Chapter 1 and Chapter2

7/28/2019 Chapter 1 and Chapter2

1/21

Social Work In The 21st Century

An Introduction to Social

Welfare, Social Issues, and theProfession

Morley D. Glicken


2/21

Chapter 1

An Introduction To Social

Problems, Social Welfare

Organizations, and the Profession of

Social Work


3/21

What are Social Problems?

A social problem is an issue within the society that makes it difficult

for people to achieve their full potential. (Ex: poverty, malnutrition,

substandard housing, employment, discrimination, etc).

Social problems affect many people directly as well as indirectly. (Ex:

children of abusive parents become the victim or perpetrator of family

violence as an adult).

Social problems develop when we become neglectful and fail to seethat serious problems are developing.


4/21

What are Social Problems?(Cont.)

Mahoney identified several conditions that must exist before an issue or

situation is considered a social problem.

1. The condition or situation must be publicly seen as a social problembecause of a public outcry.

2. The condition must be at odds with the values of the larger society.

3. Most people must be in agreement that a problem exists.

4. There must be a solution to a social problem.

The mass media also plays a role in the recognition of socialproblems because it highlights problems in such a graphic way thatmany people are touched by it.


5/21

What is Social Work?

Social Work is the only helping profession that deals with the internal

aspects of the human condition (values, beliefs, emotions, and

problem-solving capacities of people) and the external aspects of the

human condition (the neighborhoods, schools, working conditions,social welfare systems, and political systems that affect us).

Social workers are advocates that help empower their clients.

The social workers goal is to help make people self-sufficient by onlydoing for people what they may be unable to do for themselves.


6/21

Core Social Work Values

Social workers come from different social, ethnic, and economicbackgrounds. They represent a wide range of values, political andreligious beliefs.The profession has a set of six core values that allsocial workers should embrace.

Service: A social workers primary goal is to help people in need andto address social problems.

Social Justice: Social workers challenge social injustice.

The Dignity and Worth Of The Person: Social workers respect the

inherent dignity and worth of the person. The Importance of Human Relationships: Social workers recognize

the central importance of human relationships.

Integrity: Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner.

Competence: Social workers practice within their areas of competence

and develop and enhance their professional expertise.


7/21

What do Social Workers Do?The U.S. Department of Labor (2004) defines the functions of socialwork as follows:

Social work is a profession for those with a strong desire to helpimprove peoples lives. Social workers help people function the bestway they can in their environment, deal with their relationships, andsolve personal and family problems.

Social workers often see clients who face a life-threatening disease orsocial problem (inadequate housing, unemployment, disability).

Most social workers have an area of specialization. Although someconduct research or are involved in planning or policy development,most social workers prefer an area of practice in which they interactwith clients ( medical and public health social workers, child, family

and school social workers, mental health and substance abuse socialworkers).


8/21

Chapter 2

A Brief History of Social Work:From the Poor Laws to the

Conservative Revolution


9/21

The English Poor Laws

The origins of American social welfare are found in the English Poorlaws. These laws were passed over a 400 year period and changedincrementally to reflect new thinking about poverty and work.

The poor laws evolved and changed between 1601 and the new Act of1834, but unlike the old poor laws of 1601, the new act of 1834differentiated between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

The workhouses were established to stimulate a work ethic and to

provide food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, but the reality of theworkhouses were altogether different.

Under the 1834 Act, illegitimate children were the responsibility oftheir mothers until they were 16 years old.


10/21

The English Poor Laws(Cont)

If mothers were unable to support themselves and their children, theyusually entered the workhouse whereas the father was free ofresponsibility for his illegitimate children, a notion that continues tothis day in American and is felt to be responsible for the feminization

of poverty.

The horrific conditions in the workhouses led the public toincreasingly believe that the workhouses were shameful and that theBritish people deserved a much kinder and more human approach to

helping people.

Britain became one of the leading countries to institute free health careand other highly thought of social services, and became an importantmodel for many social programs during President Roosevelts NewDeal.


11/21

The English Poor Laws(Cont)

By the early 19th century, states had begun providing relief throughtowns and counties. Because their efforts were often inadequate,

private benevolent societies and self-help organizations began tosupplement their efforts. These benevolent societies were the

predecessors of modern social service agencies.

Those who worked or volunteered in benevolent societies were oftenupper-class women and men friendly visitors, who used moral

persuasion and personal example as helping devices.

As social work became more interested in the conditions that createdsocial problems, Organizations such as the Association for theImprovement of the Condition of the Poor and the Childrens AidSociety began investigating social conditions in areas such as tenementhousing and child welfare.


12/21

The Origins of Modern

Social Work The recognition of serious social problems following the Civil War led

to what was then called scientific charity, an attempt to use conceptscommon to business and industry to cope with larger social problems.

American Charity Organization organized in Buffalo, New York(1877)was one of the first of these scientific charities. It was one of the firstattempts to help people with severe social problems in an organizedand logical way.

The Charity Organization Societies(COS) began to focus on individualwork, or what became known in the profession as caseworkwithindividuals, families, and groups.

The Settlement house movement begun in 1886 and made famous by

the best known of the settlement houses, Jane Addams and Ellen GatesStarrs much admired Hull House in Chicago.


