Because they care: Dutch youth care professionals coping with the pressures of the transition

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Because they care | Roos Alkemade 1

Because they care

Dutch youth care professionals coping with the

pressures of the transition

Roos Alkemade

Master thesis Political Science: Political Economy

June 2020

photo: youth care professionals protest in The Hague - ANP

Supervisor: I. Verhoeven

Second reader: J. Grin

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1. Introduction

Since the Dutch government introduced the Youth Act (Jeugdwet) in 2015, youth care is in transition (Van der Voet & Steijn 2019). After the implementation of this law municipalities became fully responsible for the provision and purchasing of almost all facets of youth care in the Netherlands (Bucx et al. 2018). The decentralisation of these youth care responsibilities towards municipalities has led to a completely new system of how youth care is purchased and provided. New local

organisational arrangements and systems had to be developed in order to give meaning to the Youth Act. The transition of youth care is often considered as one of the most significant reforms in the Dutch welfare state (Helderman, Zeitlin & Sabel 2020).

This major change in the youth care system stemmed from the activating welfare state (De Waal 2014). Over the last decades governments across Europe and beyond looked for alternatives for the rising costs of the welfare states and found a solution in activating their citizens (Newman & Tonkens 2011; De Waal 2014). Within activating welfare states, citizens are expected to be active: they should no longer be dependent on the welfare state, be willing to participate in societies and they are invited to take a range of responsibilities for the provision of public services for themselves (Tonkens 2012). These responsibilities mainly entail the care of others and the well-being of the community as a whole (Newman & Tonkens 2011; Tonkens 2012). In this way citizens are largely involved in the arrangement and provision of their own care and welfare services (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018; WRR 2006).

In the context of the Youth Act this implies that youth care tasks are decentralised toward municipalities in order to make better use of young people’s “own strength” (Tweede Kamer 2013). In this regard municipalities concentrate on prevention and encourage young people to first appeal on their own family, network or civil society, before specialist youth care is activated (Tweede Kamer 2013; Verhoeven & Tonkens 2013). In practice this means that citizens are largely held responsible for the arrangement of their own youth care and that they are expected to combine their own labour with that of their personal network, volunteers and professional services (Tonkens 2012; De Waal 2014). The decentralisation of youth care also implies that municipalities had to transform their organisations and their ways of providing youth care, since they became fully responsible for purchasing the youth care tasks that were the former responsibility of the central government, provinces, urban regions and health insurance companies (Rekenkamer Den Haag 2014).

Simultaneously with the decentralisation of youth care in 2015 several austerity measures were implemented (Friele et al. 2018). In total the central government transferred an amount of €3,5 billion towards the municipalities in 2015 in order to give effect to the transformation of youth care

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(Friele et al. 2018; Van Nijendaal 2014). However at the same time they announced a cut of €450 million on youth care (Friele et al. 2018). Concretely this meant that there was, and still is, less budget available for the provision of youth care, even though the whole system had to be

decentralized and reformed (Friele et al. 2018). This limited budget is striking because the number of clients increased over the last five years and the average costs of youth care increased as well

(Steiner 2019). With this the expenditure on youth care increased with almost 42% per young person between 2015 and 2018 (Steiner 2019).

This new youth care system and its financial reforms pressurizes youth care professionals. First of all, they experience top-down pressures in the form of an increased workload. Due to the implementation of the Youth Act, youth care professionals have to deal with new complex

organisation structures, administrative procedures, rules and new responsibilities (Friele et al. 2018; Te Koppele, Van den Ende & Kooij 2017; Tummers et al. 2015). Along with the austerity measures, this leads to a great top-down pressure on youth care professionals (Kieskamp 2019; Te koppele, Van den Ende & Kooij 2017).

Secondly, youth care professionals experience bottom-up pressures. These pressures stem from clients that criticise the current state of youth care in the Netherlands. The pressures also comes from the substantive amount of media attention that the seemingly dysfunction of the youth cares system gets (Hoenderkamp 2019; Visser 2019). In general the bottom-up critique says that there is an overall reduction in the quality of youth care due to the transition (Van der Voet & Steijn 2019). More specifically, critics focus mostly on:

1. The inequalities in the provision of different types of youth care between municipalities (CBS 2019). Since the Youth Act was implemented municipalities are responsible for the purchasing of different types of youth care. This means that they often differ in their visions and budgets that can be spend on youth care, which leads to different youth care supply between municipalities (CBS 2019).

2. Growing waiting lists and late interventions (Nederlands Jeugdinstituut 2007). Since the transition is an ongoing process in which new local organisational arrangements are still developing and adapting to the new situation, waiting lists seem to form an inevitable result of the Youth Act at this point.

3. The insufficient supply of specialized youth care (Inspectie Gezondheidzorg en Jeugd 2019). There exists a relatively substantive body of research on how public service workers, such as youth care professionals, cope with pressures from their work environment. The influential work by Lipsky (1980) on “street level bureaucrats” (SLBs) forms an important piece within this coping

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literature. In short Lipsky’s theory focuses on the role of SLBs in policy implementation. SLBs can be seen as public service workers who are responsible for the delivery of public services, such as teachers, police officers or in the case of this study: care professionals (Tummers et al. 2015). His work underlines that SLBs have to deal with a great amount of work pressures when carrying out their jobs. He invoked the concept of “coping” to give meaning to the way public service workers deal with these perceived pressures (Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018).

In this study my focus will be on the concept of coping and on both of the pressures (top-down and bottom-up). More specifically, my aim is to investigate how youth care professionals “cope” with the new pressures resulting from the Youth Act. The central research question forms the following:

How do youth care professionals cope with contemporary pressures resulting from the implementation of the Youth Act in the Netherlands?

In order to find the answer to this central research question, I have conducted a case study of two case municipalities in the Netherlands. The two central cases were formed by the municipality of Aalten and De Ronde Venen. In total 14 interviews with youth care professionals were conducted, under which 7 in Aalten and 7 in De Ronde Venen.

1.1. Scientific relevance

Although many scholars have investigated how public service workers cope with pressures, there still exist a gap within the literature that this study aims to fill. This research gap stems from the fact that most studies on coping mechanism of public service workers focus largely on the interactions between clients on the one hand and public service workers on the other hand (Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003; Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018).However the interactions between policy makers and public service workers, whichMaynard-Moody and Mushenorefer to as the “state agent narrative”, are equally interesting. Since public service workers are often confronted with the challenges of new management strategies from policy makers, such as with the structural reforms of the new Youth Act it is interesting to also take this narrative into account when investigating coping of public service workers (Hupe & Hill 2007; Tummers et al. 2015; Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018). The top-down pressures that come with these new management strategies could lead to new forms of coping (Tummer et al. 2015; Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018).

