Evaluate your community and identify types of social work micro practice settings and social agencies
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ASSIGNMENTDESCRIPTION.docxFor this assignment, prepare an assessment of social service agencies that address the current social problem/issue you developed in Week 1 and Week 6 that are relevant to your community today. Develop a paper in which you indicate which agencies might be best equipped to work with individuals/families affected by the problem. Include examples to support your findings.
Support your assignment with at least three scholarly resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources, including seminal articles, may be included.
Length: 5 pages, not including title and reference pages
The Different Types of Social Welfare
Social welfare programs and types of social welfare are as diverse as the needs of constituents. The core concept for the myriad types of social welfare is social protection for individuals. Social welfare can be considered a system intended to work from a set of social objectives to provide effective social protection to individuals. These social protections can be as individual as the person. Whether it is supporting a person in gaining needed job skills after a job loss, providing re-entry training to a person released from a correctional facility, helping an elderly person navigate the loss of a spouse and loss of health, or providing a voice to marginalized populations – the goal is the same – to provide a safety net and social protection.
What is important about social welfare and types of social welfare is that it must be inclusive. A social welfare system cannot provide effective protection to people that it does not cover (Thompson, 1994). The seminal work by Thompson is relevant today and is reflective of social work values and ethics that guide the profession. Social workers understand the need for a social safety net that assures basic rights for all individuals to have access to affordable housing, be free from food insecurity and hunger, and have the ability to access affordable health care, which reflects social justice for all.
Reference:
Thompson, L. H. (1994). The advantages and disadvantages of different social welfare strategies. Social Security Bulletin, 57(3), 1-11.
Section 3: Social Welfare
Social welfare is a country, state, or community’s ability to support individuals and families to alleviate social problems. Social welfare services are best described with a broad brush because they can encompass large systems (e.g., schools, hospitals, corrections, and institutions). Social welfare programs have common characteristics whose emphasis is social responsibility and: 1) include serving community interests; 2) they are value-based or value added such as aiding in social justice, social equity, and family and community stability; 3) they are accessible to all; and 4) are accountable to the public.
Social welfare also involves large-scale issues, which influence this country today. Healthcare reform, poverty, child welfare, immigration reform, and the opioid epidemic all involve facets of social inequity, community and state stability, and the overall well-being of constituents. For example, social workers are galvanized nation-wide by important issues that we see in the news, such as the DACA issue and immigration reform. As social workers, we are kept apprised through our association (NASW) on these issues and what our fellow colleagues are doing to help marginalized populations.
Social welfare is in response to social problems that a community, state, or nation has determined can prevent individuals from achieving a sense of well-being. Not being able to achieve well-being directly affects the dignity and worth of a person and is directly related to the social work core values as outlined by the National Association of Social Workers
