Abstract

THE STATE AND COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS:
THE RELATIONSHIP AT A ROUNDTABLE

Carmen Gill and Luc Thériault

This proposal pertains to the impact of a partnership roundtable on public policy in Saskatchewan. We will look at the relationships existing between community-based organizations (CBOs) and various partners from the private and public sectors in one roundtable. There has been an important increase in the role of the CBOs in the delivery of human services in Saskatchewan since the 1970s. In time, the non-profit sector has become a key actor in the development and restructuring of services. In spite of this, the sector still has difficulty in articulating its voice and in playing an influential role in the public policy decision-making process. The partnership roundtables, that appeared in the mid 1980s, were established to serve as forums and gather stakeholders from various sectors with the intent to try to develop collective, concerted actions in service delivery.

The presentation will explore social partnership processes among the various players involved with S.T.O.P.S. to Violence within a social economy perspective (Vaillancourt, 1996). With the decline of the welfare state since the 1980s, State/CBOs relations were redefined, new intervention strategies were considered and new partnerships were struck among those involved in delivering human services. S.T.O.P.S. to Violence dynamics attest to the partners’ desire to create a discussion and work environment favouring the decompartmentalization of violence interventions. But have such social partnership forum succeeded in meeting the needs of CBOs? Do they have genuine influence on political decision-makers?

This presentation will be an opportunity to discuss preliminary results based on our observation at the roundtable. First, we will look at the composition of the roundtable. Second, we will analyse the relationships between the participants at the roundtable through the prise of a debate/discussion about the representation of CBOs.

Bios

Carmen Gill, Ph.D. is a Research Associate at the Social Policy Research Unit, University of Regina. Her current research interests are centred on social economy initiatives, especially those of the women’s movement, and on the dynamics involved between the State and community-based organizations. She is co-investigator on the research project Social Partnership and Public Policy: A Study of Two Roundtables as well as in a Community University Research Alliance (CURA) project: Evaluating the Justice and Community Response to Domestic Violence in the Prairie Provinces.

Carmen Gill, Ph.D. est chercheuse associée au Social Policy Research Unit de l’université de Regina. Ses travaux de recherche portent sur des initiatives d’économie sociale, plus spécifiquement celles développées au sein du mouvement des femmes et sur la dynamique entre l’État et les organismes du tiers secteur. Elle est co-chercheuse dans un projet de recherche qui s’intitule : La concertation et son impact sur la politique publique : Étude de deux partenariats ainsi que dans l’Alliance de recherche universités- communautés (ARUC) portant sur l’évaluation du support et de l’intervention judiciaire et communautaire dans les cas de violence conjugale dans les Prairies.

Luc Thériault holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Toronto and has held a postdoctoral fellowship at the École de Travail Social, Université du Québec à Montréal. He has worked part-time in the Research and Evaluation Branch of Saskatchewan Social Services. He is currently Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Regina. His articles have appeared in journals such as Nouvelles Pratiques Sociales, Canadian Social Work Review, Prairie Forum, Canadian Social Work, Canadian Review of Social Policy, Économie et Solidarités, Atlantis, and the Revue de l’Université de Moncton. He has served on the Board of Directors of Nouvelles Pratiques Sociales and is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Review of Social Policy. He currently holds a SSHRC standard research grant as principal investigator and is co-investigator on two other SSHRC-funded projects. He has been teaching regular courses in the areas of social policy and research methods, and occasionally in other fields such as disability issues, family and child policies and programs, and program development and evaluation.

Back to Papers