13/21

The Origins of Modern

Social Work(Cont)

The Settlement movement focused on the causes of poverty and

expanding jobs for the poor.

They also conducted research, helped develop the juvenile courtsystem, created widows pension programs, promoted legislation

prohibiting child labor, and introduced public health reforms and the

concept of social insurance.

The settlement movement put much of its efforts into what we nowcall macro system change. Macro level change reflects change at a

community, state, and even national level.


14/21

The Great Depression and

the New Deal In 1929, the stock market crashed and many people lost their life

savings, businesses closed, factories shut down, and banks failed.

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt introduced the New Deal, a social andeconomic program of recovery using the government as an instrumentof change.

By 1933, millions of Americans were out of work, and bread lineswere a common signs in most cities.

An early attempt to reduce unemployment came in the form of theCivilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a program to reduceunemployment in young men aged 18 to 25 years.


15/21


the New Deal (cont) The new Deal years were characterized by a belief that greater

regulation would solve many of the countrys problems.

Because the public now saw poverty as the result of economicproblems rather than personal shortcomings, the Depression definedthe governments role in helping people whose economic situation astroubled.

Social workers such as Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins, who were

part of the Roosevelt Administration, enhanced the status of the socialwork profession.

The most significant program, and the centerpiece of dozens of socialwelfare programs that comprised the Roosevelt Administration's New

Deal, was the Social Security Act of 1935.


16/21


the New Deal(Cont)

The Social Security Act gave recipients a social welfare net thatprovided retirement income and protection against catastrophiceconomic problems.

As a result of the New Deal, social welfare went beyond relief to thepoor to include housing, electricity, roads and dams for rural problemareas, health programs and child welfare programs. It created a socialwelfare net, a series of programs that protect all Americans in times ofserious social and economic upheavals.

These programs led to a significant expansion of the profession andincreased roles for social workers in the many programs created bygovernment.

The number of social workers doubled from 40,000 to 80,000 within adecade and led to improved insurance for all Americans.


17/21

World War II and the Rise of

Social Work Education During World War II, many social workers were involved in war-

related assignments.

As social work began to become a profession with a coherent andlogical set of professional practices and objectives, there was a

movement to standardize agency practices and create core MSW

curricula.

This movement to improve standards and increase the educationalcomponent of social work practice led to the formation of the CSWE

in 1952 and the establishment of the National Association of Social

Workers (NASW) in 1955.


18/21

The War on Poverty

By the early 1960s, Americans rediscovered poverty as a socialproblem and the troubling fact that more than 40 million people, onethird of them children, lived lives that had been bypassed by moderneconomic and social progress.

The shift in attention to the poor led to President Johnsonsproclamation of an unconditional war on poverty in January 1964.

The War on Poverty used the Economic Opportunity Act (EOA),which included the Job Corps, Upward Bound, the Neighborhood

Youth Corps, Community Action, Head Start, Legal Services, FosterGrandparents, and the Office of Economic Opportunity(OEO).

In 1965, the health programs Medicare and Medicaid were passed byCongress. The Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD), the Food Stamp Program and numerous services for the agedthrough the Older American Act were enacted in 1965.


19/21

The 1970s

In 1972 and 1973, Congress passed the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Actand the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), whichestablished the concept of revenue sharing and direct aid to local communitiesor many social welfare programs.

It also led to the dismantling of the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO),which had by then become unpopular with many people for providing the poorwith maximum feasible participation in many Great Society social welfareprograms.

A significant social policy accomplishment of the Nixon Administration wasthe Social Security Amendments of 1972, which standardized aid to disabledpeople and low-income elderly and provided cost-of-living increases to offsetthe loss of income caused by inflation.

Title XX of the Social Security Act focused attention on welfare dependency,

child abuse/neglect, domestic violence, drug abuse, and community mentalhealth.


20/21

The Conservative Reaction:

1975 to the Present Because of the increasing unpopularity of government intervention in

the lives of people and an emphasis on cutting taxes, the Reagan yearswere a time when social welfare was placed on the back burner.

Entire social welfare programs were reduced, frozen or eliminated.

By the early 1990s, the number of people officially listed as poorhad risen to 36 million.

This cutback in social welfare funding came a t a time whenAmericans were experiencing serous problems with crack cocaine, thestart of the AIDS epidemic, homelessness,and domestic violence,

There was a crime epidemic from 1983 to 1994 among juveniles that

would produce the highest crimes rates experienced in America.


21/21

The Clinton Years

Emphasis under President Clinton was on limiting welfare to reducewhat people were now calling welfare dependency.

The idea of welfare creating laziness is still prominent in Americansocial welfare thinking, as is the notion that large bureaucraciesserving the poor do a very ineffective job.

These two ideas led to a welfare reform bill in 1996 that replaced Aidto Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with block grant to

states that included time limits and conditions on the receipt of cashassistance (now called Temporary Assistance for NeedyFamilies(TANF).

Under President Clinton, increasing numbers of social workers were

affected by the decision to contract with agencies providing managedcare to social work clients

Chapter 1 and Chapter2

Documents