Abstract:

Throughout the years, social policy scholars have advanced a multi-level perspective of non-take-up, viewing it as is a complex process shaped by a broad range of interacting barriers and actors. However, a comparatively small amount of that scholarship has addressed the key role of take-up agents: professionals or semi-professionals who actively help clients realise their welfare rights. Moreover, most of this scant literature has tended to focus on the agents’ impact rather than on their role and practices. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Israeli take-up agents from the public, business, and non-profit sectors, this study seeks to understand better the work of take-up agents in realising their clients’ welfare rights. Our findings show that in order to pass their clients through the gateways of welfare, agents use four keys: knowledge, networking, emotions, and power. The meaning of these keys and related practices is discussed.

Notes:

Funding Information: We would like to thank Ami Asher for language editing, and Prof. John Gal for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. We would also like to thank Noam Tarshish, Nofar Mazursky and Haya Jandaly for their excellent research assistance. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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