The transformation of human services.
Market-style management is squeezing human services—arm yourself with dissemination tools and performance checks to protect client-centered care.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Reinders (2008) looked at how market-style rules are changing human services. The paper is a story-style review, not an experiment. It covers group homes, clinics, and schools for people with disabilities.
The author warns that budget scorecards and audit culture can push staff to chase numbers instead of client needs.
What they found
No data tables here. The review argues that "do more with less" policies erode trust between staff, clients, and the public. Professionals feel torn between ethical codes and top-down targets.
How this fits with other research
Lerman (2024) extends this worry by giving you a blueprint to push back: package behavior skills for teachers, nurses, and officers so good practice spreads even inside a rigid system.
Critchfield et al. (2023) show one bright spot. Altmetrics prove Behavior Analysis in Practice reaches real-world staff, hinting that clinician-written articles can still shape the field despite managerial pressure.
Wilder et al. (2020) offer a tool angle. Their PDC-HS checklist helps you fix staff performance without blaming workers, aligning with H’s call to protect professional values while meeting agency goals.
Why it matters
You can’t dodge budget meetings, but you can spot when metrics clash with client dignity. Use the PDC-HS to find true performance gaps, share Lerman’s dissemination steps with allies, and keep citing practitioner journals so evidence-based voices stay loud. Small moves like these keep your ethics intact while the spreadsheets keep rolling.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Run the PDC-HS checklist on one recurring staff problem before the next audit meeting.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Recent studies in the development of professionalism suggest that western society witnesses a transformation of professional practices in human services that deeply affects how professionals experience their work. This paper describes key aspects of this development and presents an account of how it can be explained. METHOD: The paper offers a review of the main features of neoliberal managerialism as it is found in the literature. The paper does not assume a meta-theoretical perspective on this literature but rather presents an account on the level of description of what the literature interprets as a transformation of professional practices. Its method is therefore to report the main features of what the literature describes as neoliberal changes in human services. RESULTS: The review results in an account of the transformation of professionalism in human services that shows two sides. One is that of opposing logics that present the tensions between professionalism and managerialism in terms of conflict. The other side is that of compliance of professionals who seek to find their way in the new realities of a neoliberal service economy. CONCLUSIONS: I conclude that neoliberal managerialism presents serious challenges to professionals in human services to remain faithful to the values of their profession, and that these challenges--on the level of neoliberal society--raise a serious issue about social (dis)trust.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2008 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2008.01079.x