Local Welfare Research Articles

Long-term social assistance recipients' experiences with an increased monthly payment: a qualitative pilot study.

Ten long-term social assistance recipients in a Norwegian municipality received a greater-than-average fixed monthly payment for 12 months. This study aimed to explore whether these recipients with reduced administrative requirements and a fixed monthly payment that was greater than the average social assistance experienced reduced poverty, increased feelings of independence, better daily living, and an improved quality of life. The study's explorative design included 20 qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews and a longitudinal electronic survey for 12 months. The 10 participants had been selected by the local labour and welfare agency based on stringent criteria and are therefore not representative of social assistance recipients in general. Individual interviews were conducted during autumn 2021 and spring 2022. The interview data were analysed using systematic text condensation, and the survey results are presented using descriptive statistics. The participants included in the project described a reduced experience of poverty. They could buy additional items and set aside money, something they had not been able to do in the past, and meant a great deal to them. They expressed experiencing freedom, gaining a stronger sense of independence, and having lessened feelings of shame. Many of the participants described health issues that were incompatible with working. Being given this opportunity led to a feeling of increased dignity and greater inclusion in society among this selected group of participants. They appreciated the simplified conditions and reduced requirements for administrative matters. All expressed that spending 8 months without contact with the social welfare office was a liberation.

Sheltered from the heat? How tents and shade covers may unintentionally increase air temperature exposures to unsheltered communities

ObjectiveHeat vulnerability and homelessness are central public health concerns in cities globally, and public health implementation should address these two challenges in tandem to minimize preventable heat-related morbidity and mortality. Populations facing unsheltered homelessness use tents (or similar shelters) with shading features to minimize sun and heat exposure. This study evaluates the efficacy of different tent cover (shading) materials and how they moderate the in-tent air temperature (Tair) exposures of tent users during extreme summer conditions. Study designWithin-tent Tair monitoring using Kestrel Drop devices occurred across three full typical summer days in Phoenix, Arizona in July 2022. MethodsIn-tent Tair were statistically compared between six small side-by-side identical tents with different cover materials (control (no cover), mylar, white bedsheet, tarp, sunbrella fabric, aluminum foil), as well as with ambient Tair. ResultsUsing any tent resulted in higher daytime in-tent Tair than ambient Tair. Further, compared to a control tent, the Tair within tents shaded with sunbrella, tarp, and white bedsheet had significantly higher Tair at all times (2.36 °C, 2.46 °C, and 1.11 °C higher Tair, respectively), controlling for Tair and day/night. ConclusionAdding cover materials over tents may increase heat risk to an already vulnerable population at certain times of the day. Higher in-tent Tair is attributable to the reduced ability for heat and vapor to escape, largely due to reduced ventilation (mixing). Local authorities and welfare associations should reconsider using unventilated tents for shading and promote more widespread, ventilated tents and shade to ensure that prevention efforts do not further marginalize the most vulnerable. Future work should incorporate more comprehensive measurements of solar radiation to quantify overall heat stress for exposure reduction techniques.

Solutions-Based Approach to Urban Cat Management—Case Studies of a One Welfare Approach to Urban Cat Management

Urban free-roaming cats create concern about their impacts on wildlife and human health, leading to the use of trap–adopt–kill methods to manage these populations. This method is ineffective at decreasing the free-roaming cat population and has a negative impact on cat caregivers’ well-being. Using semi-structured interviews, this study explored the relationship that semi-owners (people who feed cats but do not perceive ownership) and owners of multiple cats have with the cats they care for, and the social and psychological impacts of an alternative assistive-centered approach to urban cat management. This approach to semi-owned and owned cats provided free sterilization and preventative healthcare. Our findings demonstrate that the caregivers had a strong emotional bond with the cats they cared for. The caregivers also experienced a positive impact on their quality of life, and indicated an improvement in the cats’ welfare after having the cats sterilized through this program. Additionally, the cat caregivers indicated that they had a negative view of agencies, such as the municipal council. It is recommended that an assistive-centered approach to urban cat management be prioritized by local councils and welfare agencies to improve caregivers’ quality of life and psychological well-being, whilst also improving cat welfare. The implementation of this assistive-centered management approach could improve the relationship between communities and the agencies involved, leading to the continuous reporting of free-roaming cats for sterilization. This assistive-centered approach has the potential to reduce the free-roaming cat population, their effects on wildlife, nuisance complaints, and council impoundments, and is aligned with the One Welfare philosophy.