However the research on how public service workers experience and adapt to these kind of pressures from the state is relatively scarce (Tummers et al. 2015). This studies aims to contribute to the literature by analysing coping related to both interactions: the state agent narrative with its

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top-Because they care | Roos Alkemade 8

down pressures and the interactions between public service workers and citizens and its bottom-up pressures.

1.2. Social relevance

This study aims to contribute to the call for more insight in the quality of Dutch youth care by

drawing specific attention to the role of youth care professionals within the current system. Currently there is a lack of research on how Dutch youth care professionals have actually experienced the transition of youth care (Van der Voet & Steijn 2019). This lack of research on their experiences is unfortunate since it could lead to new insight in the public debate. Since contemporary critique is mainly focused on the experiences of clients, it can be interesting to set out the experiences of other involved actors, such as youth care professionals (Van der Voet & Steijn 2019).

In addition researching the experiences of Dutch youth care professionals can give insight in their ways of dealing with the new youth care system. It is important to focus on this subject because the coping mechanisms of youth care professionals have a direct influence on how the Youth Act is implemented, and thus on the quality of youth care. By obtaining an understanding of the coping mechanisms of youth care professionals, insight can be gained in the way the Youth Act is carried out in practise. This could change the public debate as well. Moreover this might enables researchers to predict future outcomes and can facilitate policy adaptations in order to improve the quality of youth care in the Netherlands.

1.3. Reading guide

This report is built up in de following manner: first of all the theoretical framework of the study will be set out in chapter 2. In this chapter the focus will be on the central concepts of pressures and coping. The relevant literature will be extensively outlined and discussed. After that the research design of this study will be explained and accounted in chapter 3. Then, the empirical material that is obtained during the interviews with youth care professionals in Aalten and De Ronde Venen will be described, interpreted and applied to the theory in chapter 4. Finally the conclusions will be outlined in chapter 5.

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2. Theoretical Framework

In order to get a better understanding on the research question, it is important to clearly define the central constructs of “pressures” and “coping”. And also to determine how these two constructs are interconnected. In this regard the classical study by Michael Lipsky (1980) on Street Level

Bureaucrats (SLBs) can be taken as a starting point.

Lipsky’s (1980) work focuses on the role of street level bureaucrats in the implementation of policy. Lipsky sees SLBs as public employees who are responsible for the delivery of public services such as teachers, police officers, social workers or health workers. One of his core ideas is that SLBs have a policymaking role, since they are the ones that make the decisions, establish routines and invent devices at the street level in order to deal with the rules and sanctions provided by their agencies. By doing this, SLBs have an influence on how policies are implemented at street level. This policy making role of SLBs stems from some specific feature of their positions, namely: their discretion. Discretion refers to the freedom that SLBs have in determining the nature, amount and quality of benefits and sanctions provided by their agencies. An example is that policemen can decide who to arrest and whose behaviour to overlook. The concept of discretion will be further explained in the section below. Lipsky also posits that the policymaking actions of SLBs take place under the pressures of their working conditions, such as inadequate resources. In order to deal with these pressures, SLBs develop several coping mechanism (Lipsky 1980). These central concepts of “pressures” and “coping” will be further outlined in the following sections.

2.1. Pressures

An important feature of Lipsky’s work is formed by the fact that SLBs have to deal with pressures (Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003). Lipsky (1980) argues that SLBs work at jobs with relatively high degrees of interaction with citizens. For this reason, they are directly confronted with the demands and needs of individual clients. But at the same time they have to implement policies

according to the rules, procedures, pronouncements and policy objectives that are drawn up by policy makers (Lipsky 1980; Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003). In this way, SLBs are confronted with pressures from both sides: from their clients and from policy makers (Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018). This does not necessarily have to be a problem when the rules and procedures effectively fit the complexity of SLBs judgement about their clients. However when the demands of clients conflict with the demands of policy makers, SLBs are experiencing restrictions on what can and cannot be done (Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003; Lipsky 1980; Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018).

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Dutch youth care professionals are experiencing pressures from both sides. First of all, youth care professionals are facing top-down pressures from municipal policy makers. Since the Youth Act was implemented, youth care professionals have to deal with new complex organisation structures, new responsibilities, complex administrative procedures and financial restrictions (Friele et al.2018; Te Koppele, Van den Ende & Kooij 2017). All of these top-down pressures lead to a situation in which youth care professionals experience an increased workload. These new pressures can constrain them in carrying out their jobs. For instance, they have to spend a large part of their time on reporting instead of effectively providing care for their clients (Friele et al. 2018). In this regard many youth care professionals argue that they cannot always do what is necessary for their clients since they are constrained by these new accountability requirements (Friele et al. 2018).

Secondly youth care professionals have to deal with bottom-up pressures from their clients. Clients are increasingly critical on the contemporary youth care system (Hoenderkamp 2019; Visser 2019). The critique from clients is reinforced by the extensive media attention for this subject (Friele et al. 2018). Client’s critique focuses mainly on the inequalities between different municipalities, the growing waiting lists and the insufficient supply of specialized youth care (CBS 2019). This

presupposes that the demands of clients are not satisfied in the current situation.

The increasing criticism of clients can be placed in the broader context of “critical citizens”. Many scholars speak of a social change in which citizens become more critical and outspoken (Hurenkamp & Tonkens 2011; Noordegraaf 2016; Schram 2019). According to Noordegraaf (2016) do clients express more varied preferences and assertive attitudes towards public service workers than before. Citizen’s expectations of governments have changed. The emergence of activating welfare states reinforces this critical standpoint of clients, since they are increasingly involved in the arrangement of their own public services (WRR 2006). This empowerment of clients largely

strengthen their critical awareness (Ince & Schmidt 2017). Overall it can be argued that the

emergence of critical citizens within activating welfare states has led to a situation in which public service workers are increasingly confronted with the critics and outspoken opinions of clients (Karré & Paardekooper 2014; Tonkens 2008).

Lipsky (1980) argues that SLBs can never be free from the implications of significant

pressures in their everyday work. However he finds that SLBs have a broad discretion with respect to the utilization of resources to deal with the pressures. With discretion, Lipsky (1980) means that SLBs have much freedom in determining the nature, amount and quality of benefits and sanctions provided by their agencies. Discretion allows SLBs to be responsive to the complicated human dimensions of the situations they are facing in their everyday work. It allows for sensitive observation and judgement.

