Social Welfare in The UK

1
Social Welfare in The UK

• The Transformation of Personal Social Services
  from Beveridge to New Public Management

2
Welfare Services for Children and Families
3
Principles underlying the early relationship
between the State, Children and the Family

• Underlying Social Democratic principles
• Fabian notions of human nature, professional
  action and the appropriate role of the state
• Social Democratic writers argue that social
  services developed out of a collective conscience
  in Britain following Beveridge.

4
The introduction of state social work with
children

• Introduction through the Curtis Report which was
  based on a new and more sympathetic approach to
  human need. Emphasis was laid on the differences
  of each child and his value as an individual
• Slack, 1966, p111)

5
The introduction of state social work with
children

• A commitment to meet need through the activities
  of government and state whenever or wherever a
  social service is introduced it is to meet a need
  that has, whether or wherever a social service is
  introduced it is to meet a need that has, whether
  soon or late, been recognised as real or unmet
• Slack, 1966, p.93)

6
The introduction of state social work with
children

• Titmus has argued that as the accepted area of
  social obligation widened, as injustice became
  less tolerable, new services were separately
  organised around individual need ( Titmuss,
  1968. P21)

7
The introduction of state social work with
children

• Awareness of need within society was also
  critical in the development of personal social
  services at this time.
• This process was continuous and cumulative.

8
The Children and Young Persons Act 1963

• Sanctioned preventative social work
• Recognised the need to receive children with
  behavioural needs into local authority care.
• Also laid down a framework intended to minimise
  the number of child and young adult offenders
  appearing before courts - and say a treatment or
  welfare model as more appropriate that a justice
  model in such cases.

9
The Seebohm Report 1968 and Kilbrandon Committee
(1961-1964)

• Reviewed Social Services in England and Wales
• In Scotland The Kilbrandon Committee (1961-64)
  proposed set of reforms and set up Social Work
  departments. This report was concerned with
  juvenile delinquency.
• Both reports concern to address pressures and
  challenges.

10
The Seebohm Report 1968 and Kilbrandon Committee
(1961-1964)

• Existence of two separate services child health
  and health and welfare
• Clients as they were know then often needed help
  from both child health and child welfare
• Problem of coordination across disparate and
  fragmented services. e.g. juvenile delinquency
• Social worker seeking a more unified coherent
  structure professional practice and development

11
The Seebohm Report 1968 and Kilbrandon Committee
(1961-1964)

• Implementation of Seebohm Report in 1970 Local
  Authority Social Services Act
• Reorganization of fragmented provision of
  personal social services bringing services
  together Social Services Department in England
  and Wales.
• Unified structure for delivery of personal social
  services fusion of diverse tasks carried out by
  social workers generic social work.
• Between 1970s and 1980s social work was generic
  rather than specialist in nature.

12
Radical critiques of social work

• From within social work itself
• From service user groups
• From the government and the New Right.

13
Radical critiques of social work

• (1) Community Social Work Methods patch social
  work
• Social worker lives in the area in which they
  work develop local knowledge and become actively
  involved in community organisations and work
  towards structural change rather than focussing
  on individual pathology and locating problems at
  an individual level.
• Belief that social problems could be alleviated
  by state provision of welfare services.
• Post war consensus on welfare included commitment
  to eradication of poverty.
• Marxist analysis class inequality as main problem
  (Corrigan and Leonard, 1978 Brake and Bailey,
  1980).

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Radical critiques of social work

• (2)The Feminist critique Womens movement
  feminist perspective on emerging shape of social
  work
• Also black perspectives anti-racist social work
  criticised social work fro being Euro-centric and
  reinforcing racist stereotypes labelling black
  and other non-white communities as ethic
  minority (Saraga, 1998, Lewis 1998)

15
Radical critiques of social work

• Challenges and resistances from marginal groups
  (regarding class, gender, race, sexuality and
  disability) did impact on the organisation and
  content of social work training and upon social
  work practice. Anti-discriminatory Practice
  became central.
• In general however social work tends to reproduce
  rather than challenge inequalities.
• E.g. Social work assessments are mainly carried
  out on women living in poverty, yet material
  conditions have seldom been a factor within these
  assessments.

