Field Of Social Welfare Research Articles

Expanding the Conceptual Basis of Outcomes and Their Use in the Human Services

Despite the broad-based endorsement of outcomes as appropriate yardsticks by which to measure the merit and worth of human services in a variety of fields of social welfare, the selection, specification, and use of outcomes involve complex social and organizational forces. This paper seeks to expand the conceptual basis of outcomes and their use in human services by first considering these forces, and then discussing how outcomes evolve out of the expectations of the powerful, reflect the aspirations of the dispossessed and their advocates, and embody moral perspectives.

International inclusiveness

This article looks at past and present relations between the US and Cuba. Social work students, practitioners and faculty will gain insight into the historical and social events that have led to present-day confrontations. After the end of the cold war, Cuba implemented substantial changes to build civil society. The authors believe that these freedoms are irreversible and will lead Cuba to a greater acceptance of US contributions in the fields of human services, social welfare and social work. The traveler to Cuba should benefit from this succinct account, full of keen personal observations of Cuba today.

Post-Fordism, the welfare state and the personal social services: a comparison of Australia and Britain

The Post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary social welfare change within a wider analysis of the transformation of capitalist accumulation regimes. Whilst this analysis is useful in directing attention to macro socio-economic change, it has for the most part contained three shortcomings. First, the Post-Fordist thesis has overemphasized the role of historical 'breaks' in the development of social welfare as it purportedly passes from Fordism to Post-Fordism. Second, the thesis has assumed a degree of convergence between welfare states as a result of global economic forces. In doing so, it has underemphasized the mediating impact of existing institutional arrangements within nations. Third, the thesis has assumed, rather than demonstrated, the specific changes which are alleged to be taking place in various fields of social welfare. As a consequence, aspects of continuity in social welfare have been neglected. These three lacunae are addressed through a comparative analysis of developments in the personal social services in Australia and Britain. Services to older people are employed as the specific context of comparison in relation to three dimensions of measuring transformation along a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economy to a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the model of service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governance function of the central state. This comparative analysis suggests the need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesis concerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impact on the personal social services.

From Undivided Cities to Undivided Cities: Assimilation to Ethnic Cleansing

This paper proposes a classification system for cities, the central purpose of which is to stimulate thinking and to develop sensitivities about the specifics of existing ethnic relations and about the dynamics of change. The classification is designated the Scenarios Approach. Five possible scenarios are outlined: Assimilation, Pluralism, Segmentation, Polarisation and Cleansing. The central argument of this paper is that urban policy-makersand their technical advisers should establish: (1) the position of the given city on the spectrum of scenarios; (2) whether the position of the city is changing; and (3) what is the desired position for the city? Conclusions reached from these analyses should then lead to the adoption of a set of policies in the fields of housing, planning, social welfare and ethnic relations. Associated with all this is a call for ethnic impact assessment to become a firm requirement within the wider field of urban policy appraisal.

From Keynes to Hayek: The Social Welfare Philosophy of the Liberal Party of Australia, 1983–1997

Abstract The Liberal Party has traditionally been a party of pragmatic conservatism blending three disparate ideological tendencies: the social liberal or ‘wet’ ameliorative tendency, the economic liberal or ‘dry’ individualist tendency, and a less organised social conservative tendency. The Menzies era and Fraser Governments reflected the influence of all three tendencies. However, since 1983, the Federal Liberal Party has arguably become dominated by classical liberal ideas of small government and rugged individualism. This dry takeover of the Liberal Party has been particularly apparent in the field of social welfare. Under the influence of the New Right, the Liberal Party has mounted a significant critique of the welfare state, comprising five related themes: 1) The alleged capture of the welfare state by vested interest welfare lobby groups; 2) the urgent need for labour market reform: 3) the proliferation of welfare dependency; 4) the importance of distinguishing between the deserving and undeserving poor; 5) The virtues of a return to private charitable welfare. The Liberal Party's espousal and implementation of these ideas, has however, been moderated on occasions by broader political and electoral considerations.

Issues in European child protection research

This paper considers the issues which emerged from studies relating to child protection in Europe and looks at the value and utility of cross-national comparisons in this field of social welfare. In one study, social workers in eight systems of child welfare took part in a study of practice based on a case vignette. In another, parents in three countries described their experience of child welfare interventions. The paper looks at elements of the structuring and functioning of child welfare and child protection, based on a triangulation of the experience of users and the experience of practitioners. Drawing examples from the research, the author considers how a knowledge of structures, culture and ideology can throw light on the functioning of child welfare services.

Decision structures and care characteristics for professionals in health care and social welfare fields

Decision structures and care characteristics for professionals in health care and social welfare fields

Microenterprise Programs in U.S. Inner Cities: Economic Development or Social Welfare?

