Human service programs have gone from a period of rapid growth in the 1960s and early 1970s to a period of retrenchment in the 1980s. The changing political and economic context has forced these programs to undergo major organizational transformations and to adopt different administrative strategies. These include degovernmentalization of social services, reliance on cutback management, and deprofessionalization of human-service workers. The article explores the implications of these developments on the delivery of services to the public.
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