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Within this discretionary space, SLBs can develop several routines and subjective responses in order to cope with the difficulties and pressures of their work environment (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). These responses are coping mechanisms.

2.2. Coping

The broader coping literature provides many definitions of coping (Van Loon & Jakobsen 2018). However in the public policy literature, Lipsky’s view of coping is often cited (Loon & Jakobsen 2017; Tummers et al. 2015). Lipsky (1980) defines coping as the management of job stress. The constant pressures that SLBs are confronted with in their everyday work, may result in the experience of stress, which forces SLBs to develop coping mechanisms (Lipsky 2010; Maynard-Moody & Musheno 2003). For instance, SLBs can routinize their public service delivery by dealing with their clients in a standard manner (Lipsky 1980; Tummers et al. 2015). According to Lipsky, SLBs also try to reduce client’s demands by rationing their public services. This mechanism of rationing is focused on decreasing service availability, its attractiveness and the expectations of clients.

However, Lipsky’s view on coping was constructed during the heyday of hierarchical welfare state bureaucracies (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018, p. 288). For this reason, his ideas are rather conservative in a sense that the coping mechanisms he distinguishes are mainly focused on reducing external and internal demands and the conflicts of jobs (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018).

Nevertheless the hierarchical welfare state bureaucracies on which Lipsky has based his ideas have been subject of extensive reforms over the years and with this, the role and expectations of SLBs have changed (Durose 2011; Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). These reforms will be set out in the following sections. Important to mention is that the changing regimes did not replace each other but can rather be seen as a hybrid process (Van Gestel, De Beer & Van der Meer 2009). This means that the regimes are intermingled and do not statically succeed each other, it rather can be viewed as an ongoing process.

First of all, the hierarchical welfare state bureaucracies on which Lipsky has based his work were largely focussed on reconstruction and enlargement of social-economic policies in many Western welfare states after the second world war (Van Gestel, De Beer & Van der Meer 2009). In these welfare states, the government played a central interventionist role and SLBs shouldered many care responsibilities. Professional care was seen as the norm (Tonkens 2012). Over the years the social security expanded greatly which led to a situation in which social security rose significantly and authorities became increasingly hierarchical and bureaucratic (Newman & Tonkens 2011). Citizens were prescribed to a general passive role.

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The role of SLBs within these traditional hierarchical welfare state bureaucracies was based on the classic model of professional control (Noordegraaf 2007, 2016). This classic model of

professional control refers to the situation in which SLBs treat clients by relying on knowledge, skills and expertise which they used to assess situations, make decisions and intervene (Noordegraaf 2016). Their professional authority was rarely challenged and clients placed much trust in them. SLBs also established themselves as distinctive groups, often backed up by strong state support (Noordegraaf 2007). As groups of professionals they acquired autonomies to regulate client and case treatment, to structure and strengthen knowledge and skills and to improve assessment and action. Within these groups, educational programs, codes of ethics and supervision procedures were set up to guarantee their professional autonomy and the appropriate usage of this autonomy. In this way, knowledge, expertise and also professional ethics were regulated by the professionals themselves (Noordegraaf 2007; Noordegraaf 2016). The professionalism of SLBs was based on an independent field of professional knowledge, clear boundaries between professionals and clients and an obvious distinction between their professional knowledge and market logics (Fournier 2000).

When public expenditure on social security became uncontrollable and economic growth stagnated in the 1980s, New Public Management (NPM) reforms became dominant in social security systems (Van Gestel, De Beer & Van der Meer 2009). NPM used market forces to reduce public spending on social security and to counter bureaucracy by striving for less government intervention (Van Gestel, De Beer & Van der Meer 2009). In this regard public service organizations were turned into business-like institutions (Noordegraaf 2016). Furthermore the NPM ideas stressed the need for government to only focus on policymaking and not on the actual delivery of public services (Peters 2011). Osborne and Gaebler (1993) refer to this as governments that “steer not row”. During the NPM reforms, government mainly tried to steer public service delivery by using incentives and sanctions, performance indicators and by setting meta-level rules (Sanderson 2001). In this way governments exercised a hands-off control in which performance management played a central role in the work of SLBs. The responsibility for operational management was largely devolved to outside managers (Sanderson 2001).

The role of SLBs changed with these New Public Management reforms (Tonkens 2012). Their former professional control over clients gave way to a focus on cost control and customer satisfaction and the clear boundaries between SLBs as professionals and market logics disappeared (Noordegraaf 2016). From now on public services were seen as a commodity and citizens as customers (Tonkens 2012). The work of SLBs became increasingly managed and measured by outside managers since their professional behaviour was judged on the basis of outcome

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work within tight budgets and had to satisfy the demands on their performance of their managers but also the needs of critical clients-as-customers (Noordegraaf 2016). Noordegraaf (2016) describes this changing role of SLBs as a turn from professional control to organisational control.

Currently activating welfare states are dominant (Tonkens 2012). Two broad trends can be distinguished within these reforms. Firstly, activating welfare states impose conditions upon their citizens. Citizens are expected to refrain from being passive consumers as they were during the NPM reforms. In activating welfare states they have to be self-sufficient and be in charge of the

arrangement of their own public services by initially turning to their own personal networks. If this informal help does not resolve the problem, only then citizens can appeal to professional services (Grootegoed & Duyvendak 2013; Van Hulst, De Graaf & Van den Brink 2011). Secondly, activating welfare states are largely focused on public services that are tailored to the needs of individual citizens (Tonkens, Grootegoed & Duyvendak 2013). The provision of these tailored public services often takes place in a local setting since local circumstances can be taken into account and

collaboration between local partner can be facilitated (Bosselaar & Vonk 2013). The decentralisation of youth care task toward municipalities in the Netherlands can also be viewed from this context.