The microenterprise strategy marries elements of economic development and social welfare strategies and agendas. This article uses case studies of three inner-city microenterprise programs to demonstrate that the results of this blending are over-whelmingly positive. At the same time, working in the interstices of the economic development and social welfare fields is complex, and the results that programs produce do not fit easily into traditional outcome categories. The programs studied do more to help those who exist at the margins of the mainstream economy than those who are completely cut off from the economic mainstream. They help change the mind-set of people by giving them the hope they need to take charge of their own lives. By helping people begin to think strategically about creating better futures for themselves and providing them with the tools necessary to make that happen, these programs shift the focus of policy from maintenance to investment.

The Transformation of Teacher Education and Special Education

As public schools implement the national reform agenda and as educational philosophy and practice reflect the changes in culture and science, teacher educators are finding themselves needing to make more extensive changes in their programs and in themselves. what follows is a discussion of the changes in one department of special education that restructured all aspects of its program in order to respond to educational reforms in institutions of higher education and to the reforms relative to services integration. addressing the broad reform agendas that cut across and integrate fields of education, social welfare, public health, and other service systems has resulted in changes both within the university of south florida and between the university and the community. a major focus of this article is on our attempt to address the changing needs of teachers and schools. a discussion of the national and local contexts of our work, and the philosophy guiding our research and program development, is followed by a description of specific changes in our approach to teacher education and our work in the community.

Estimating the Prevalence of Hard‐to‐Reach Populations: The Illustration of Mark‐Recapture Methods in the Study of Homelessness

This paper assesses the potential of mark‐recapture methods as a relatively powerful innovative research method for estimating the prevalence of “hard‐to‐reach”human populations in the social welfare field. We outline the development of mark‐recapture methods, illustrating some recent applications. The body of the paper reviews the main methodological and practical questions raised by the method. We suggest, by way of illustration, how it might be applied to estimating the prevalence of rough sleepers in a given geographical region.

Participatory appraisal in the UK urban health sector

Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) emerged in the context of working with rural communities in developing countries. But the principles of participation and of action-oriented research are equally valid for development work in the urban sector, and in industrialised countries. This article describes the use of participatory appraisal techniques in disadvantaged communities in the UK, in the fields of health and social welfare. Drawing on a case-study of her work, the author looks at the practical, organisational, and political difficulties inherent in bringing together multi-agency professionals and public-sector workers, and members of local communities, and in developing a functional consensus between them.

Voluntary organisations and the care market

Since 1993 the relationship between voluntary organisations and local authorities, in the field of social welfare, has been dominated by the reforms introduced by the NHS and Community Care Act (DoH, 1990). A market for care has been introduced on the assumption that local authorities should act as purchasers of care for people in need; that a competitive market among suppliers of care would increase the quality of provision and keep prices in check. The threat to voluntary organisations in the care business is the fear of any increase in competition; a diminution of their autonomy; a loss of the traditions of partnership in any move from grants to contracts. In reality the market is far from active; many local authorities seem reluctant to develop competitive policies; there is no consistent evidence that those voluntary organisations that have contracts have lost any of their independence.

The listening heart and the chi square: clinical and empirical perceptions in the family therapy of anorexia nervosa

Clinical and empirical methods are commonly considered to be complementary activities. However, many people in the fields of mental health and social welfare espouse a strong adherence to experimental, scientific methods for the evolution of theory and practice and consider only that which has been experimentally tested as‘really true”. Others would propose the clinical method as the main source of useful knowledge and are suspicious of enumeration and quantification as sources of useful information. Formal, empirical methodology is well and extensively described whilst there is less systematic exposition of the clinical method. Family therapy evolved in a context in which activity was visible and the emerging discipline was propelled by a theoretical framework with strongly scientific origins that was critical of the exclusive clinical method of pre‐existing psychotherapies. This paper describes some of the clinically based contributions to the family therapy of anorexia nervosa and compares this information with that which comes out of the Maudsley trials of psychotherapies in anorexia nervosa.

Child and adolescent psychiatry in Sweden – from yesterday until today

In Sweden, child and adolescent psychiatry developed from various fields of science, including pediatrics, pedagogics, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and social welfare. The history is almost 100 years old, and there is a strong relationship to pediatrics. In 1951, it became a medical discipline of its own, and was, in 1956, an independent section within the Swedish Society of Medicine. In 1958 the first university chair in this field was located at the Karolinska Institute; today there are four chairs and increasing research. So far, 33 doctoral theses have been defended, some of which have international standing. By inheritance' from pediatrics, there has been a special interest in developing longitudinal prospective methods, using multidisciplinary cooperation and observation periods covering 10, 20, or 30 years. In May 1993, the Berzelius Symposium XXVI on “Mental and psychosocial adaptation in children – a longitudinal and prospective apporach” was arranged by the Swedish Society of Medicine to f...

Commercial Venturing and the Transformation of America's Voluntary Social Welfare Agencies

This article examines venturing, or the commercial sale of services and products, as a strategy employed by voluntary social agencies to bolster their faltering budgets. It reports the findings of a descriptive study of a population of 101 such agencies in greater Philadelphia. The authors suggest that the increase in commercial ventures by nonprofits is to some extent a by-product of the expansion of government contracting in the social welfare field. They conclude that even when successful, commercial ventures pose significant risks to nonprofit agencies.

