Actor oriented approach in developing Finnish social welfare services

Abstract

Finnish social welfare services are traditionally produced and financed by the public sector. During the last 15 years also the third and private sectors have got more responsibility in delivering social welfare services. From this perspective, this paper asks whether the third and private sectors should get a more central role also in planning, implementing and assessing services. Similarly, also citizens and various service user groups might have more central role in planning, implementing and assessing services.
The actor oriented approach offers a potential developing method for getting various interest groups involved in planning, implementing and assessing social welfare services. The actor oriented approach gives space for various actors: formal and informal actors, organizations and individuals. The main point is to get all potential actors involved in developing processes. The processes are seen as learning, which has a collective base. Thus the actor oriented approach is based on dialogic of various interest groups.