Social Work and Welfare State: Intervention & Social Services
Social Work
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According to Patrocinio de las Heras, social work intervention is deliberate and scientific. Therefore, it is a rational and organized approach to social reality in order to understand and transform it. It is understood as a global system of actions responding to a set of social aspirations, raising the quality of life of a society.
Social Intervention
It can be understood that the performance of Social Policy involves the execution of personal services, either from the so-called Social Services, or from other management areas or sectors targeted at population groups in situations of disadvantage or social exclusion, or whose characteristics make it necessary to create specific structures.
It can also be defined as those actions taken to reduce inequalities and eliminate situations of exclusion. Its development may appear in different areas of social management, including health, education, and housing. However, to carry out processes of Social Intervention, one must know the starting point of individuals, different groups, and available resources in order to design prevention or insertion routes appropriate to the characteristics of each problem. For the design of these routes, the factors taken into account and the resources at our disposal are specific to each circumstance.
Among the dimensions of these factors are:
Material Resources:
Decent housing, access to health care, education, training, employment, etc.
Psychosocial Resources:
Participation in social networks that facilitate the sense of belonging to the community where they are given the opportunity to receive social support in terms of lack of presence.
Personal Resources, distinguishing:
- a) Knowledge and personal skills necessary for everyday life.
- b) Educational attainment
- c) Training and professional development
- d) Job search skills
- e) Social and communication skills
- f) Self-esteem
We cannot forget about the factors involved, i.e., the state on the one hand, practitioners of other social initiatives organizations (NGOs, for example), and citizens.
The responsibility of professionals involved in the intervention process: three facets:
- The liability to the entity that contracts them, to which they must account for their activities and comply with the procedures established by this entity.
- Accountability to the users of those programs that are required to provide quality service.
- Accountability to society.
Social Services
Spanish citizens have social rights recognized in our Constitution, i.e., the ability to demand a response and the obligation of public authorities to provide tools that facilitate the resolution of problems.
From the democratic stage and the recognition of social rights, you can define these as instruments of social policy, to ensure comprehensive care of the needs of individuals, groups, and communities.
Its principles are:
- Knowledge of reality.
- Public responsibility, i.e., it is the duty of the state.
- Decentralization, i.e., it should be closer to citizens.
- Participation, i.e., everyone.
- Universality, i.e., for all.
- Normalization, i.e., to avoid labeling or ghettos.
Their levels of intervention are:
A. General social services or community
Which constitute the basic structure of public social service through the provision of integrated and multipurpose services addressed to the entire population through preventive actions and rehabilitative care free of charge.
B. Social Services specialist
Targeted at particular sectors of the population, especially those whose age, sex, disability, or other social, cultural, or economic circumstances require specific intervention. These services may be managed by the Autonomous Communities, Local Associations and Institutions, or promoted by private enterprise or by those affected.
Welfare Society
(Notes from the day 01/10/1929)
This term came into use in the 80s, with a view to identifying those societies where there is a preservation and development of market economy and a set of social services within a regime of freedoms. In other societies, inequalities were not only in fact but also in law, as access to a particular status was based on:
- Race
- Sex
- Name
Welfare Society is based on the principle of Equality and aims to achieve increased quality of life for all citizens. ANDERSEM defines the welfare state as the model of state involved in economic and social life to achieve levels of quality of life, and its intervention is based on the principles of justice and social equality and political pluralism as the inspiration for all actions.