Public perceptions of CCUS in Central and Eastern Europe – implications for community engagement

Carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) is emerging as a subject of major interest for EU climate policy due to their potential role in avoiding hard-to-abate CO2 emissions, as well as to lead to “negative emissions” through direct air capture or bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. Despite CCUS technologies being deployed since the 1970s, their widespread implementation is still challenged by a range of factors, including policy inertia, high costs, and relative novelty in the public discourse. In particular, as CCUS emerges slowly into the realm of public and political debate, opinions on these technologies and associated projects are easily changeable and affected by a range of factors, which make concerted public and community engagement extremely important for deploying them where they matter most.The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region is characterized by a higher-than-average economic dependence on heavy industry, old assets and infrastructure, and a high occurrence of regions where the transition to climate neutrality will have a significant impact on local economies, employment, and social welfare [1]. CCUS could play an important role in decarbonizing the heavy industry sectors of the region, particularly given the potentially significant storage capabilities of countries such as Romania and Poland, as well as emerging storage potential in the Black Sea and Eastern Mediterranean Sea. However, climate policy in these jurisdictions is sluggish, and there is a general failure to approach CCUS in a systematic way, with targeted application to sectors where it can have the highest impact, such as cement and oil refining. As a result, the public debate around CCUS is practically non-existent, and where public opinions do emerge, they may be significantly influenced by the context of a particular project and generate significant resistance based on the relationship with project developers, the amplification of perceived risks, and the lack of appropriate explanations of costs, benefits and risks. This in turn can lead to a reticence of political stakeholders to commit to deploying CCUS, causing the public debate to further stagnate and creating a vicious circle whereby opportunities to familiarize the public with these technologies (well in advance of their deployment) are missed.In order to deploy CCUS at pace and scale, as part of the catching-up climate policies of CEE countries, public perception of CCUS must be thoroughly researched and developed into appropriate guidelines for community engagement by project developers. There is experience in the region – the feasibility study for Romania’s planned Getica CCS demonstrator (subsequently abandoned) included comprehensive research into the perceptions of local communities, and a toolkit for communications around CCUS by project developers. Similarly, learnings from Poland’s failed Belchatow CCS project can serve to re-assess the state of public opinion on CCS, and how the local and national-level contexts for CCUS perceptions interact. The CEE region has significant potential for deploying CCUS, and public perception must be an integral part of planning as the region moves into the key decade of 2030-2040 for implementing large-scale projects.

Renegotiating state-third sector relations through collaborative partnerships: The case of reception services for asylum-seeking children in Gothenburg, Sweden

ABSTRACT Unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied minors entering Sweden in 2015, alongside other challenging social issues, have contributed to renegotiating collaborative forms of local governance in the country. This has resulted in an emergence of collaborative partnerships between civil society and public actors (Idéburna offentliga partnerskap or IOP), as real alternative to the market-based contracts and traditional state grants. This article addresses IOP from a collaborative governance perspective and questions if and how it may cope with a major and well known governance challenge, that of balancing the different roles and principles of public and civil society realms, so as to sustain an effective and legitimate cross-sectorial partnership. It asks, may and how an IOP enable civil society organisations a more active role in co-designing and co-implementing local welfare services with public sector actors without undermining their distinctiveness? The arguments are based on a case study of, at the time, the largest IOP in Sweden initiated for early reception of unaccompanied minors in Gothenburg city. The partnership is assessed against a normative theoretical framework of balanced state-third sector relations. The results suggest that IOPs, under certain conditions, may serve as ‘spaces of hope’ for more balanced power relations in local governance models.

