aging and competition for skillful personnel will be forceful (Halme et al., 2014).

In this survey, half of the respondents were over 50 years old. In all studied services older employees thought that they supported parental empowerment slightly better than other respondents. This may be because of the employees’ level of autonomy and the strong commitment to their organization’s values. Moreover, because of their experience and a better understanding of child and family well-being, policy, and practice. Employees are the most important resource in management and attention should be paid to their well-being and support. The result of this study indicated that employees received good support from managers. However, there is a need to provide emotional and educational support, especially for younger employees. This could support them in their professional growth, such as critical reflection and self-awareness (Young et al., 2011), and expand their understanding of their clients’ complex needs.

Results showed that fairness of treatment seems to increase the employees’

abilities to support parental empowerment. These findings support the idea that when working conditions support the employees’ authority and when people are treated with respect, they can utilize their professional skills to the best of their ability and deliver high-quality care, resulting in better outcomes for families and employees (Aiken et al., 1994; 2002; 2011). Based on these results managers must be visible and available. That they encourage

and promote the informal and formal flow of information. Moreover, that they support employees’ further education and facilitate the sharing of their learning.

6.1.3 Supporting LGBTQ parents’ empowerment in Finnish child