The interagency collaboration of the jeugdbeschermingstafel

Summary Every society has families that encounter a variety of problems across multiple domains. Due to these multiple problems in different domains, these families are often referred to as multi-problem families. The theory on multi-problem families argues that these families receive support from with numerous agencies and care-taking institutions that all focus on individual problems of the family that lie in their domain, which leads to fragmentation and polarization of problems. Due to the extensive amount of literature and the fact that these families are well known in the academic field, the question remains why there is not an effective governance strategy to tackle this societal problem yet. The theory on collaborative problem solving argues that governance collaboration is the answer to problems that cannot be solved by organizations acting alone. Therefore, scientific literature suggests collaborative governance as an effective strategy to prevent fragmentation of problems and to tackle the complexity of multi-problem families. The collaborative practices in the specific circumstances of multi-problem families in the health sector are commonly referred to as interagency collaboration. The interagency collaboration this thesis focuses on is the ‘jeugdbeschermingstafel’. The jeugdbeschermingstafel is an interagency collaboration in which all care-taking institutions and parents jointly discuss what is going wrong, to decide what is needed to tackle their problems. This thesis researches how the facilitators and barriers influence the interagency collaboration of the jeugdbeschermingstafel. Assumed is that when the collaboration of the jeugdbeschermingstafel is effective, delivery of integrated care is developed. Therefore, the research question is: “How do the barriers and facilitators influence the interagency collaboration of the jeugdbeschermingstafel and the delivery of integrated care?” To give an answer to this question, a qualitative research is done: 15 interviews were held with members of the jeugdbeschermingstafel. On the basis of the empirical results it can be concluded that the jeugdbeschermingstafel does not deliver integrated care. The main barriers that influence the process and results of the jeugdbeschermingstafel are not involving all relevant actors, accountability issues, AVG restrictions on information sharing and the time limit of the decision-making process. The main facilitators that influence the process and results of the jeugdbeschermingstafel are the belief in positive results, legitimacy of members, power imbalance and institutional design.