The role of SLBs has largely changed with the emergence of activating welfare state reforms. Public service workers are no longer in full control of the provision of public services since their clients are transformed into users, who are expected to actively manage their own health and well-being (Hagelund 2016; Noordegraaf 2016). The role of SLBs as prototypical professional with clear professional identities and professional control has diminished. Citizens are now expected to partly take over the control by making their own mixture of professional and informal social security arrangements (Noordegraaf 2016; Tonkens 2012). As a result, public service workers have to be reflexive to the actions of their clients and they have to improvise and engage in very context-sensitive forms of community empowerment (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). At the same time they also have to be reflexive to the actions of other involved stakeholders inside and outside their professional group, such as policymakers or other public service workers. In this context public service workers are installing more embedded forms of control (Noordegraaf 2016). Embedded control refers to the increasing importance of the relations inside public professional worker groups but also between professional fields and outside worlds, as in activating welfare states (Noordegraaf 2016). It focuses on how public service workers comply with, adapt to, and cope with the actions and demand of other involved stakeholders (Noordegraaf 2016). Since the implementation of the Youth Act stemmed from the activating welfare state reforms, this is the context in which youth care professionals have to act. Because the transition of youth care has encouraged the involvement of multiple stakeholders within the provision of youth care (think of the active involvement of citizens

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but also of municipal policy makers who are in charge of purchasing and arranging youth care) the control of youth care professionals became imbedded.

All these reforms in welfare state regimes have changed the roles and expectations regarding SLBs (Durose 2011; Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). From exercising traditional forms of

professional control during hierarchical welfare state bureaucracies, to practising organisational control by treating clients as customers during the NPM reforms and finally, exercising embedded control within current activating welfare states. Logically, this shift towards embedded control of SLBs leads to new forms of coping. For this reason Lipsky’s view on coping needs some revision (Durose 2011).

Tummers et al. (2015) provide this revision. They wrote an extensive literature review on the conceptualization of coping during public service delivery. In this review, they exchanged the concept of SLB for “frontline worker”. Reason for this change is that they found that, within activating welfare states, everything is about acting on the spot, about implementation and about interaction and engagement with citizens for contemporary frontline workers (Durose 2011). For this reason, frontline workers build deeper relationships with their community than SLBs did (Van Hulst, De Graaf & Van den Brink 2011). This increasing engagement in context-sensitive forms of

community empowerment fits the notion of embedded control of public service workers since they have to share their control with other involved stakeholders. It also matches the current Dutch youth care system since clients are increasingly involved in the arrangement and provision of their own youth care (WRR 2006). For this reason this study will use the term frontline workers instead of street level bureaucrats.

Within their review, Tummers et al. (2015, p. 1100) defined coping as following:

“behavioural efforts frontline workers employ when interacting with clients, in order to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal demands and conflicts they face on an everyday basis”.

This definition differs from Lipsky’s notion of coping, since it is more open. It argues that coping mechanisms are not only focused on the reduction of external and internal demands, as Lipsky did, but also on other ways of coping with these demands. Since the implementation of the Youth Act took place within the context of activating welfare states in which the control of youth care

professionals is embedded, it is plausible that they do not only try to reduce demand as in Lipsky’s view, but also try to (collectively) search for other ways of dealing or granting with them.

Tummers et al. (2015) distinguish three families of coping behaviour: 1) moving towards clients, 2) moving away from clients and 3) moving against clients. Firstly, moving towards clients means coping in the client’s benefit. When this is the case, frontline workers adjust to the client’s needs by, for instance, breaking the rules or using personal resources to help their clients (Tummers

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et al. 2015; Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). Secondly, moving away from clients refers to the situation in which frontline workers avoid meaningful interactions with clients, by routinising or rationing interactions with them. Lastly, moving against clients focuses on the confrontations with clients, which can be a result of rigid rule following to maintain control or aggression. Tummers et al. found that frontline workers often move towards their client, even when they experience stressful situations. According to Tummers et al. the main focus of frontline workers lies on helping their clients and society rather than strictly comply to the rules.

In this empirical study, the three families of Tummers et al. will be used to analyse the coping behaviour of Dutch youth care professionals. By taking these three coping behaviour families as a starting point, it is attempted to get more grip on the coping strategies of youth care professionals in the Netherlands.

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3. Research design

3.1. Why a case study?

In order to get an understanding of how Dutch youth care professionals cope with the contemporary pressures resulting from the Youth Act, I designed a comparative case study. There are four reasons why a case study is suitable for my research object: first of all, do case studies enable researchers to investigate contemporary phenomena, such as coping, in depth and within their real-world contexts (Yin 2014). Secondly, case studies are the best research method when the central research question is explanatory and focuses on “how” and “why” questions as this study does. Thirdly, case studies allow for high levels of construct validity (George & Bennett 2005). Since my focus is on coping, which is a reasonably difficult to measure social phenomenon, a detailed consideration of all facets of the variable is needed. Case studies allow for this detailed consideration, which improves the construct validity (George & Bennett 2005). Lastly, case studies are suitable for the documentation of complex interactions and their effects (George & Bennett 2005). Since this study focuses on the interactions between the state, youth care professionals and their clients, this type of research method is appropriate.

A possible downside of comparative case studies is that they are not the strongest research method in estimating the generalized causal effects and causal weight of variables across a range of cases (George & Bennett 2005). Nonetheless this is not necessarily a problem since statistical generalization is not the only way by which people can gain and accumulate knowledge (Flyvbjerg 2006; Yin 2014).

3.2. Case selection

This study has used the “most different cases” method to select appropriate cases. This method implies a maximum variance along relevant dimensions between the selected cases in order to explore the research object (Seawright & Gerring 2008). The cases were selected on variation in municipal financial deficits on youth care. By comparing the municipality with the greatest financial deficit on youth care with the one with the smallest deficit, I attempted to obtain information about the significance of this factor for case outcomes and the robustness of the findings (Flyvbjerg 2006). After all, when two cases are largely different from each other but they ultimately show equal findings, this improves the robustness of the research findings.

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used the most recent CBS StatLine data (see Appendix 1). This data showed the realised costs of Dutch municipalities on youth care per 1000 inhabitants in 2018. The realised costs per 1000 inhabitants were compared with the municipalities budgeted costs on youth care for that year. By doing this, an indication of the financial deficits per municipality could be made.

The two municipalities that I ultimately selected on the basis of this CBS data were Aalten and De Ronde Venen. The financial deficits of these municipalities are the most different. Where Aalten was facing a great financial deficit of about €1.5 million on youth care in 2018, De Ronde Venen had a surplus of €4000,- in that year (CBS 2019; Harfsterkamp 2019; Sneijder 2019). Also De Ronde Venen spent significant less budget on youth care in comparison to all other municipalities included in the CBS data. Aalten has spent the most in that year. The percentage of young people that are eligible for youth care (0 to 20 years old) is similar in both municipalities in 2018, namely: 22,6% in De Ronde Venen and 23,6% in Aalten. This made it even more interesting to compare the two cases since this implies thatthe care professionals in both municipalities are responsible for a relatively similar amount of young people while they are working under different kind of pressures.