16
Radical critiques of social work

• New Right Critique
• Thatcher Government restructured welfare
• Introducing market mechanisms into all aspects of
  welfare
• Radically altered the ethos and practices within
  welfare
• Mixed Economy of Welfare delivery by private,
  voluntary and the family, not just the state.

17
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• Role of family and voluntary and private sector
  promoted
• Family care was the right and proper care in most
  cases.
• Purchaser- provider split state took on the
  role of purchaser and voluntary and private
  sectors and sometimes even public sector taking
  on role of provider.
• This would introduce competition between the
  state and other providers of services and
  therefore reduce expenditure by the state.

18
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• Wilding (1992) argued issue was not about cuts in
  welfare expenditure rather it was more
  ideological. A residual welfare state was to be
  created with a lower shabbier base-line and
  what was to be decided was appropriate levels of
  welfare provision.

19
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• The Thatcher governments reform were also
  motivated by desire to move away from public
  provision to voluntary or private provision
  Rolling back the state
• Removing dependency on state welfare
• (recurring theme current governments focus on
  reform of incapacity and disability benefit
  enabling or disabling? Inclusion or exclusion
  deserving and underserving poor debate is
  recreated here)

20
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• Aims, purposes and values of welfare
• Between 1940s and 1970s concern to reduce
  inequalities promote and ethic of fairness,
  combat poverty and assert rights of citizenship.
• In 1980s move from notion of universal provision
  free services as a right of citizenship and
  toward greater stress on charges for services and
  targeting of services to the very poorest.

21
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• Restructuring of social work and social care came
  later that reorganizations of housing, health
  income maintenacne and education.
• Survival of personal social services as a
  monopoly provider of services throughout 1980s
  attributed to complexity of legal, organizational
  and professional structures. (Langan and Clarke,
  1994)

22
Re-configuration of social relations of welfare
between the state and the citizen.

• Restructuring of 1990s largely as a result of
  legislation
• 1989 Children Act
• And NHS and Community Care Act of 1990

23
Community Care

• 1989 White Paper Caring for People
• NHS Community Care Act 1990
• Foundamental change in was community care would
  be provided
• Promotion of community care rather than
  institutional care and not a new phenomena. E.
  g. Mental Health services movement toward
  community care began in the 1930s (Barnes,1998)

24
Social work practice

• Growing view that problems associated with
  childhood were rooted in social or familial
  problems rather than individual pathology.
• Problems of childrens relationship with parents
  or siblings best dealt with in a family setting.

25
Reorganisation of social services in 1970s

• Seebolm Report 1968 argued that a unified system
  of state social services would lead to a more
  integrated approach for children and their
  families.

26
The 1989 Children Act

• Based on Principles of Partnership and retaining
  measures to safeguard childrens interests. It
  also embraced the philosophy of family support.
• Research indicated that family support work is
  valued but ought to be multi-faceted and openly
  available.
• Access has become confined to those children
  defined as at Risk.

27
The Black Committee

• In 1979 a Children and Young Persons Review
  Groups was set up with Sir Harold Black as chair
  it was reported that
• the primary determinant of childrens behaviour.
  . . Is the social moral and economic
  climate(DHSS 1979)

28
The Strategy For Help

• The Black committee Report proposed a Strategy
  for Help which emphasised prevention and the
  meeting of children and young peoples needs
  through resourcing the family and other formal
  and informal child care institutions and networks.

29
Models of Child Welfare

• Health Care
• Education
• Social Services Provision

30
Child Protection Investigations

• Child Protection Investigations separates out the
  deserving and undeserving poor.
• The undeserving poor are drawn into a system of
  social control and monitoring which may fail to
  address their primary needs for employment, good
  housing and adequate educational opportunities.

31
A Continuum of Services

• Services for children at home in the community
• Services for children looked after away from home
• Services for children after they have left
  accommodation or care

32
Social Service Provision

• In the 1970s child welfare services in the UK
  took on an in increasing pre-occupation with
  child protection.
• Media campaigns and public inquiries in the UK
  were instrumental in changing the focus of child
  care social work from attempting to support and
  resource families to a major concern to police
  families for child abuse and and neglect.

33
Targeting of Resources

• By focussing resources on families with children
  who are defined as at risk many other needy
  families are discriminated against.
• Narrow interpretations of the category in need
  and resource constraints have contributed to this
  more restricted access to family support that was
  hoped for by the Children Act.

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CARE PLANNING AS PROCESS