Community Social Work: Dynamics, Exclusion, and Empowerment
1. New or Old Problems? The Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Community Work
1.1. Expectations of Life and Possibilities of Integration
We can highlight the following features of the emerging social model:
- The trend of increasing inequality and social polarization is something pre-registered in the dynamics of information capitalism.
- This polarization process occurs within the labor market, affecting social conditions in which the work is done.
- The pattern of employment evolves towards instability, incorporating it as a main feature.
Characteristics of the Emerging Social Model:
a) The instability affects mainly immigrants, youth, older workers aged 45 to 50 who lose their jobs, and women (who seek to enter the labor market after maternity).
b) The instability is internalized as an inevitable phenomenon that makes it look like a normal thing, leading to its embedding.
c) The instability has four main dimensions: contract, salary, objective conditions (day, hours, holidays), and social security (unemployment).
1.2. The Dynamics of Social Exclusion and Community Work
Krouner defines social exclusion as a dynamic process that incorporates multi-functional social and economic aspects of life, subjective experiences, and objective situations, which depend on the personal and social resources available in a given context.
In this process, the zone of vulnerability extends between two extremes: social inclusion and exclusion. Krouner differentiates six dimensions of social exclusion and points out how, along with unemployment, social exclusion is simultaneously displayed only if they match an unfavorable economic situation and social isolation.
Concrete situations of social disadvantage affecting certain groups are derived from a complex interplay between structural and individual factors. The exercise of collective action as a community of citizens trained to exercise their democratic rights allows them to develop their personality. Also, by acting as a collective organized group, it is easier to find a response from public and private institutions.
Structural and Individual Determinants of Disadvantage:
1) Structural Determinants: The major structural determinants of the disadvantages that young people face are problems of access to housing and other basic needs unmet, unfavorable regional labor market and training opportunities, and poor institutional support in professional and social educational levels.
2) Individual Factors: The main individual factors are mental or physical disability, problematic family situations, psychological factors, and lack of social and communication skills.
2. Diagnosis to Intervention: Community Social Work in Action
Introduction
The two dimensions of community social work (methodology for the analytical description of community and social interaction methodology for collective action as an organized community) allow us to highlight the structural dimension of social life. They allow us to analyze what makes our personality and our record of community experience, how we enrich the ties that are generated in such relationships, the importance our communities actually have, and the role they play in improving our living conditions.
What is the Purpose of Community Social Work Study?
The purpose of community social work study can be subdivided into three closely related dimensions:
- The Analysis of Community Social Interaction: Community social work studies how a community is generated, what are the main means of communication, how it develops, matures, becomes in time, and what effects it generates on its members.
- Empowerment Inward: Once established operational rules and characteristics of community processes, community social work, looking through the community experience, builds the capacity of people to integrate, work together, and develop this intrinsic necessity that defines us as human beings interacting with others and socializing.
- Community Empowerment: The third dimension refers to Community action, the mobilization of the community as a collective actor, to meet the challenges and problems previously diagnosed and defined.
The Object of Community Social Work:
We could define the object of our discipline as follows:
Community social work, from the analysis of the characteristics and dynamics of community action, seeks to empower people through community participation and to address targets that only through organized community action can be achieved.