Several studies have demonstrated the effect of an organization's culture and climate on the delivery of services to clients and the success of clinical outcomes. Workers' perceptions are integral components of organizational social context, and in order to create a positive organizational culture and climate, managers and frontline staff need to have a shared understanding of the social context. The existing literature does not adequately address that discrepancies in perceptions of culture and climate between frontline staff and managers impact the implementation of policies and services. The purpose of this study is to compare the workgroup-level culture and climate of a single, large child and family social services organization, based on the reported experiences of front-line workers and senior managers. The results showed that, as a group, senior managers rated the organization as having a culture that was much more proficient and much less rigid and a climate that was more engaged and more functional than the average frontline workgroup. The discrepancies between the perceptions of upper management and workgroup-level staff indicate the need for interventions that can improve communication and cohesiveness between these two groups.

Organizational culture and climate play a critical role in worker retention and outcomes, yet little is known about whether perceptions of culture and climate vary depending on the demands of particular roles. In this study, 113 staff from a child welfare agency completed Organizational Social Context profiles. Staff were divided into three groups according to their proximity to child welfare tasks to assess whether involvement in higher stress child welfare tasks is related to perceptions of the social context. Findings suggest possible differences across groups, with those involved in core child welfare tasks appearing to perceive higher resistance to new ways of providing services and those with the least involvement in traditional child welfare perceiving a more positive social context overall.

Effective mental health service delivery networks are organized around clusters of closely coordinated provider organizations, or organizational cliques. Yet, research overlooks conditions that influence clique change and implications for aligning services. This study examines changes in organizational cliques within a regional children's behavioral health service delivery network over a two-year period characterized by substantial funding increases. Results from quantitative network survey data, and administrative data gathered from 22 non-profit organizations show that cliques expanded and overlapped two years after a funding influx. Cliques aligning organizations with more distinct services experienced greater tie churn, and may be vulnerable to change.

The managers of community-based organizations that are contracted to deliver publicly funded programs, such as in the child welfare sector, occupy a crucial role in the implementation and sustainment of evidence-based interventions to improve the effectiveness of services, as they exert influence across levels of stakeholders in multitiered systems. This study utilized qualitative interviews to examine the perspectives and experiences of managers in implementing Safe Care®, an evidence-based intervention to reduce child maltreatment. Factors influencing managers' abilities to support SafeCare® included policy and ideological trends, characteristics of leadership in systems and organizations, public-private partnerships, procurement and contracting, collaboration and coopetition, and support for organizational staff.

What training leaders need to successfully shepherd high quality human service delivery remains less understood. This study aims to evaluate associations between social work training, leadership style, and organizational factors. Participants included leaders (=49) and employees (=224) working in 10 behavioral health organizations who completed a survey. Hierarchical linear models were used to analyze multilevel associations. Analyses indicated that leaders with social work training were rated higher in transformational leadership and organizational factors (e.g., lesser stress) on average within both samples. Findings begin an empirical argument for the value of social work leaders for the success of human service organizations.

Youth behavioral healthcare workforce shortages have inhibited the scale-up of evidence-based treatments to address longstanding unmet needs andinequitable service coverage. Task-shifting is a strategy that could bolster workforce shortages. Legal and regulatory barriers, such as scope of practice licensing regulations, have hampered the use of task-shifting. Social workers make up the majority of the behavioral healthcare workforce in the U.S. and most social workers provide services to children and families. As such, social workers would play a pivotal role in any scale-up effort. In this guest editorial, we discuss the importance of social work licensing and use a case example to illustrate the unintended consequences that certain licensing regulations have on scaling-up evidence-based treatments via task-shifting. We conclude with recommendations on how social workers could be involved in taskshifting efforts to scale-up evidence-based treatments.

Human service organizations are reconfiguring to address diversifying populations and widening inequality. However, institutional change is challenging to implement and fund; resource scarcity and stakeholder buy-in are barriers. In this case study, we analyze a funding-driven, state-initiated program that supports mental health professionals who are people of color in order to decrease health disparities. Analyses of interviews and documents depict how the program struggled with high turnover and uninspired, halfhearted messaging, but was nevertheless well loved. Findings illustrate how the 'pitch' and leadership matter in programming for institutional change and its contested nature, a contestation that funding alone cannot temper.

Accreditation is gaining ground in human services as leaders find ways to demonstrate the quality and legitimacy of services. This study examined site-level accreditation for SafeCare®, an evidence-based practice designed to prevent and reduce child maltreatment. We leveraged two waves of qualitative data to explore the perspectives of trainers, organizational and system leaders, and program developers who participated in an initial rollout of a site-level accreditation process for SafeCare. Institutional theory was used to frame accreditation's potential benefits, burden, and impact. Findings highlight specific considerations for the human service environment, including the inherent resource scarcity, interdependence among organizations, and the impact of cost and slow-moving bureaucratic processes.

Trauma-informed communities establish cross-sector coalitions that advocate for the use of trauma-informed practices. Whether and how communication occurs within newly established trauma-informed communities is unclear. We collected qualitative data and social network data from six trauma-informed community partnerships that received funding to build community capacity to address trauma across a range of special populations in Los Angeles county. We identified three communication network sub-types and highlight contributions of network leadership in setting the tone for cross-partnership communication. While partnership leaders shared the goal of strengthening cross-organizational communication, social network results illustrated a need to develop strategies that target these goals.