Social Work In The 21st Century An Introduction to Social Welfare, Social Issues, and the Profession

Morley D. Glicken

Chapter 1
An Introduction To Social Problems, Social Welfare Organizations, and the Profession of Social Work

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 see that serious problems are developing.

What are Social Problems?

(Cont.)

Mahoney identified several conditions that must exist before an issue or situation is considered a social problem.
1. 2. 3. 4. The condition or situation must be publicly seen as a social problem because of a public outcry. The condition must be at odds with the values of the larger society. Most people must be in agreement that a problem exists. There must be a solution to a social problem.

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

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 only doing for people what they may be unable to do for themselves.

Core Social Work Values

Social workers come from different social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. They represent a wide range of values, political and religious beliefs.The profession has a set of six core values that all social workers should embrace. Service: A social workers primary goal is to help people in need and to 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.

What do Social Workers Do?

The U.S. Department of Labor (2004) defines the functions of social work as follows: Social work is a profession for those with a strong desire to help improve peoples lives. Social workers help people function the best way they can in their environment, deal with their relationships, and solve personal and family problems.
Social workers often see clients who face a life-threatening disease or social problem (inadequate housing, unemployment, disability).

Most social workers have an area of specialization. Although some conduct research or are involved in planning or policy development, most social workers prefer an area of practice in which they interact with clients ( medical and public health social workers, child, family and school social workers, mental health and substance abuse social workers).

Chapter 2 A Brief History of Social Work: From the Poor Laws to the Conservative Revolution

The English Poor Laws

The origins of American social welfare are found in the English Poor laws. These laws were passed over a 400 year period and changed incrementally to reflect new thinking about poverty and work.
The poor laws evolved and changed between 1601 and the new Act of 1834, but unlike the old poor laws of 1601, the new act of 1834 differentiated 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 the workhouses were altogether different. Under the 1834 Act, illegitimate children were the responsibility of their mothers until they were 16 years old.

The English Poor Laws

(Cont)

If mothers were unable to support themselves and their children, they usually entered the workhouse whereas the father was free of responsibility for his illegitimate children, a notion that continues to this day in American and is felt to be responsible for the feminization of poverty.
The horrific conditions in the workhouses led the public to increasingly believe that the workhouses were shameful and that the British people deserved a much kinder and more human approach to helping people. Britain became one of the leading countries to institute free health care and other highly thought of social services, and became an important model for many social programs during President Roosevelts New Deal.

The English Poor Laws

(Cont)

By the early 19th century, states had begun providing relief through towns and counties. Because their efforts were often inadequate, private benevolent societies and self-help organizations began to supplement their efforts. These benevolent societies were the predecessors of modern social service agencies.
Those who worked or volunteered in benevolent societies were often upper-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 created social problems, Organizations such as the Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor and the Childrens Aid Society began investigating social conditions in areas such as tenement housing and child welfare.

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 concepts common 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 first attempts to help people with severe social problems in an organized and logical way. The Charity Organization Societies(COS) began to focus on individual work, or what became known in the profession as casework with individuals, 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 Gates Starrs much admired Hull House in Chicago.

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 court system, 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 now call macro system change. Macro level change reflects change at a community, state, and even national level.

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 and economic program of recovery using the government as an instrument of change. By 1933, millions of Americans were out of work, and bread lines were a common signs in most cities. An early attempt to reduce unemployment came in the form of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a program to reduce unemployment in young men aged 18 to 25 years.

The Great Depression and 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 economic problems rather than personal shortcomings, the Depression defined the governments role in helping people whose economic situation as troubled. Social workers such as Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins, who were part of the Roosevelt Administration, enhanced the status of the social work profession. The most significant program, and the centerpiece of dozens of social welfare programs that comprised the Roosevelt Administration's New Deal, was the Social Security Act of 1935.

The Great Depression and the New Deal

(Cont)

The Social Security Act gave recipients a social welfare net that provided retirement income and protection against catastrophic economic problems.
As a result of the New Deal, social welfare went beyond relief to the poor to include housing, electricity, roads and dams for rural problem areas, health programs and child welfare programs. It created a social welfare net, a series of programs that protect all Americans in times of serious social and economic upheavals.

These programs led to a significant expansion of the profession and increased roles for social workers in the many programs created by government.
The number of social workers doubled from 40,000 to 80,000 within a decade and led to improved insurance for all Americans.

World War II and the Rise of Social Work Education

During World War II, many social workers were involved in warrelated assignments.
As social work began to become a profession with a coherent and logical 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 educational component 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.

The War on Poverty

By the early 1960s, Americans rediscovered poverty as a social problem and the troubling fact that more than 40 million people, one third of them children, lived lives that had been bypassed by modern economic and social progress. The shift in attention to the poor led to President Johnsons proclamation 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, Foster Grandparents, and the Office of Economic Opportunity(OEO). In 1965, the health programs Medicare and Medicaid were passed by Congress. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Food Stamp Program and numerous services for the aged through the Older American Act were enacted in 1965.

The 1970s
In 1972 and 1973, Congress passed the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), which established the concept of revenue sharing and direct aid to local communities or 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 poor with maximum feasible participation in many Great Society social welfare programs. A significant social policy accomplishment of the Nixon Administration was the Social Security Amendments of 1972, which standardized aid to disabled people and low-income elderly and provided cost-of-living increases to offset the 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 mental health.

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 years were 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 poor had risen to 36 million. This cutback in social welfare funding came a t a time when Americans were experiencing serous problems with crack cocaine, the start 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.

The Clinton Years

Emphasis under President Clinton was on limiting welfare to reduce what people were now calling welfare dependency.
The idea of welfare creating laziness is still prominent in American social welfare thinking, as is the notion that large bureaucracies serving the poor do a very ineffective job. These two ideas led to a welfare reform bill in 1996 that replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with block grant to states that included time limits and conditions on the receipt of cash assistance (now called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF). Under President Clinton, increasing numbers of social workers were affected by the decision to contract with agencies providing managed care to social work clients.