Sustainably developing global blue carbon for climate change mitigation and economic benefits through international cooperation

Blue carbon is the carbon storage in vegetated coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass. It is gaining global attention as its role in climate change mitigation and local welfare growth. However, a global assessment on the long-term spatiotemporal sustainable development status of blue carbon has not been conducted, and the relations among blue carbon ecosystems, driving forces for climate change mitigation, and socioeconomic interventions for development capacity on a global scale are still unclear. Here, we constructed a blue carbon development index (BCDI), comprising three subsystems: driving force, resource endowment, and development capacity, to assess the sustainable development level of 136 coastal countries’ blue carbon over 24 consecutive years and explore the relationship among subsystems. We further propose a cooperation model to explore the feasibility of global blue carbon cooperation and quantify benefit allocation to specific countries. The results showed an upward trend in BCDI scores with variations in regional performance over the past two decades, and we found a positive correlation between development capacity and blue carbon resource endowment. Based on the scenario simulations of global cooperation, we found that coastal countries could improve the global average BCDI score, add 2.96 Mt of annual carbon sequestration, and generate $136.34 million in 2030 under Global Deep Cooperation scenario compared with the Business-As-Usual scenario.

Partnering with a child welfare agency to design and deliver a BSW child welfare course: mixed results and lessons learned

ABSTRACT This paper describes a collaboration between a university and a local child welfare agency in the development and delivery of a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) child welfare course featuring lived experience knowledge and learning situated in community-based child welfare sites. We present results of an exploratory mixed methods pre-post survey and focus group evaluation which examined changes in student general knowledge, perceptions of skills for decision- making and orienting beliefs about child welfare families. The results did not yield uniform significant results. The discussion delves into lessons learned about the importance of supporting students to develop skills for respectfully gathering and critically analyzing information and how to break through what we observed as student reluctance to learn about child welfare wrongdoings. We reflect on why, despite centering curriculum on lived experience knowledge, we were not successful in overturning students’ negative orienting beliefs about families and children receiving child welfare services. We conclude with considerations for new directions in BSW child welfare curriculum.

노인의 가구형태가 범죄피해 경험에 미치는 영향

This study aimed to analyze the factors influencing the experiences of crime victimization among the elderly in the context of an aging society and to propose effective strategies to reduce crime victimization among the elderly. Utilizing the “2020 Elderly Survey”, the study examined the mediating effects of both social factors, such as “discrimination” and mental health factors, such as “depression”, in the relationship between the elderly's living arrangements (living alone or not) and their experiences of crime victimization.
 Summarizing the analysis results: Frist, The living arrangements of the elderly statistically did not have a significant direct impact on crime victimization. Second, However, the living arrangements of the elderly had a positive(+) mediating effect through discrimination on crime victimization. Third, living arrangements had a positive(+) mediating effect through depression on crime victimization. Fourth, Living arrangements sequentially mediated through discrimination and depression to have a positive (+) effect on crime victimization. Fifth, When comparing the indirect effects of discrimination and depression, it was found that the mediating effect of discrimination, a social factor, was more influential than that of depression, a mental health factor.
 This study found that the elderly's living arrangements did not directly impact crime victimization experiences. Instead, it was revealed that living arrangements influenced crime victimization experiences through mediating factors such as discrimination and depression.
 Based on these results, the study suggests the following strategies: 1) Introducing job opportunities and mentor programs to improve negative perceptions of the elderly among the younger generation. 2) Establishing peer-based elderly communities and local community welfare programs to reduce depression. 3) Highlighting the necessity of crime prevention education to decrease crime victimization.

Correction to: Welcoming and Generative Local Welfare as an Agent for Territorial Development: A Case Study from Southern Italy

Correction to: Welcoming and Generative Local Welfare as an Agent for Territorial Development: A Case Study from Southern Italy

What can we learn from administrative benefits data?

