Welfare-to-work or activation policies refer to programmes aimed at promoting the employability, labour-market and social participation of benefit recipients of working age. Frontline workers delivering these policies are conceived of as policy implementers, as policy makers, and as actors mediating politics in an arena where conflicting interests are at stake. Frontline work plays a crucial role in determining what welfare-to-work practically means and how it affects the lives of the people it targets. Yet few books have deliberatively focused on comparing what happens when frontline workers, some of whom are professional social workers, meet clients.

Pioneering the provision of scholarly reflections on both theoretical and policy relevance of studying frontline practices of delivering activation, internationally renowned researchers present the first comparative analysis of how activation policies are actually delivered by frontline staff in selected EU countries and in the United States. In trying to understand and interpret frontline practices in activation, each contribution provides insights into what ‘activation in practice’ looks like, what services are provided and how they are enacted. This involves examining processes of client selection, monitoring, sanctioning and motivating, as well as the role of external service providers.

This book is an important acquisition for scholars and researchers of social policy, public administration, public management, social work and policy implementation.

Frontline work plays a crucial role in determining what welfare-to-work practically means and how they affect the lives of the people they target, yet few books have deliberatively focused on comparing what happens when professional social workers/welfare to work actors meet clients.  Pioneering the provision of scholarly reflections on both theoretical and policy relevance of studying frontline practices of delivering activation, internationally renowned researchers present the first systematic comparative analysis of how welfare-to-work/activation policies are actually delivered by frontline staff in selected EU countries and in the United States.

1. The Frontline Delivery of Welfare-to-Work in Context

Dorte Caswell, Peter Kupka, Flemming Larsen and Rik van Berkel

2. State of the Art in Frontline Studies of Welfare-to-Work: A Literature Review

Rik van Berkel

3. Street-Level Organizations and US Workfare: Insights for Policy and Theory

Evelyn Z. Brodkin

4. Activation in the UK: The Front line and the ‘Black Box’ of Employment Service Provision

Roy Sainsbury

5. Back-to-Work Services in France and the Flexibility Edict

Lynda Lavitry

6. Activation ‘Made in Germany’ ? Welfare-to-Work services under ‘Social Code II’

Peter Kupka and Christopher Osiander

7. On the Frontline of Public Employment Services in Austria and Italy: Which Professionalism for which Practices?

Urban Nothdurfter

8. Activation Work within the Social Welfare System. The Case of Poland

Tomasz Ka?mierczak and Marek Rymsza

9. The Street-Level Activation of the Unemployed Remote and Very Remote from the Labour Market. The Dutch Case

Rik van Berkel

10. Frontline Work in the delivery of Danish Activation Policies ? and How Governance, Organizational and Occupational Contexts Shape This

Dorte Caswell and Flemming Larsen

11. Conclusions and Topics for Future Research

Dorte Caswell, Flemming Larsen, Rik van Berkel and Peter Kupka