Collaboration in the regulation of social services in Israel

By Hilla Dolev, Team Leader, Regulation and Quality Assurance, Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute

Regulation of social services aims to safeguard the rights of people receiving care and to improve the quality of care. Real-life regulation is a challenge in light of the multiple stakeholders such as the government, the public, the inspectorate, service providers and of course, the service users themselves, who have many, and sometimes conflicting interests. Under these challenging circumstances, it is important to develop a meaningful collaboration with service users, particularly in the three main regulatory tasks: standard setting, standard monitoring (commonly referred to as inspection) and enforcement.

Why collaborate with service users when setting standards?

Standards guide the implementation of policy. They reflect the goals and define the values by which the services should function when providing care. So, if there is a genuine will to form user-centered and responsive services that recognize users’ needs and rights and to strive to meet them, it is crucial that service users take part in setting these standards.

Why collaborate with service users when inspecting services?

Inspection is about examining the ways in which services actually operate as compared to service standards. It requires ongoing actions of observing and tracking the services' strengths and weaknesses, the improvements as well as the violations, which may indicate danger. As much as regulators have information about what is going on, even the most sophisticated data collection cannot provide the whole picture without involving service users who actually experience the care.

Why collaborate with service users when taking enforcement actions?

Enforcement requires making judgements about the quality of care, and taking actions accordingly (e.g. performance scores, licensing, incentives, and sanctions). These judgements and actions affect not only the providers and the market, but first and foremost the people using the service. Moreover, they are based at least partially on interpretations of the quality of the service. Therefore, enforcement cannot be complete without taking into account the users’ perspective.     

Final thoughts

In Israel as in other countries, there have been different levels of service-user involvement in the regulation of social services for more than a decade. However, it is not enough to celebrate its existence. We should also ask: what is the scope of involvement in each of the regulatory tasks, and how well are we utilizing this important resource?