Foreword.

In this issue of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, we pay tribute to the work of the volunteers of our society, in honour of the International Year of Volunteers 2001. We have devoted most of Issue Seventeen to papers that examine the policy dimensions of what the authors refer to as "the third sector", "the community", "non-profit organisations" and "voluntary activity". Our contributors come from government agencies, the academy and community organisations, and apply their diverse perspectives to the different facets of volunteering, as well as to several other arenas of social policy, including social indicators, research models, health and justice.

The changing role and responsibilities of voluntary organisations are explored in several papers. Among these, and focused on the field of health, Peter Crampton, Alistair Woodward and Anthony Dowell explore the devolution of primary care to the third sector. Carla Wilson, Anne Kerslake Hendricks and Rachel Smithies identify changes in volunteering that have been brought about by the move to contracting out the provision of social services. The government, as the contracting body, typically identifies very specific forms of accountability from community organisations. Mark Barrett argues that community groups should be accountable to all their stakeholders and that stakeholders can be very broadly defined.

Community development is an important theme, whether discussed in terms of capacity building or social capital. Sally Casswell provides an analysis of how different kinds of community initiatives may contribute to the processes of development as well as to achieving identifiable social goals. The CIVICUS conference, reviewed by David Robinson, featured the civil society index project, which attempts to measure this sort of endeavour and thus produce a rounded picture of civil society. David Robinson and Tuwhakairiora Williams focus on the different ways in which Maori and Pakeha conceptualise these activities, and the need to acknowledge these differences and take them into account in making policy.

Two other contributions draw, respectively, on the disciplines of history and anthropology to provide additional perspectives on voluntary organisations. Margaret Tennant surveys the themes used to discuss the relationship between government and the voluntary sector in the history of welfare, while Hal Levine explores the place of Urban Maori Authorities in New Zealand and their claims to the status of Treaty partners.

The Mental Health and Housing project was tasked with measuring independent housing need for people who experienced mental illness, a very vulnerable population. Their solution, described by Robin Peace and Susan Kell, was to survey the service providers, drawing on the knowledge held by these community organisations about their clients. Reviewing Linda Tuhiwai Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies, Carla Wilson touches on another sensitive research problem, that of non-indigenous researchers involved in research initiatives with indigenous communities.

Two papers address prominent issues in the justice sector: Gabrielle Maxwell and Venezia Kingi present a gender analysis of preliminary data from their study of youth justice family group conferences; and David Wilson assesses some of the problems inherent in the increasingly widespread use of infringement notices, or "instant fines".

In the health sector, some important research issues are addressed. One, discussed by Clare Salmond and Peter Crampton, is about how NZDep96, which is a small-area deprivation index, can be used to provide an individual measure of deprivation. (See Issue Nine for the original discussion of NZDep91.) George Thomson and Robin Gauld describe the development of their project researching the restructurings of the New Zealand health sector. Finally, Roy Nash puts forward a theoretical and methodological proposal for research on teenage pregnancy.

The publication of the Social Policy Journal of New Zealand is being carried forward into the new Ministry of Social Development. This issue of the Journal, highlighting the role of the community, is particularly important given the challenge of the new Ministry to work with and through communities. The Journal aims to address the full spectrum of social policy, and Issue Seventeen's theme of community work has been presented from a wide range of perspectives and concerns, and a substantial number of other topics have been covered in this issue, as well. I invite you to read, enjoy, be stimulated and then contribute to the debate advanced in any of these papers.

Nicholas Pole
General Manager
Knowledge Management Group