ABSTRACT
Personal Social Services (PSS) have been a major growth industry in all European countries. With the current changes in both quantity and impact, the prevailing views and concepts with respect to quality have changed as well. There have been processes of professionalization; changes in social rights to care; transitions from charity- or state-based systems to mixed markets; changes concerning the readiness of families to use outside help and concerning aspirations when using PSS. If one agrees that caring in the widest sense is the essence of PSS - caring being understood not only as providing material help but also as providing advice and personal and social support - then these changes can be summed up in what I call a “changing culture of care” (Evers, 1995). The same moving forces that operate behind the changing images of care are also behind the changing notions of quality.