We present the opportunities and limitations of administrative benefits data held by local authorities for data linkage projects. Whilst the richness of this data has been exploited by practitioners for administration, its potential remains little explored by researchers. We discuss data quality, sample selection and legal gateways for data sharing.
 Drawing on our experience working with over 40 local authorities, we present the structure of three datasets: the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, the Single Housing Benefits Extract and the Universal Credit Data Share. We show what variables are usually included, under which legal gateways this data can be shared and how the cohorts represented within the data compare with the low-income population. We discuss how these datasets can be linked at the household level with a number of other data held by local authorities such as social rent and Council Tax arrears, Housing Benefit overpayments and Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs).
 Administrative benefits data provides a comprehensive snapshot of a household’s financial situation. Local authorities can proactively use and share this data with external data processors to fulfil their statutory duties if a legal gateway allows. By identifying households at risk of cash shortfalls before they reach a crisis point, councils can target support when administering local welfare schemes and preventing homelessness. By assessing eligibility for benefits, they can run data-driven uptake campaigns. This data captures a proportion of the population on national and local benefits within a local authority at several points in time. Attrition is of concern since households may leave datasets over time. Some will see their income rise and no longer qualify for benefits. Others will move out of the constituency.
 Local authorities routinely process longitudinal data on households receiving means-tested benefits by administering housing benefits, council tax support, and discretionary support funds. This data provides a unique real-time insight into the socioeconomic situation of low-income households. Yet, we show that its promising potential for policy research remains largely untapped.

Implementation of Local Government Financial Reporting and Community Welfare

Objective: Research objectives financial reports as a means of accountability for its financial performance to the public.
 
 Theoretical framework: The primary objective of government-led development initiatives is to promote the well-being of the community. This objective is reflected in the formulation of programs and budgets that incorporate measures of community welfare. Furthermore, the program and budget are reported to the public through the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to determine budget accountability and performance. The Kediri City Government must be able to present financial reports that contain financial information that is not only of good quality but is able to spur economic growth that has an impact on people's welfare.
 
 Method: The present study, conducted in the urban setting of Kediri, employs a qualitative descriptive approach. Data collection methods encompass observation, interviews, and documentation. The analysis of data follows the Miles and Huberman model, involving the stages of data reduction, data presentation, and drawing conclusions.
 
 Results: The findings of the research indicate that the incorporation of financial statement reporting within the Kediri city government has adhered to the appropriateness of government accounting standards, sufficiency of disclosure, adherence to laws and regulations, and the efficacy of the internal control system.
 
 Conclusion: The findings of the BPK audit indicate that the financial reporting of entities within the Kediri City Government has received a Unqualified Opinion(WTP). This Kediri City Government Financial Report also shows how the programs implemented by the Kediri City Government seek to improve the people's standard of living.

Factors associated with health behaviors in preventing non-communicable diseases among older adults living alone in poverty in Japan.

Older adults who live alone in poverty are highly susceptible to non-communicable diseases and other adverse conditions owing to health disparities resulting from social structures. However, the factors associated with health behavior to prevent non-communicable diseases in this population are rarely explored. The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with health behavior to prevent non-communicable diseases among older adults living alone in poverty. We conducted a self-administered mail survey covering 2,818 older adults living alone who were receiving public assistance, randomly selected from lists of individuals receiving national public assistance in all 1,250 local social welfare offices across Japan. A total of 1,608 individuals completed the questionnaire, a valid response rate of 57.1%. Respondents' mean age was 74.5 years (standard deviation = 6.7), and 52.9% were women. The study variables included demographic characteristics, scores on a health behavior scale for older adults living alone and receiving public assistance (HBSO), and individual and community-related factors. Logistic regression analysis revealed that the individual factor of having a health check-up in the past 12 months [odds ratio (OR): 1.45, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.10-1.91] and the community-related factors Lubben social network scale score (OR 1.15, 95% CI: 1.12-1.18) and Community Commitment Scale score (OR: 1.04, 95% CI: 1.00-1.08) were significantly associated with HBSO scores. To improve health behavior among older adults living alone in poverty in Japan, social structures, such as lowering mental barriers to the detection, treatment, and management of non-communicable diseases and developing human resources, should be changed to provide social support, such that these individuals are not only dependent on family and friends.