3.3. Research population

The research population of this study is formed by youth care professionals that are working in Aalten and De Ronde Venen. It concerns only youth care professionals that are registered in the quality register for youth (Kwaliteitsregister Jeugd) or in the BIG-register. These professionals work in many different types of youth care or assistance such as youth work (jongerenwerk), centres for youth and family (Centra Jeugd en Gezin) or social teams (ondersteuningsteams) but also the more specialist youth care institutions. By including all these forms of youth care I have attempted to get a broad picture of the research object. Youth care professionals working for the Youth Welfare Office (Jeugdbescherming) or juvenile probation (Jeugdreclassering) are excluded in this study. These two types of youth care are often referred to as forced youth care (gedwongen kader jeugdzorg) (Friele et al 2018). The reason for the exclusion is that this type of youth care is not fully decentralized.

3.4 Data collection

3.4.1. Semi structured interviews

To answer the question how youth care professionals cope with contemporary pressures resulting from the Youth Act, this study used semi structured interviews. Semi structured interviews are particularly appropriate when data gathering is focussed on the experiences of individuals (Van Male 2016). This form of data collection gives respondents the opportunity to respond extensively to interview questions and offer the interviewer to dig deeper (Yin 2014).

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Since the outcomes of the interviews are used to form a picture of the way youth care

professionals are dealing with the pressures of the Youth Act, it is important that research outcomes can be compared. The method of structured and focused comparison is used in order to improve the comparability of the research data (George & Bennett 2005). This method implies that the

interviews are structured in a way that several general questions were asked in each interview (George & Bennett 2005). Which improves the comparability of the research data. In addition, the interviews were focused on only a certain aspect of the Youth Act, namely only on the coping mechanisms of youth care professionals (George & Bennett 2005).

3.4.2 Interview topics

In this study pressures were divided in top-down pressures and bottom-up pressures. They both had to be operationalized and included in the interviews. For this reason the interviews were divided into two parts. The first part of the questions focused on the identification of top-down pressures and the second one on bottom-up pressures. Both of these pressures were made measurable by means of several questions that can be found in, respectively, part 1and part 2 of the interview schedule (Appendix 2).

Furthermore, the construct of coping is operationalized by asking follow-up questions on the questions of part 1 and part 2 of the interview schedule. By doing this, the aim was to distinguish several coping mechanisms that youth care professionals adopt when dealing with both types of pressures. These questions on coping differed per interview and were found to be largely dependent on the answers that interviewees gave. However these topic questions on coping can also be found in part 1 and part 2 of the interview schedule.

3.4.3. Respondents selection

The respondents of this study were approached by means of the snowball sampling procedure. In this strategy, respondents were asked to propose new respondents right after they had participated in an interview (De Vaus 2001). However before this snowball sampling procedure could take place, I had selected several key figures by searching for key figures on the municipal websites. The key figures in this study were formed by the youth consultants (jeugdconsulenten). Both of the municipalities of interest are currently working with these youth consultants, who have a steering role in the

arrangement and provision of youth care within municipalities. These key figures were approached by calling and e-mailing them. Since they have many connections with youth care professionals they were asked to propose new respondents in their networks, after they had been interviewed.

In total, 14 interviews were conducted in this study, with 7 respondents in Aalten and 7 in De Ronde Venen. In the process of selecting and approaching new respondents, theoretical saturation

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formed the starting point. Theoretical saturation refers to the moment when there is hardly any new information deriving from the interviews (Baarda & Bakker 2013). After conducting 12 interviews, almost no new information was found. After that, two more interviews were conducted in both municipalities to verify the theoretical saturation.

3.4.4. Execution of the interviews

The interviews took place within a period of approximately one and a half month (mid-March to the end of April). The duration of the interviews varied from half an hour till one hour. The interviews were all conducted by phone or through a skype-meeting. However, this was not the initial plan but the emergence of the coronavirus made it impossible to conduct interviews in a face-to-face setting. All the interviews took place in a one-on-one setting in which people’s anonymity was guaranteed. In this way respondents could speak frankly about the research subject. All the interviews were recorded. Respondents explicitly had to give their consent for this at the beginning of each interview.

3.5. Data-analysis

In order to analyse the obtained interview data, the software of Atlas.ti was used. Before the data could be analysed, the interviews were transcribed into raw data. The analysis of the raw data existed of three steps of: open coding, axial coding and selective coding (Yin 2014). The first step of open coding was inductive and focused on identifying all kinds of coping mechanisms. At this stage, the coding process was based on getting insights in the different ways youth care professionals cope with the pressures from the Youth Act. Then in the axial coping phase, these founded mechanisms were grouped into different categories of coping families. This phase can be seen as deductive since it was based on the coping families of Tummers et al. (2015). Finally the selective coding concentrated on the differences between the two case municipalities in order to check the robustness of the findings.

3.6 Validity and reliability

A distinction can be made between construct validity and external validity. This research has a rather high construct validity since it enables a detailed consideration of the concept of coping (George & Bennett 2005). However, the external validity is rather low since the outcomes do not lead to estimations of generalized causal effects (George & Bennett 2005). Lastly the reliability (or replicability) of case studies is often low, because case studies can rarely be repeated in the same way due to its complicated structure (Jochems & Joosten 2005). This study has tried to minimalize this problem by accurately describing and documenting the used methods of data collection, the way of analysing and the raw data. This allows other investigators to repeat or monitor the case study, which contributes to the reliability of the research (Yin 2014).

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Because they care | Roos Alkemade 20 3.7. Ethical issues

In order to comply with the ethical requirements for social research, the interviews of this study were conducted in line with The Code of Ethics for the Social and Behavioural Sciences. Special attention was paid to the informed consent of participants. Before respondents were interviewed, they received an email with short information about the nature and purpose of the investigation, the fact that the interviews would be recorded, the time that the interviews would take and the researchers contact information for further questions. Then right before the interviews started, all this information was repeated. In addition special attention was paid to the respondent’s privacy. Since respondent were asked to give their genuine opinions about the functioning of the current youth care system, it was important that they could speak frankly about their experiences. For this reason, the anonymity of respondents was guaranteed. This anonymity is safeguarded by changing the names of respondents by numbers in the transcripts. The autonomy is also safeguarded by disclosing this anonymised list of respondents only to the two assessors of this research.

