Welfare Boards Research Articles

Alcohol abuse, compulsory treatment and successive aftercare: a qualitative study of client perspectives

In Sweden, the social welfare boards have a statutory duty to provide aftercare for compulsorily treated substance abusers. However, there are no data on how the aftercare is organised and how clients perceive this phase of the compulsory treatment process. The aim of the study is to analyse how a sample of compulsorily treated alcohol abusers (n = 12) characterise the current coercive treatment episode and evaluate previously experienced and forthcoming aftercare interventions. Qualitative interview‐data were coded into themes and sub‐themes encompassing relevant client perspectives. Results show that the alcohol abusers claimed to want (but be denied) adequate help for their problems, both during primary treatment and after discharge. Their perspectives on coercive care and aftercare interventions appeared related to their views on their own problems and on being incarcerated. For instance, those who recognised their own alcohol problems emphasised the importance of quitting consumption and were dissatisfied with interventions offered during and subsequent to compulsory treatment referrals.

Perspectivas mundiales en materia de bienestar animal: Asia, Lejano Oriente y Oceanía

In Asia and the Far East, livestock undergo major suffering due to malnutrition, overloading, and ill-treatment. At slaughter animals are handled roughly and watch other animals being killed; stunning is not practised. Cruelty to other animals such as elephants, horses, donkeys, bears, dogs, and circus animals has largely been prevented through the efforts of animal welfare organisations. Governments have taken initiatives to establish Animal Welfare Boards and enact laws for the prevention of cruelty to animals, but their efforts are far too limited to be of any significance and financial constraints and lack of personnel inhibit the implementation of the laws that do exist. In New Zealand and Australia, legislation and strong consultation procedures at governmental and community level strive to regulate and improve the welfare of animals in all spheres, but in other Oceanic countries there is a need for both an update in, or establishment of, legislation covering animal welfare. Limited progress has been made due to the status of the Veterinary Services and a lack of resources. Although some public and educational awareness programmes are carried out, increasing exposure to international media and attitudes of visiting tourists suggest that further awareness work needs to be undertaken. To address the problems of animal welfare in developing countries, it would be inappropriate to adopt the international standards that are implemented in the developed countries. Each developing country should evolve its own standards based on its own individual priorities.

Poverty is not a vice: charity, society, and the state in imperial Russia

Adele Lindenmeyr. Poverty is Not a Vice: Charity, Society, and the State in Imperial Russia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. xiv, 335 pp. Tables. $49.50, cloth. Adele Lindenmeyr's long-awaited book on the history of charity in Imperial Russia expands considerably her 1980 doctoral dissertation. It is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on the development of a civil society in Russia and the dynamics between an autocratic state and educated elite. Versed in the secondary sources on European charity, voluntarism, and philanthropy, Lindenmeyr charts the ways in which Russian responses to and begging were unique, but not immune to Western solutions, especially in the late nineteenth century. In fact, those responses provide a window upon educated Russians' more positive view of their nation in the ubiquitous comparison they made between themselves and Europe. The Russian saying that poverty is not a vice, voiced by Dostoevsky's character Marmeladov in Crime and Punishment, convinced them of their more humane attitude toward the problem. Like all pioneering and challenging books, this study suggests a range of topics for new research projects and dissertations. Perhaps the most startling revelation of Lindenmeyr's copious reading of primary sources on Russia's history of charity is the extent to which the nineteenth-century autocratic state remained aloof from the question of poverty. While Peter I and Catherine II had attempted to combat vagrancy and begging through social controls, institutionalization, and establishment of provincial social welfare boards, their successors refused to view as a mounting social problem. The latter preferred instead to continue the traditional, lavish and personal almsgiving of Russian rulers. Lindenmeyr attributes this attitude in part to the Orthodox Church's encouragement of almsgiving, toleration of begging, and belief in the inevitability of poverty. The eighteenth-century state's delegation of responsibility for poor relief to local agencies, including the extended family, peasant commune, and corporate structures, without giving them real power or financial assistance, furthermore, entrenched the notion that local communities were responsible for their own members and contributed to what became a vicious circle of inadequate assistance. In the postemancipation period when the government introduced various reforms in so many areas of Russian life and major economic and social changes broadened the ranks of the poor, bureaucrats left the question of welfare unresolved. Reluctant to introduce a state poor tax on an already overburdened population, opposed in principle to a luxury tax, and adverse to giving more power to local governmental institutions such as the newly created zemstvo, the Imperial Russian government, according to Lindenmeyr, delegated responsibility for the poor to private charity. …

Child abuse and neglect: Viewed in relation to 12 fundamental principles in a western social and legal system

IN THE EVENT of abuse and neglect of children, society ought in the first round to implement various kinds of remedial measures concerning the children and their parents. The most important provisions on such measures are contained in the health legislation. Remedial measures are administered not only by the health system, but also by the social welfare system [ 11. The central Act in this connection is the Child Welfare Act. The child welfare boards may both implement various forms of helping and voluntary measures (primarily intended for the children) and controlling and compulsory measures (primarily intended for the parents). Viewed from the angle of the rule of law, the provisions on placing children away from home and deprivation of parental authority are particularly important. A third group of provisions are being enforced by the police, by the public prosecutor and by the penal courts. These concern pure measures of control and coercion. A person who abuses or neglects his children may be punished for his acts. The provisions mentioned so far may be said to have a direct bearing on the problem of child abuse. These provisions cannot be viewed separately from the more fundamental principles on which the actual social and legal system is built. In the following I shall discuss child abuse in relation to 12 such principles. They are the chief principles of private law regarding the legal relationship between parents and children, of public law on the relationship between scciety and the family and other fundamental principles of administrative law and penal law. These 12 major principles are significant not only when describing current law; they also have a bearing on questions in connection with amendments of the provisions mentioned above. Amendments may only take place within a certain framework so as not to cause changes in the main structure of the social system. The fundamental principles have a field of force which partly may bring about and partly prevent crossings of the boundaries.