Revisiting the Pigouvian tax in urban roads: Housing supply restrictions, leaking profits and spatial inequality

I examine road taxes in a polycentric city where congestion coexists with housing supply restrictions. Despite the quantity distortion that housing supply constraints cause, I show that the socially optimal tax for using a road is still its marginal external cost. However, the artificial housing scarcity generates potential profits, which are either accrued by the construction sector or absorbed by raising land prices. If land rents and developer profits are not fully recycled within the urban area, the Pigouvian road tax ceases to maximize the welfare of that area. To maximize local welfare, road tolls should then lie below (above) their Pigouvian level insofar as they increase (decrease) housing demand in areas where supply cannot be adjusted upwards. I derive analytical formulas for the impact of other spatially relevant aspects on the optimal road tax. Property taxes and spatially invariant lump-sum transfers can both render the Pigouvian rule for taxing road externalities suboptimal.

Innovation policy and ecological welfare performance: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of China.

The National Innovative City Pilot Policy (NICPP) is a policy implemented by the Chinese government to create an environment conducive to innovation, optimize industrial structure, promote economic development, and stimulate green innovation. The impact of this policy on ecological welfare performance is a question worth exploring. Based on panel data from 285 cities from 2007 to 2021, this paper uses the multi-period difference-in-difference (DID) model, propensity score matching method, and spatial DID model to study the impact of NICPP on ecological welfare performance and spatial spillover effects. The results show that (1) NICPP can significantly improve ecological welfare performance. (2) The mechanism analysis found that NICPP mainly improves ecological welfare performance through technological innovation investment, industrial structure upgrading, and increasing government attention. (3) The heterogeneity analysis found that NICPP has a more substantial driving effect on the ecological welfare development of cities in the eastern and western regions, cities with higher administrative levels, and cities with lower secondary industry agglomeration. (4) Further research has found that NICPP not only promotes the development of local ecological welfare but also has a positive spatial spillover effect on the ecological welfare performance of neighboring regions. This paper enriches the research on the effects of NICPP and provides policy references for the sustainable development of cities.

Money-metrics in local welfare analysis: Pareto improvements and equity considerations

We identify local Pareto improvements from a valuation equilibrium, and extend the results of Hirshleifer, Arrow-Lind, Milleron, and Radner on the evaluation of small projects to behavioral or nonstandard choice models. We use the sign of directional derivative of the sum of McKenzie-Samuelson money metrics to evaluate small projects, but, rather than assume its differentiability, furnish preference conditions that guarantee it. Our methods yield, as an unintended consequence, (i) a refutation of Samuelson's (1974) conjecture that the money metric is locally concave in a neighborhood of a demand point, thereby settling an issue open for five decades; and (ii) a substantive extension of the 1988 Blackorby-Donaldson theorem that the money metric is concave in consumption only if preferences are quasihomothetic. We explain some equity implications of our local-welfare result, and as part of the rehabilitation of money metrics, suggest a case for using a second-order approximation to a money metric for local welfare. We illustrate when our results hold and don't hold with several non-standard choice models.

Multidimensional performance assessment, government competition and ecological welfare performance.

Improving the efficiency of converting natural resources into social benefits is an important issue for sustainable development in today's world. Based on this background this paper applies the super-efficient SBM model with non-expected output to measure the ecological welfare performance (EWP) of Chinese provinces from 2005-2019, and explores the relationship between government competition and EWP under different assessment systems. The research results show that government competition under economic performance assessment is self-interested and short-sighted, which can negatively affect ecological welfare performance in the current period as well as in the next four years. In contrast, government competition under the environmental assessment system promotes EWP in both the current and long term, balancing short-term and long-term benefits. The results of the spatial GMM found that government competition under economic performance appraisal can deteriorate EWP in local as well as surrounding areas, but government competition under the environmental assessment system can achieve an increase in local ecological welfare performance and the spillover effect is not significant. To alleviate the limitations of a single appraisal system, this paper incorporates both economic and ecological appraisals into the multidimensional appraisal system. When the weights of both are between 1:9 and 3:7, the government competition under multidimensional performance appraisal can promote both current and longer-term EWP, and achieve its own ecological welfare performance without affecting the surrounding areas.