The Psychologist as Expert: Forensic Psychology

In 1952 a joint decision was taken by the WHO and the Irish Government to introduce psychological services to the Republic of Ireland where there were no psychologists practising in the fields of health, education or social welfare. The main thrust in the Republic for the establishment of clinical psychology services came from the Department of Health which assumed the chief responsibility for funding, monitoring and developing mental health services. As a result of this, a new Child and Family service was set up by the Order of St John of God which at that time was one of the principal voluntary organisation serving the needs of mentally ill and mentally handicapped persons in Ireland. Thus the discipline of clinical psychology was introduced to the Republic of Ireland by the strategy of planning it in an already existing and culturally acceptable system of care and in the area of child and family mental health where, unlike in adult mental health services, there were few established professionals with v...

The Origins of the ‘New Poverty Lobby’

A large number of interest groups attempt to influence the income maintenance policies of government in the field of social welfare. Many of these have emerged within the last 25 years and constitute the ‘new poverty lobby’. The purpose of this article is to explain the origins of the poverty lobby in general, and the new poverty lobby in particular. Various theoretical explanations of group origins are evaluated against data from a survey of more than 40 such groups, MPs and civil servants and none of these explanations is found to be wholly adequate. An alternative explanation is provided which sees groups arising as a result of environmental factors, group resources and lobbying strategies. This theoretical analysis also explains why groups in the new poverty lobby adopted similar organizational structures and strategies.

Population Change and Social Planning: Social and Economic Implications of the Recent Decline in Fertility in the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany.

The primary objective of the investigations described in this volume was the analysis of the fertility decline in the UK and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) mainly since 1964 as an aid to the identification of policies which might be required to deal with problems arising from a changing population structure. The research was undertaken by 2 teams 1 working in the UK the other in the Federal Republic of Germany. No agreement could be reached as to whether the decline in the total number of births and age specific fertility since 1964 marks the beginning of a movement different in kind rather than in degree from the longterm decline observed for over 100 years. There is also no agreement as to whether the analysis of past events enables reliable projections for the future. According to the explanation adopted either a continuation of low longterm fertility (as measured by the completed family size of women now entering reproduction age) can be foreseen or even further decline; or again a continuation of the slight upward trend observed in the UK since 1977-78 and in the Federal Republic since late in 1979 can be assumed. These uncertainties do not prevent examination in some detail of various areas of social and economic policy. If the view that there have been marked changes in population structure since 1965 which require a policy oriented analysis is taken as a starting point then no claim is made that this is the only change which should be taken into account. The primary reason for examining the problems in 2 different countries is to highlight the importance of examining population changes in the context of a number of related variables. It does not make sense to look at demographic variables except in relation to the size and distribution of national and personal incomes to technological changes to the availability and price of raw materials and energy and such quasi political factors as prevailing views on the proper role of the state in the fields of housing health education and social welfare. The prospects for young entrants to the labor force in the 1980s are quite different in the UK and the FRG regardless of which demographic growth alternative is adopted and regardless of future rates of investment in productive capacity because the 2 economies already differ so much in structure that it would take an unprecedented decline in the German growth rate combined with an equally unprecendented rise in that of the UK to alter the balance of prospects in any fundamental way. The research shows that to a large extent changes in the volume and sector allocation of public resources devoted to the principle areas of public policy have not in the past depended to any large extent on changes in population structure.

The case of the Swedish methadone maintenance treatment programme

The treatment of drug abusers involves people with varying professional backgrounds and the evaluation of outcome may precipitate changes in the territorial power balance between these professional helpers, This may be a common background to some strange reactions to research in this field described by Ogbome and Smart [l] : ‘Some researchers have seen their best efforts completely ignored, while others have witnessed sound research results debunked, or distorted for political ends. Rarely, it seems does research have the kinds of impact that its authors had hoped.’ Sweden, by tradition, is a country which is thoroughly organized with regard to its administration and official functions. In other words we have a well developed and highly centralized bureaucracy. Within the field of health and social welfare, for instance, plans are made up for the future development decades ahead and once a committee has come up with its statements it is hardly possible to change the inevitable development, much less to reverse it. About 10 years ago an American journalist arrived in Sweden in order to study our policy and solutions to drug abuse-related problems. This joumalist who had been sent by an American foundation was not an unexperienced greenhorn, but had carried out similar investigations in several other countries and yet, Sweden became too difficult for him. With professional skill he managed to localize all the important people and extract whatever information there was concerning his subject. But when he tried to collate his impressions the pieces just didn’t fit together. He therefore revisited Sweden several times, checked and rechecked his material and finally, reluctantly put together his report. For fears that it might cause political and diplomatic tensions between our countries this report was rejected by his employer, an adversity which had never happened to him before. This journalist had accidentally discovered a Swedish situation which seemed to be set for future conflicts.

Family Impact Analysis: Its Promise for Social Welfare

The use of family impact analysis has been proposed as a framework for examining the impact of social policies on families. This article describes a model for family impact study, demonstrates its application to the specific case of deinstitutionalization policy, and discusses its potential for the field of social welfare.