Welfare Bureau Research Articles

Verifying Compliance: Social Regulation and Welfare Reform

Recent welfare reforms have regulated clients by linking behavioral requirements to the receipt of benefits (Ethridge and Percy, 1993; Handler and Hasenfeld, 1991). Such reforms use a generic policy instrument, social regulation, that has three characteristics: (1) rules or standards prescribing responsible behavior; (2) enforcement agents and auditors to monitor and deter deviations from the rules; and (3) applied to those who violate the rules (Bardach, 1989). This article examines how welfare bureaus monitor and deter deviations from the rules. In the process, the article describes and compares two alternative mechanisms for implementing social regulation. Under the auspices of federal waivers, states linked receipt of grants through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program (AFDC) to behaviors such as job training, school attendance, work requirements, and paternity establishment (Mead, 1986; and 1996; Besharov and Gardiner, 1996; Wiseman, 1996; Tweedie, 1995; Savner and Greenberg, 1995). Federal policy now mandates work requirements. However, many states have used their authority under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) to regulate welfare clients' behavior in a variety of other ways as well. A study by the Childrens' Defense Fund (1997) reports that of the 42 states that had submitted TANF plans, 17 included a family cap, eight required some version of Learn-fare, and seven had an immunization requirement. The mechanisms used to implement such reforms require close examination because the quality of state and local administration is critical to their success (Mead, 1996; 1997). Ethridge and Percy have described an idealized model of state program administration: states require accurate and up-to-date recordkeeping (often involving multiple bureaucratic organizations), client notification, due process protections, and efficient award of incentives or application of sanctions (1993,343-346). This idealized model may be difficult to realize in practice. Accuracy, notice, due process, and efficiency may be compromised by problems such as interorganizational coordination, organizational complexity, strategic behavior by clients, welfare fraud, or goal displacement. These problems are related to local administrative practices. The context in which we examine social regulation is the implementation of a welfare reform in Maryland, the Primary Prevention Initiative (PPI). The initiative was a statewide demonstration project linking AFDC benefits to education and health requirements, implemented under a federal waiver. In particular, this article focuses upon the procedures used to verify that clients complied with behavioral requirements. The Primary Prevention Initiative is well-suited for such an examination because it used two different procedures, one based upon the bureau-client relationship and the other based upon interorganizational relationships. We compare these procedures and discuss their significance for the design, implementation, and evaluation of behavioral welfare reforms. Evidence is presented from a variety of sources including federal, state, and local government documents; direct observation of welfare case intake and redetermination; participation in and observation of management and coordination meetings within Maryland's welfare system; analysis of administrative reports about welfare bureau performance; and interviews with key state and local officials. Detailed information from a survey of local welfare bureau staff in Maryland is also presented (see the Methodology Box for additional information on methods, including survey procedures and characteristics of respondents). The Primary Prevention Initiative The objectives of the Primary Prevention Initiative were to improve the health and education of AFDC clients or their children. The initiative had two behavioral requirements: school-aged AFDC recipients were required to attend school at least 80 percent of the time and pre-school AFDC recipients were to receive immunizations and preventive health care (Norris and Bembry, 1995). …

Applying for money The encounter between social workers and clients--A question of morality

The facts of household finances generally obtain their meaning from the moral stand ards of everyday life: it is in relation to these standards that we evaluate our personal finances. Persons who lack money and apply for social welfare compensation generally have to turn to a public social welfare bureau where their eligibility is assessed by a professional social worker. The central question for the present study is how social workers and clients deal with the morally delicate question of personal financial deficits and how this question should be processed in a formal and institutional setting by formal means. This problem is discussed through an analysis of conversations between social workers and clients at social welfare bureaux in the municipality of Stockholm, Sweden. In pursuing a formal inquiry the social worker is conducting a moral search: the social worker has to determine the moral character of the client and the circum

Family policy in Korea

In Korea, family policy as a public policy gained interest in the 1980s, when the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs (since January 1995 the Ministry of Health and Welfare) renamed the Maternal and Child Bureau the Family Welfare Bureau. This paper first presents a brief overview of the traditional family system and values in Korea and examines changes in economic and social indicators, changes in family functions and roles, and changes in attitudes toward family that have occurred following industrialization and urbanization. The paper then briefly explains some of the problems Korean families face today. It next examines the Family Planning Program and its results. Finally, it turns to an examination and critique of the policies and programs administered by the Family Welfare Bureau.

Some Key Concepts from a Course for Parents about Adolescents

Catholic Family Welfare Bureau Melbourne have for many years provided remedial family services, a core service being marriage and family counselling. Our range of service has expanded to also include educative programs.One frequent request is for education for parents about adolescence and its' meaning in family life. Additionally, our Dandenong branch needed to respond to the many urgent requests they were receiving from parents for counselling, about “adolescence problems” encountered in their families.As result a group of counsellors and social workers have produced a course in an endeavor to discover the most effective means to provide education for parents.