Welcoming and Generative Local Welfare as an Agent for Territorial Development: A Case Study from Southern Italy

AbstractIn Italy, shrinking regions cover more than 60% of the national territory. Although these areas are in demographic and economic decline (Accordo di Partenariato, 2014), many resilient initiatives have been developed over the years (Moss, 1996; Meloni, 2015). Among these experiences, several are aimed at welcoming the migrant population (Corrado, 2013), becoming privileged spaces for more equitable and inclusive modes of territorial regeneration (Van der Ploeg et al., 2003; Oostindie et al., 2010). Drawing upon these premises, the paper intends to reflect on the presence of non-EU migrants in shrinking Italian areas and on their role in local sustainable development. The contribution presents some of the first results of the Horizon 2020 project “WELCOMING SPACES”, with a specific focus on the municipality of Camini, one of the most shrinking areas in Southern Italy, to highlight how migration can lead to local development and rural regeneration processes. Camini is a good case study, as the reception centre managed by the social cooperative ‘JungiMundu’ hosts 118 migrants out of a total population of 810. Thanks to the presence of this number of people, several public services (i.e., post office, school, etc.) have been (re)activated. In the first part of this article, we introduce the case study, while in the second part, we reflect on how the reception of migrants contributes to the implementation of collective and public services for the whole community. The increase in population, both in terms of newcomers and Italian returnees, has also allowed for the regeneration of the village, economically and socially, creating connections between different cultures and traditions that had almost disappeared.

“For the good of the village”: Volunteer initiatives and rural resilience

As a consequence of cutbacks in the welfare sector, rural populations have reacted to their situation by taking over and operating activities that are threatened by closures, such as schools, grocery stores and health centres, for themselves. Such initiatives are often referred to as examples of rural resilience. Drawing on interviews, this paper explores participants' narratives about rural initiatives aiming to retain and develop local welfare and community services. It pays specific heed to how notions of resilience reside within the narratives – the ideological convictions and challenges they entail, and the practices they make (im)possible. The study shows that participants’ narratives about resilient villages and initiatives indirectly support the neoliberal rural policy focus on regional responsibility to create growth. It argues that, in order to understand the appeal of the neoliberal positions and practices that resilience thinking proved to entail, it is important to recognise the intersections of space and identity, and to explore the local spatial experiences and imageries in relation to which resilience practices appear desirable and necessary, as well as the specific rural identities that resilience discourse supports.

Improving the Living Conditions of the Homeless Population

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the acceleration of urbanization, more and more people are moving into cities. Objectively, the number of vagrants and beggars has increased dramatically; this problem has become more and more prominent. Society has launched a series of assistance programs to support the homeless, but due to the persistence of homelessness with its associated problems, urban vagrants are still prevalent throughout the country. Moreover, this number is still increasing, leading some vagrants to rely on assistance programs which treat the symptoms rather than the root causes. To make an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the current social assistance system, we propose a set of solutions. First, we will contact homeless people aged between 18 and 30 through local welfare institutions and aid stations and establish target individuals for our help. Second, we will contact relevant enterprises to find out if they are willing to participate by providing a job that can satisfy the needs of the research target. If necessary, we will contact relevant training providers. Finally, we will design a series of criteria to measure the effectiveness of our plan.

Optimalisasi UMKM di Kepulauan Mentawai Melalui Marketplace dan Digitalisasi Logistik

Economic growth in West Sumatra's Mentawai Islands is relatively undeveloped due to geographical conditions and human resource capacity. The status as a 3T region (Disadvantaged, Frontier, Outermost) inhibits Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) growth. Despite MSMEs being economic pillars that stimulate regional development, their progress remains slow. To counter this, our study proposes "Bulagat", an integrated marketplace with digital logistics aimed at enhancing economic and MSMEs growth in the Mentawai Islands. Bulagat will streamline MSME product distribution, broaden market reach, and boost income. Constructed using the Waterfall Model, Bulagat facilitates transactions between MSMEs and customers on an easy-to-use platform. The integration of logistics digitization aims to improve delivery safety and efficiency, thereby expanding MSMEs product reach in the Mentawai Islands. A tracking feature ensures successful delivery. The study suggests Bulagat has the potential to be an efficient tech solution supporting MSMEs product sales in Mentawai, overcoming geographical barriers, and strengthening the local economy and community welfare. This application aims to mitigate MSMEs challenges, drive economic growth, and enhance local community welfare.