Strained multi-agency collaboration in the multi-tiered prevention system: A critical study of Taiwan’s Social Safety Network Project

ABSTRACT

To prevent the escalation of family problems, in 2018, Taiwan’s government overhauled its multi-tiered prevention system and introduced multi-agency collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to uncover the real collaboration dynamics after policy reform. Twenty-eight frontline social workers from various tiers of the prevention system were interviewed. Qualitative analysis reveals that the status quo of collaboration was more complex than the policy document anticipated it would be. In particular, it often involved unequal power relationships between the participating agencies. The findings suggest that the government should go beyond functionalist thinking in future service reforms by considering power issues.

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-agency collaboration
• Multi-tiered prevention system
• social work agencies
• power
• Taiwan

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In fact, the notified child abuse cases had risen from 8,494 in 2004 to 79,328 in 2021. The number of reports of domestic violence had also gone up, from 37,050 in 2001 to 185,588 in 2021 (Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), 2022).

2. The nickname for the baby girl was ‘the little light bulb.’ In 2016, she was found murdered in the bus station by an unemployed and mentally ill man. This incident shocked the entire society in terms of both child safety and public security (Lin, 2019).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Grant of Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [MOST 107-2410-H-004-219-].