3.8. Influence of COVID-19

This study has been conducted during the emergence of the COVID-19 virus in the Netherlands and the rest of the world. Due to this virus it was not possible to conduct interviews in a face-to-face setting. For this reason all interviews were conducted by telephone or via Skype . Furthermore the virus led to a situation in which a several youth care professionals were not able to participate in this research. Since the virus has put some extra pressure on youth care professionals (think of situations in which all family members are working from home what can lead to tensions within households) several of them argued that they were too busy in these exceptional circumstances. Two other youth care professionals told me that they were not in the mood to participate in the research, due to the virus.

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4. Research findings

The empirical material of this research shows that 13 coping mechanisms of youth care professionals can be distinguished. These ways of coping varied largely: from working overtime to outsourcing tasks and from resignation to expressing policy disagreement. The 13 founded coping mechanisms can be divided into four families, which were drawn up by analogy with Tummers et al. (2015). Two of these families turned out to be in line with Tummers et al. namely: “moving towards clients” and “moving away from clients”. In addition a new coping family was found in this research and focuses on the interactions between youth care professionals and policymakers, namely: “moving towards policy makers”. The last coping family that this study distinguishes has similarities with the research of Verhoeven & Bochove (2018) and is called: “moving away from policy makers”. All four coping families were detected in both municipalities. Also, the extent to which the coping families occurred within the municipalities was almost equal (see Appendix 3).

The following sections will outline these four coping families and the coping mechanisms on which they are based. Firstly the coping families focused on the interactions between youth care professionals and their clients will be explained (moving towards clients and moving away from clients). Subsequently the coping families on the relation between youth care professionals and policy makers will be set out (moving towards policy makers and moving away from policy makers).

4.1. Moving towards clients

The largest number of coping mechanism is related to the coping family “moving towards clients” (5 coping mechanisms which covered 42,70% of the quotations of the respondents). Youth care

professionals often set helping their clients as an ultimate goal. Youth care professionals employ five ways of coping within this family: prioritisation of clients, seeking deliberation, seeking creative solutions, working overtime and being transparent.

4.1.1. Prioritisation of clients

The coping mechanism of prioritisation of clients focuses on youth care professionals that prioritise the interests of their clients over the interests of policy makers. From their role as aid workers and based on their professional ethics, youth care professionals see it as their duty to put client’s interest centre stage. Prioritisation of clients can be seen as the opposite of Lipsky’s coping mechanism of “rationing services” (Lipsky 1980). Instead of decreasing service availability and attractiveness in order to cope with job stress, youth care professionals strive for a consistent availability and quality of their public services. Youth care professionals try to ensure clients of the availability of the public

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services.

The prioritising of clients stems from several top-down pressures. Most youth care

professionals refer in this regard to the pressure from policy makers related to budget limits. Policy makers intensively try to keep the budgets on youth care within the bounds whereas youth care professionals want to provide the best quality of youth care for their clients. When this is the case, youth care professionals fall back on professional ethics, codes of conduct and the essence of their jobs. One youth care professional remarked:

“Budget considerations should never be at the expense of the quality of youth care that can be provided.” (Interview 1)

Another youth care professional argued:

“I do really not want to provide youth care on the basis of financial considerations. I just provide the youth care that a client need, regardless of the costs.” (Interview 6)

In addition, youth care professionals often do not see it as their responsibility to keep the budgets under control but explicitly argue that policy makers are accountable for this task:

“I am not easily affected by things [budgetary restrictions] that are happening within the municipality [policymaking level]. I think that this is the task of policy makers and not for us.” (Interview 13)

However, not only budget limits lead to prioritisation of clients. Other youth care professionals argued that the prioritization of clients also happens when they experience regulatory burdens from policy makers. For instance, one youth care professional asserted that the policy makers of the municipality had purchased his youth care for a certain number of hours a week, in which he was expected to help a certain amount of clients. Those rules pressured him eventually to work more hours because the hours he had received from policy makers were nowhere near enough to fulfil his job. In this way, he did not comply with the rules of policy makers because he still wanted to provide the care his clients needed:

“In the end this means that you work more hours in total than agreed on with policy makers. That is a bit of a pitfall for social workers. But we don't think we should complain about that. Because it is in the interest of the family or the client. I think it goes without saying that I make those extra hours in the interests of the family.” (Interview 5)

4.1.2. Seeking dialogue with clients

Another way of coping in this family is seeking dialogue with clients. Dialogue refers to the medium through which people seek shared meaning and understanding (McArdle & Reason 2008). It can be looked at as a special kind of communicative relationship, in which a person may prefer a certain

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position but does not hold this position non-negotiable. He or she is ready to listen to others to understand the meaning of the other’s position properly and is also ready to change his or her own point of view if there is good reason to do so (Escobar 2012).

Youth care professionals seek for dialogue when they are experiencing bottom-up pressures in the form of critique from clients. They argue that they consider the visions of their clients

important and that they take it very seriously when clients are dissatisfied with the care that is provided. They claim that the critique of their clients mostly comes from a discrepancy between the expectations of clients about appropriate forms of youth care and the form of youth care that can be provided:

“It is difficult for parents when they have a certain form of youth care for their child in mind (…) But it [this wanted form of youth care] cannot be provided since policy makers did not purchase this form of youth care (…) This sometimes leads to unsatisfied clients.” (Interview 2)

Dialogue between youth care professionals and clients is based on listening to clients critique and preferences, explaining the situation and ultimately finding a reasonable solution for both parties:

“You will often work it out together. Always start the conversation with your clients. Talk about what is possible but also what is necessary.” (Interview 12)

Youth care professionals argue that they are always open for the ideas of their clients. That they are willing to listen to client’s point of view and sometimes grant their requests if they have good arguments:

“If a client can specify why he or she wants another form of youth care on the basis of good arguments, then we are willing to think along with them.” (Interview 8)

4.1.3. Seeking creative solutions

A third coping mechanism in this family is seeking creative solutions. Borrelli and Lindberg (2019) state that when frontline workers are confronted with morally uncomfortable situations, they

sometimes respond to these challenges with creativity. They offer many real life examples of this, for instance the case of a cantonal migration office in Switzerland. Within this office, public service workers have created an informal consulting service for irregular migrant. These migrants cannot directly be deported since the law says that their deportation can only take place during a few weeks each year (Borrelli & Lindberg 2019). By establishing a consulting service, public service workers aim to facilitate the regularization of these migrants to the greatest extent possible since they are

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pinned down. Seeking creative solutions has similarities with “instrumental action” of Tummers et al. (2015). It also focuses on the development of solutions to overcome stressful situations. However these creative solutions do not necessarily have to be long term, as the solutions of Tummers et al.