The treatment of alcoholism in a community setting.

Private Practitioner New York, New York Medical Director of Transitional Services and Alcoholism Services Guidance Clinic Catholic Welfare Bureau Trentcn, New Jersey

Smallpox as an Etiologic Factor in Male Infertility

An attempt was made to assess the role of smallpox infection as an etiologic factor in infertility in men. The study is based on the analysis of 800 patients who had registered with the Family Welfare Bureau in Bombay, India during the past 19 years for investigation and treatment of infertility. A thorough history was taken and a physical examination was performed on each patient. In every case a routine semen analysis was repeatedly performed 2 or 3 times, at an interval of 15-30 days, to assess the magnitude of spontaneous variations occurring in the semen. In all cases of azoospermia and in cases of severe oligospermia, where the sperm count was less than 10 million/cu cm, a testicular biopsy was performed. In 895 cases there was history and evidence of prior smallpox infection. These cases (designated the smallpox series) were analyzed according to the sperm counts and according to the lesions observed in the testicular biopsies. For the control series, another group of 895 serially registered infertile patients who had not had smallpox was analyzed in an identical way. Testicular biopsies were performed in 358 azoospermic cases belonging to each series. In analyzing the cases according to the sperm levels, the mean sperm count prior to therapy was considered to be the representative count in each patient. The incidence of smallpox in the present series of infertile men was 11.18%. The incidence of severe oligospermia and moderate oligospermia was practically the same in both series. The incidence of azoospermia was 42.57% in the smallpox series and only 17.87% in the control series. The incidence of normospermia was only 30.17% in the smallpox series and as much as 52.52% in the control series. The incidence of obstructive azoospermia was as high as 79.36% in the smallpox series. It was 46.23% in the control series. In patients with nonobstructive azoospermia, testicular lesions such as partial or complete arrest of spermatogensis at various levels, germinal cell aplasia, severe tubular atrophy, and hyalinization of the tubules were encountered with comparable frequency in both series. The study supports the frequent clinical impression that the incidence of obstructive azoospermia is very high in patients who have had smallpox. 4 of 5 such cases have obstructive lesions. The site of obstruction is usually at the lower end of the epididymis, and the testes seem to escape the brunt of the disease.

Immunologic Aspects of Human Infertility

Blood sera of 148 infertile patients from the Tyler Clinic was sent to the Bombay laboratory for examination. The macroscopic agglutination technique by Kibrick et al was used for examination of sperm agglutinin. 16 of these samples contained autoagglutinins and 14 isoagglutinins. 220 samples of sera were collected from infertile patients of the Family Welfare Bureau in Bombay. Of these 20 contained autoagglutinins and 17 had isoagglutinins. 3 of the 50 female fertile sera examined with the semen of Donor 1 were +. No + reactions were observed when these sera were tested with semen of other donors. 17 (11.6%) of 146 infertile female specimens tested had + reactions with semen specimens from Donor 1 as compared to 3 with sperm from Donor 2. The results were negative in another group of 132 infertile female sera similarly tested. 18 + reactions among the infertile male specimens (12.2%) were observed with Donor 1; 6 (4.0%) with Donor 2 and 3 (2.3%) with Donor 3. 4+ reactions were noted in the prenatal sera examined but when retested with semen from another donor the results were negative. Autoagglutinins or isoagglutinins were found in 18% of 368 infertile sera when the hemagglutination technique was used to detect sperm agglutinins in blood sera. Sera of unmarried females did not exhibit detectable levels of agglutinins nor did those of married couples whose blood were obtained just before or soon after conception.

The Extent, Nature and Circumstances of the Emigration from Ireland and the Work of the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau for Irish Catholic Emigrants

The Extent, Nature and Circumstances of the Emigration from Ireland and the Work of the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau for Irish Catholic Emigrants

A Labor Welfare Bureau

Previous articleNext article No AccessNotes and Comment by the EditorA Labor Welfare BureauPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Social Service Review Volume 19, Number 1Mar., 1945 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/635189 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1945 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The work of the Maternity and Child Welfare Bureau

The work of the Maternity and Child Welfare Bureau

Public Health Progress in India

THE July issue of the Asiatic Review contains an interesting article by Sir Alexander Russell, formerly medical officer of health and professor of hygiene and bacteriology at Madras, on public health progress in India during the last forty years. Since 1911, research work under the auspices of the Indian Research Fund Association has been chiefly connected with India's public health problems and considerable achievements have been recorded, especially as regards plague, cholera, malaria, kala-azar and nutrition, while investigations on the indigenous drugs of India have done much to determine their therapeutic action. The Research Association has also supplied means for the training in research of a large number of Indian graduates of science and medicine. An All-India League wasformed in 1921 to promote maternity and child-welfare throughout the country. In 1930 it became the Maternity and Child Welfare Bureau, and now in most provinces the work is carried on either through the official health departments or by voluntary organizations.