Participation of the Public in the Prevention and Control of Crime and Delinquency

Abstract [Editor's Note] No criminologist today would deny the importance of public participation in crime control. Public involvement—through the family, neighborhood, schools, private businesses and public agencies—are potential assets in curbing rising crime and delinquency rates. In this article the basic concerns are two in nature: 1) how to best utilize community resources, including meaningful participation of citizens; and, 2) how public and community organizations can effectively participate in preventing, treating and controlling offenders on parole or probation. In all these endeavors, public support—moral, financial and otherwise are necessary for success. What is more important is to achieve the most salutary form of public participation, and to obtain the most beneficial balance between local participation and the actions of many government agencies involved. Not all pure local participation is at all times positive, as is illustrated by the actions of a lynch mob. It is also true that the closer one is to local institutions, the more difficult it is to achieve any degree of impartiality. On the other hand, highly centralized judicial and law enforcement structure often tends to be arbitrary and impersonal. This balance although essential, is difficult to achieve. The community agency (welfare boards, citizen's groups, parole boards), independent of the judicial and law enforcement institutions, plays an increasing role in enlightened public participation. Other important factors include education for crime prevention and reporting of offenses, and the relative closeness individuals feel toward their local groups (family, clan, school, neighborhood), as well as the efficiency of the police and judicial organs. No effective public participation in crime control programs can be achieved when there is a wide divergence between the value systems of local and national groups, and when there are great differences of opinions as to exactly what the public can do to prevent crime. Broadly speaking, there are four ways in which community groups can participate in crime prevention: 1) political support for social defense programs; 2) public co-operation with social defense programs; 3) delegation to community groups of elements of social defense programs; and 4) provision by community groups of autonomous social defense programs. Much more work must be done to collect reliable data and make significant critical analyses and evaluations of the myriad ways of public participation in crime prevention throughout the world. [Source: “Participation of the Public in the Prevention and Control of Crime and Delinquency,” Fourth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (Tokyo, Japan, 17–26 August 1970)]

Coordination Between State Social Welfare Boards and the State Departments of Social Welfare

Coordination Between State Social Welfare Boards and the State Departments of Social Welfare

A Look at Some Administrative Problems

IN ORDER to do my best to maintain a community of interest, I have assumed that there is no particular interest in a recital of the various dimensions of the Minnesota Department of Public Welfare, but that there is particular interest in the principles, concepts, techniques, methods-in short, the way in which we meet our administrative problemssince these things are very likely similar to those you experience. Now, I think it is only fair to get our nomenclature straight. When I say institution, that means the equivalent of a field office; when I say we, it usually means the Department of Public Welfare; and when I say I, it means no one else is to blame. In order to apply our experience to the topic at hand, you should know that Minnesota's Department of Welfare consists of a central office, located in St. Paul, with a staff of some 325 employes, organized into six divisions. These divisions are Corrections, Child Welfare, Public Assistance, Medical Services, Field Services, and Administrative Services. Channeled through their appropriate divisions is responsibility for eight mental hospitals, two institutions for the mentally deficient, three special schools, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a hospital for crippled children, three correctional institutions, and a small child-care institution. These facilities employ slightly more than 5,ooo persons. In addition, the central office exercises supervision over the 87 county welfare boards who are administering the various welfare programs-for example, old age assistance and aid to dependent children. From this, you can see that we are easily beset with

The Child Welfare Boards Of Sweden

the Child Welfare Boards Of Sweden

Citizen Participation in Government—A Study of County Welfare Boards

Citizen Participation in Government—A Study of County Welfare Boards John W. Ferree CopyRight https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.38.11.1598-b Published Online: August 29, 2011

Citizen Participation in Government: A Study of County Welfare Boards

Citizen Participation in Government: A Study of County Welfare Boards

Book Reviews and Notices : Citizen Participation in Government: A Study of County Welfare Boards. By HELEN E. MARTZ. ( Washington, D. C. : Public Affairs Press. 1948. Pp. 63. $1.00. )

Book Reviews and Notices : Citizen Participation in Government: A Study of County Welfare Boards. By HELEN E. MARTZ. ( Washington, D. C. : Public Affairs Press. 1948. Pp. 63. $1.00. )

County Welfare Boards and Emergency Relief

County Welfare Boards and Emergency Relief

City Planning for Neighborhood Life

The decision as to what the final function of the committees shall be will probably not be reached without more experimentation. The suggestion has come frequently that they be formalized into County Welfare Boards. Two committees have broadened out on their own initiative into this form already, and one of the two is looking toward the employment of a social worker. Since there are no other committees acting as clearing houses for all types of social work and social education in the counties, it seems fairly certain that more and more will be required of them until they evolve into some form or a number of forms which will be valuable to their respective communities.