The search for creative solutions to overcome morally uncomfortable situations is also found in this study. Youth care professionals in both municipalities argue that they sometimes experience top-down pressure due to the high caseload and the complex organizational structures. High caseloads refer to the number of clients they have to help within a fixed span of time (Duyvendak, Knijn & Kremer 2006).

The creative solutions vary largely. When focusing on the high caseload, one youth care professional remarked that he and his colleagues deal with this pressure in the following creative manner:

“One of my colleagues likes to go fishing. When he goes fishing during the weekend, he often takes one or two clients with him (…) Although this is his spare time and he is working with and listening to his clients, he does not get paid for these hours. (…) I think that this shuffling with working hours and spare time is needed nowadays in order to still be capable of providing good youth care.” (Interview 7)

Another youth care professional remarked that he and his colleagues had introduced an extra step within the application procedure of clients in order to deal with the long waiting lists caused by high caseloads and complex organizational procedures. This extra step is formed by a question

clarification interview with clients before putting them on waiting lists. The question clarification interview implies that youth care professionals enter into conversations with clients in order to get a clear idea of the problem or just provide a listening ear to them. By doing this, many questions of clients could be answered without further help is needed. Therefore. the application procedure of these client could be aborted and the waiting lists are shorter for clients who are in severe need of help from youth care professionals:

“Earlier we had waiting lists of 20 or 25 families. Then we thought, how are we going to resolve this? This will take us 3 or 4 months before we help all those people. We don't want that anymore. So what we have been doing since half last year is that after the first application, you immediately have a question

clarification interview. And in this interview we can already answer so many questions to help people on the right track. That we now have less than 10 client on the waiting list.” (Interview 3)

Other creative solutions were found when coping with the top-down pressure of complex

organizational structures within the current youth care system. According to youth care professionals these circumstances lead to confusion among clients. In order to deal with this complexity and help

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clients get through the system, one youth care professional employed his own solution by interacting with clients through his own social media channels:

“Young people have no idea where they can appeal for help nowadays. During my information meetings on high schools, I always say that if they have any problems, they need to appeal to their parents or teachers. And otherwise, they can send me a personal message on Instagram if they have no idea which institution or whatsoever can help them (…) And this is literally what they do, it works!’’ (Interview 8)

4.1.4. Working overtime

The fourth mechanism in this family is working overtime. This mechanism focuses on youth care professionals that spend extra time to help their clients. Tummers et al. (2015) mentioned a similar coping mechanism in their work. They refer to it as “using personal resources”. According to

Tummers et al. public service workers tend to invest their own time, money or energy to help clients when they experiencing a high workload. Working overtime overlaps the coping mechanism of Tummers et al. However working overtime can be seen as a much more narrow coping mechanism since it does only focuses on spending more hours of work and not on giving money to clients.

Youth care professionals employ this coping mechanism when they experience an increased workload. Several youth care professionals in both municipalities argue that their workload has increased since the Youth Act was implemented. This increase results from several top-down pressures, such as administrative procedures, accountability requirements, high caseloads and miscommunication and unclarities between involved organisations. One youth care professional argued that his caseload has increased while the municipality had purchased his youth care for fewer hours a week compared to before the transition: “Ultimately we always work more hours than we agreed on with the policy makers nowadays.” (Interview 5)

Many youth care professionals argue that they see this working overtime as part of their job:

“It [working overtime] is something that is in our DNA. You want to provide the best quality of youth care, and in that regard time should not be leading.” (Interview 3)

“We often work more hours than is accounted for. This is something that you just do as a social worker.” (Interview 7)

4.1.5. Being transparent

The last coping mechanism in this family focuses on the transparency of youth care professionals towards their clients. Being transparent means that youth care professionals try to be open about their

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actions and decision making towards their clients. Pijnenburg (2010) states that with the emergence of New Public Management and activating welfare state reforms, the professional authority of youth care professionals was not self-evident anymore. As a result of this clients are increasingly critical and are pressing for transparent youth care professionals. This increasing demand to transparency can be seen as a bottom-up pressure, and is confirmed by the youth care professionals in this study. They argue that clients are often “suspicious” (Interview 4) or have specific “demands” (Interview 5) or “expectations” of youth care professionals (Interview 8).

The youth care professionals in both municipalities argued that they deal with this demand by being transparent towards their client. This transparency focuses mainly on the progress of youth care trajectories. More specifically, youth care professionals are transparent towards their clients about the boundaries of the current youth care system:

“I am always very honest about what the situation is and what we are dealing with. (…) All I want is that we [youth care professional and client] work it out together. But that we [youth care professionals] also have to comply with the rules of the municipality.” (Interview 2)

Youth care professionals assume that this transparency results in a situation in which clients are aware of the possibilities and limitations of youth care provision, which leads to “more

understanding clients.” (Interview 2). As one youth care professional, who was confronted with a client who aimed to get some specific form of youth care that was not purchased in the municipality explained:

“ I am always very transparent towards clients. When I can show them that I have really listen to them and that I have always keep their interest into mind. Then, most people will understand.” (Interview 5)

4.2. Moving away from clients

A much smaller coping family that can be distinguished in this study is moving away from clients (3 coping mechanisms which cover 15,73% of the quotations of the respondents). Moving away from clients refers to youth care professionals that are avoiding meaningful interactions with their clients (Tummers et al. 2015). The coping mechanisms that are included in this family are: outsourcing tasks, quit working and scaling up youth care.

4.2.1. Outsourcing tasks

The first coping mechanism of this family concentrates on the outsourcing of youth care tasks. This mechanism implies that youth care professionals hand over responsibilities to other involved actors.

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Outsourcing tasks shows similarities with Lipsky’s coping mechanism of “rationing services” since outsourcing tasks also focuses on decreasing the availability of their public services (Lipsky 1980). However the big difference with outsourcing tasks is that youth care professionals tend to refer their clients to other involved actors, such as other youth care institutions. This does not happen when Lipsky’s street level bureaucrats are rationing services.

