Social Policy Context of Alternative Care in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Research into alternative care in Sri Lanka indicates the absence of an organised family support mechanism for children who move into the three legal forms of alternative care – fostering, residential care and adoption. The underlying cause for this is to be found beyond the relevant laws and within the social policy structure that houses them. While the ostensible rationale for social policy is a commitment to equality its full attainment at the structural level could be frustrated by historical factors. The welfare state that crystallised in the 1940s pioneered universal services in health and education whilst making residuary social welfare provision to grant entitlements and placements to select categories of social casualties like aged, disabled or needy children and families, orphans and unemployed. The social services and probation and child care services that administered them were office based with limited outreach capacity and they were not resourced to provide social care or social work services. This limited commitment to the most vulnerable was capped by reliance on a large private and voluntary residential care sector that admitted the aged, children, disabled and others who could not be cared for within the community. The combination of administrative relief and institutional care disables and functions as a disincentive to casework to provide community-based solutions for socio-economic problems. Finally the close bond between criminality and poverty completes the relationship between the state and the marginalised in society. This legacy stems directly from the British Poor Law philosophy, based in turn on capitalist considerations that seek to maintain the poor at the least expense to the state and also lays down an ideology of social control for ensuring their conformity. The post-1977 era of neo-liberal economics and illiberal politics – what has been referred to as the change ‘from politics of welfare to warfare’ has rendered the picture more complex. This period has strengthened rather than weakened the hold of Poor Law in society by fragmenting social welfare measures within the poorer half of the new dual economy. Several sectoral initiatives acquired a higher profile than the regular social welfare services and these included targeted poverty alleviation services, rural development initiatives that included participatory development, services for migrant labour etc. The centrifugal thrust was completed by the establishment of ‘rights based’ bodies at national level, especially for children which struggled to connect positively with child related in public and curative health, pre-schools, education, probation and child care and social services that were devolved to the nine provinces after 1987. The post-Tsunami social care centres that provided custom built facilities for divisional officers in affected divisions sought to arrest this trend with some success. Policy makers need to move away from concepts and relate more directly to the experience of poor law for children. This can be achieved by following case work for children than through a continuation of top down capacity-building projects.