Welfare Workers as Family Planning Change Agents and the Perennial Problem of Heterophily with Welfare Clients

Abstract

Two concepts borrowed from Everett Rogers' Communication of Innovations-heterophily and the role of change agents-are utilized to explain problems which welfare workers have in being influential family planning change agents for welfare mothers. These concepts are viewed as embedded in the social context of welfare department attempts to influence welfare mothers to use family planning and the related criticisms which welfare rights protagonists have recently voiced. Structured interviews with 58 welfare workqrs and 300 welfare mothers in one metropolitan Tennessee county reveal that heterophily characterizes these two groups in social and demographic characteristics, birth control attitudes, family size norms, and abortion attitudes. It is further suggested that this heterophily may partially account for welfare workers' limited conformity to the change agent role in family planning counseling with their clients. A number of innovative solutions are proposed to deal constructively with public welfare problems in family planning, some of which have shown promise in other health programs here and a broad.