Outsourcing tasks forms a reaction to several top-down and bottom-up pressures. These pressures are for instance the complex administrative procedures, the high workload that result from these procedures, clients critique and the absence of specialized youth care. When the latter occurs, (non-specialist) youth care professionals argue that they “will absolutely not provide this specialist kind of youth care by themselves, because this would detract from their own work.” (Interview 3). Youth care professionals outsource their tasks and responsibilities to two different involved actors: other youth care institutions or to their clients themselves. First of all, they outsource tasks to other youth care institutions. One of the care professionals that experiences high levels of

administrative constraints argued:

“I sometimes send a request to all involved youth care professionals to take over some reporting tasks.” (Interview 2)

Another youth care profession that experienced critique from clients stated that she sometimes hands over responsibilities to colleagues when dealing with clients critique:

“How do I deal with this kind of criticism? Because this puts some kind of pressure on my work for sure. It is not insignificant. And then [when there is much critique coming from clients] it is nice that you can fall back on your colleagues and discuss who is responsible for what youth care tasks.” (Interview 5)

Youth care professionals also outsource tasks towards their clients. This mostly happens when there is a lack of appropriate specialized youth care. One youth care

professional who experienced this lack of appropriate youth care argued:

“We can always ask the clients [or their parents when minor] to apply for a personal budget

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Because they care | Roos Alkemade 28 4.2.2. Scaling up youth care

Another coping mechanism in this family is focused on youth care professionals scaling up youth care too quickly. Scaling up means the referral of clients to more intensive youth care trajectories. This coping mechanism follows on from the coping mechanism of outsourcing tasks. However this coping mechanism concentrates on referring clients to more intensive, or forced youth care

institutions when this is not absolutely necessary for the client, instead of toward equivalent youth care institutions or clients.

Youth care professionals often tend to scale up youth care trajectories in order to cope with the high workload. When doing this, they admit that this scaling up is not always absolutely necessary for the client One youth care professional argued:

“ I recognize myself in youth care professionals that scale up care very quickly. So that they can remove this client from their caseload. And this give them more time to concentrate on the other clients” (Interview 3)

Another youth care professional remarked:

“Nowadays we scale up more quickly (…) But I do not agree with that. I think, if we were able to provide the quality of care we should provide, than this [scaling up] was not even needed.” (Interview 1)

4.2.3. Quit working

The last coping mechanism in this family is quit working. The limitations and complexity of the current youth care system leads sometimes to professionals quitting their jobs. This coping mechanism can be seen as a way of dealing with top-down pressures, such as the complex administrative procedures and high caseloads. These top-down pressures have two main effects: youth care professionals come into conflict with their moral values or they become overworked.

Moral conflict refers to the situation in which youth care professionals “could not carry out their jobs in a way they morally support.” (Interview 2). This moral perspectives stems from the service ethic that are central in their professional work (Verhoeven & Van Bochove 2018). Since professional ethics and guiding principles are of great importance within the field of youth care, care professionals try to always keep these in mind when carrying out their jobs (Gharabaghi 2008). When youth care professionals feel like they cannot carry out their job according to these

professional ethics anymore, they sometimes quit their jobs. One youth care professional who quitted her jobs for a few years, but now works as aycare professional again, claimed:

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Because they care | Roos Alkemade 29 “At some point, it did not feel right to me, to make this radical decisions about someone’s [clients] life when they have to be on waiting list for three months after my decision. For me this was a reason to quit my previous job as youth care professional.” (Interview 1)

In addition, youth care professionals become overworked due to the high caseloads they are dealing with. Many youth care professionals argue that they are experiencing a “huge workload” (Interview 6). Several youth care professionals claimed that they “ask themselves whether they were still willing to carry out their jobs under these stressful circumstances” (Interview 6, Interview 2). According to a youth care professional this leads to many personnel changes:

“The workload for youth care professionals in our institution is very high. Since there are only few people capable of doing this kind of work, the turnover of youth care professionals is immense”. (Interview 5)

4.3. Moving towards policy makers

The second biggest coping family that is found in this study is the moving towards policy makers family (3 coping mechanisms which covered 26,97% of the quotations). Moving towards policy makers occurs to be the second biggest coping family for both municipalities. This coping family entails that youth care professionals often search for interactions between them and policy makers in order to facilitate a situation in which they can provide the youth care they want to. It also means that youth care professionals often try to act in line with the rules and procedures of policy makers. The coping mechanisms that form a part of this family are: bridging, resignation and seeking deliberation with policy makers.

4.3.1. Bridging and bonding

The first way of coping in this family is focused on intensifying the relationship between youth care professionals and policy makers. Youth care professionals tend to do this by bridging and bonding with policy makers. First of all bridging can be defined as the search for connection between groups that differ largely from each other (Putnam 2000). This leads to moving beyond professional

identities to connect with people that are different (Putnam 2000). This is exactly what youth care professionals in this study are doing. They try to move beyond their professional identities to strengthen the relationship between themselves and policy makers. By doing this, youth care professionals attempt to “build a relationship of trust” with policy makers (Interview 13).

Youth care professionals trying to bridge with policy makers can be seen as a reaction to top-down pressures. Mainly the organisational reforms and complex structures are mentioned in this

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context. According to youth care professionals this leads to a high rotation in responsible policy makers. These changes in policy makers mean that youth care professionals often need to strengthen their relationships with new policy makers again:

“Sometimes it [the high rotation in responsible policy makers on youth care] hinders me. That you have to start from scratch again with that person. That you have to explain everything again and that you have to make new arrangements with them again.” (Interview 11)

Youth care professionals tend to strengthen their relationship with policy makers mainly by intensifying the contact between them and policy makers:

“We [youth care professionals] seek for contact with the municipality all the time. As a result of this, we regularly sit around the table with policy makers.” (Interview 8)

Youth care professionals do not only focus on bridging with policy makers but they also try to bond with them. Bonding refers to the search for connection within groups in which group members do not differ largely from each other. Bonding tends to reinforce shared identities (Putnam 2000). Youth care professionals argue that they mainly try to bond with policy makers by turning to the ones they already have a connection or shared values with. One youth care professional asserted:

“You always seek for policy makers with whom you have the best connection (…) Someone with whom you can solve problems together.” (Interview 7)

4.3.2. Resignation

Another way of coping within the moving towards policy makers family is resignation. Resignation can be regarded as a mechanism that public servants employ to cope with discrepancies between their objectives and the means by which they accomplish them. In this case, the personal aspirations of a public servant do not fit the characteristics of the work situation. In order to deal with this discrepancy public servants decrease the level of their aspirations and try to accept the situation (Giauque et al. 2012)

The process of resignation is also found in this study. Youth care professionals often experience top-down pressures in the form of bureaucracy. This pressure limit them in achieving their main objective, namely: providing the best quality of youth care. Since bureaucracy leads to slow processes and complex organisational structures, youth care professionals feel like they are not

Because they care: Dutch youth care professionals coping with the pressures of the transition