Jacob Torfing - Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector

Public Management and Change Series

BERYL A. RADIN , Series Editor

Challenging the Performance Movement: Accountability, Complexity, and Democratic Values

Beryl A. Radin

Collaborating to Manage: A Primer for the Public Sector

Robert Agranoff

Collaborative Governance Regimes

Kirk Emerson and Tina Nabatchi

The Collaborative Public Manager: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century

Rosemary OLeary and Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Editors

Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector

Daren C. Brabham

The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform

Donald P. Moynihan

Federal Service and the Constitution: The Development of the Public Employment Relationship, Second Edition

David H. Rosenbloom

The Future of Public Administration around the World: The Minnowbrook Perspective

Rosemary OLeary, David Van Slyke, and Soonhee Kim, Editors

How Information Matters: Networks and Public Policy Innovation

Kathleen Hale

Implementing Innovation: Fostering Enduring Change in Environmental and Natural Resource Governance

Toddi A. Steelman

Managing Disasters through Public-Private Partnerships

Ami J. Abou-bakr

Managing within Networks: Adding Value to Public Organizations

Robert Agranoff

Public Administration: Traditions of Inquiry and Philosophies of Knowledge

Norma M. Riccucci

Public Value and Public Administration

John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby, and Laura Bloomberg, Editors

Public Values and Public Interest: Counterbalancing Economic Individualism

Barry Bozeman

Work and the Welfare State: Street-Level Organizations and Workfare Politics

Evelyn Z. Brodkin and Gregory Marston, Editors

In Oakland, California, the city discovered that it often took several weeks before at-risk youths leaving the Juvenile Justice Hall reentered the public school system. During the interim, many of them became re-involved with the gang-related activities that had brought them into the Juvenile Justice Hall in the first place. To solve this urgent problem, the city decided to establish a transit center with a manager responsible for finding the kids an appropriate school before they left the Juvenile Justice Hall and for assigning them a case manager who would help them settle in, stay in school, and avoid rejoining criminal activities. The Oakland Department of Human Services initiated the new Wrap-Around Project of the Juvenile Justice Center, but it was developed and implemented in collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District, the Alameda County Probation Department, and five different community organizations. These agencies provide the case managers who work to support the at-risk youths and prevent them from rejoining gang-related activities.

In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, the deprived neighborhood of Mjlnerparken has many immigrants and refugees who are poor, unemployed, and in some cases traumatized by the events they have fled. For many youngsters, who lack support from their families and Danish society, crime offers an attractive alternative to poverty, scarce opportunities, and boredom. As a result, problems with gangs of both adults and at-risk youths shooting at each other in drug-related turf wars have been on the rise. A new part-time job project aims to solve the problem by providing legitimate income, social recognition, and positive job experiences for at-risk youths in the neighborhood. The municipal Job Center, which normally deals with people older than eighteen years of age, runs the project. Staffers meet the youngsters in their local neighborhood and help them test and develop their job skills. They teach the youths about their rights and obligations as employees, instruct them in how to write a curriculum vitae and put it on the Internet, and offer them part-time jobs in the public sector. A local politician initiated the project, and a project manager at the Job Center developed the project together with a private association that promotes the integration of immigrants and refugees and with the director of the Internet-based job market called Jobindex. The youth section of the local trade union and the Youth Education Network were involved in establishing the competence-building program, and local neighborhood organizations and the municipal youth clubs were key partners in implementing the project.