BOOK REVIEW: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DISABILITY: COMMUNITY SERVICES ADMINISTRATION IN THE US

   Book Review:  Public Administration and Disability: 

Community Services Administration in the US: 

From 2014 to 2017 in a Changing World  

     In 2017, the US is in its first term of  the Republican Trump Presidency having re-elected President Barack Obama, a Nobel Peace Prize Winner, to a historic second term.  In spite of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, the health care of Americans (universal) continues to be held in the balance. Historic international environmental and trade accords are being challenged or overturned (e.g, Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Change Agreements in 2015).

      Today, as we meet with our international colleagues through the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), North Korea is launching repeated nuclear missile tests and Eastern Europe's Ukraine was over run by the Russian government. Our United Nation's agenda is being led by Nikki Haley, a young appointee of President Trump who moved through the Governor's Chambers of the South, the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities together with a universal right to health care remain top of the agenda on the 21st Century.

    The book, Public Administration and Disability: Community Services Administration in the US (Racino, 2014), reflects an approach to public administration reflective of the now 100 year young inception of Good Government and moderately to ASPA's Governance of the growing alternative provision of public goods (Castellani, 1997; Cuomo, 2012). In particular, the book describes the advent of caring administrations and laws addressing OECD's (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) estimated  at 14% of most Nation-state populations.

    Public Administration and Disability reflects the diversity of approaches to issues of poverty, quality of life, economic and social well being, long term services and supports (LTSS), civil rights, theories and principles in government (Chapter 1), and "take-for-granted" housing, income security and family support. These administrations are involved in Executive leadership, intergovernmental fiscal relations, conflict and social change, pubic personnel administration, performance management, education, disability and inclusion, government regulation and administrative law, international community development and rehabilitation, and "democracy and other forms of government" (Chapter 13).

     The book takes on the multi-decade issues of residential and housing integration, often under the rubric of housing for all (Chapter 6), introduces the voluntary sector organizing on behalf of individuals with disabilities and their families (Chapter 4), and challenges the reader on why individual and family support per capita exhibits such variability across the states and stability versus growth in the past three decades (Chapter 5). Joining Julie Ann Racino of New York are her colleagues from the University of Minnesota (Larson, Hewitt, Sedlezky, & Blakeway) describing the status of the new Direct Support Professional and US Direct Support Services Workforce.

     The author also thanks Steven E. Brown, whom she met in the 1990s at the World Institute on Disability (invitation from Judith E. Heumann, international disability advisor, originally from New York), for his national and international contributions. Julie Ann Racino's newest book, subsequent to Policy, Program Evaluation and Research in Disability, is available internationally, and is online on mobile devices, androids, tablets and desktops at http://www.crcpress.com/authors

     Additional information on individual and public budgeting (Chapter 9), comparative service systems (Chapter 8), disability policy research (Chapter 11), and employment and personnel administration (Chapter 7) are being shared at the ASPA Conferences from Chicago, Illinois to Seattle, Washington, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Brown, S. (2014). International agenda on disability and human rights. In: Julie Ann Racino (Ed.), Public administration and disability: Community services administration in the US. (pp. 279-296). London, NY, NY and Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. 

Castellani, P. (1997). Managing alternative approaches to the provision of public goods: Public, private and non-profit. In J.J. Gargan, Handbook of local government administration (pp. 47-70). NY, NY: Dekker.

Cuomo, A. (2012). Highlights of HUD accomplishments 1997-1999. Washington, DC: US Department of Housing and Urban Development Archives. http://archives.hud.gov/reports/acc97-00.cfm

Heumann, J. (2010, May 26). Judith Heumann to join U.S. State Department in fulfillment of a Clinton-Obama pledge. Washington, DC: Author.

Larson, S.A., Sedlezky, L., Hewitt, A., & Blakeway, C. (2014). Community support services workforce in US.  In: Julie Ann Racino (Ed.), Public administration in the US: Community services administration in the US. (pp. 235-256). London, NY, NY and Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.

Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. (2003). Transforming disability into ability: Policies to promote work and income security for disabled people. Paris, France: Social Policy Division of the Directorate of Education, Employment, Labour, and Social Affairs.

Racino, J. (2014). Public administration and disability: Community services administration in the US. NY, NY, Boca Raton, FL, and London: CRC Press, Francis and Taylor. http://www.crcpress.com/authors

Racino, J. (2015, December). Environment and climate change: From Earth Summit world leadership to today's Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Newsletter of the Section on the Environment and Natural Resources (SENRA), American Society for Public Administration, pp. 1-4.

United Nations. (2006). United Nation's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. NY, NY: UN ENABLE.