Search results for ‘Subject term:"social policy"’ Sort:
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Of witches, welfare queens, and the disaster named poverty: the search for a counter-narrative
- Author:
- CASSIMAN Shawn A.
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Poverty, 10(4), 2006, pp.51-66.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
The goals of this paper are to explore the utility of a narrative policy analysis, to locate the origins of the dependency narrative in poverty policy, examine social work's contribution to the narrative, and to discuss the potential for advancing a strong counter-narrative, organized within a trauma paradigm. This paper incorporates a historical review of the development of the dependency narrative and the construction of the deviant "welfare queen." The conclusion offers an example of a compelling counter-narrative integrating economic/structural violence (poverty) and the trauma paradigm and offers a framework for reconceptualizing social welfare policy. The article is written from an American perspective. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580).
Children, changing families and welfare states
- Editors:
- LEWIS Jane, (ed.)
- Publisher:
- Edward Elgar
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 308p.
- Place of publication:
- Cheltenham
Thhe nature of the relationship between children, parents and the state has been central to the growth of the modern welfare state and has long been a problem for western liberal democracies. Welfare states have undergone profound restructuring over the past two decades and families also have changed, in terms of their form and the nature of the contributions that men and women make to them. More attention is being paid to children by policymakers, but often because of their importance as future ‘citizen workers’. The book explores the implications of changes to the welfare state for children in a range of countries.
Principles of strengths-based policy
- Authors:
- RAPP Charles A., PETTUS Carrie A., GOSCHA Richard J.
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Policy Practice, 5(4), 2006, pp.3-18.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
While there has been considerable attention devoted to developing strengths-based approaches to individual, family, and community organizing practices, much less attention has been paid to social policy. This article proposes six principles of strengths-based policy. It argues that a strengths-based approach to policy is a more perfect reflection that social work values may lead to more effective social policies. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580).
Exploring attitudes towards the welfare state: students' views in eight democracies
- Authors:
- SABBAGH Clara, VANHUYSSE PIETER
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Policy, 35(4), October 2006, pp.607-628.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- Place of publication:
- Cambridge
The authors explore the dimensionality of attitudes towards the welfare state among university students in eight countries representing four worlds of welfare: liberal, radical, conservative and social democratic. They use new data from cross-nationally comparable 25-item questionnaires to derive a two-level bi-factorial hierarchical model that specifies six different attitude facets. These facets are clustered into two distinct sets of attitudes: the ‘market-based frame’, which entails (a) individualism, (b) work ethic and (c) internal attribution of inequality and the ‘welfare-statist frame’, which entails (d) egalitarian redistribution, (e) broad scope of welfare and (f) external attribution of social inequality. In line with expectations, respondents across different regime types structured their welfare state attitudes according to the six a priori defined types of attitudes and two sets of opposing attitudes. The study also found that the six facets are differently affected by regime type, which further corroborates our argument that the construct of welfare attitudes is complex and inherently multidimensional.
Welfare reform and child well-being
- Authors:
- DUNIFON Rachel, HYNES Kathyrn, PETERS H. Elizabeth
- Journal article citation:
- Children and Youth Services Review, 28(11), November 2006, pp.1273-1292.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
This paper uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine how the pre- and post-1996 welfare reforms influence measures of children's well-being. Despite a large body of research relating welfare reform policies to family structure, employment, and income, fewer studies have used econometric methods on data from multiple states to examine how changes in welfare policies in the pre- and post-TANF periods have influenced children. The results from this study have the potential to shed light on whether policy choices adopted by states are related to children's well-being. Overall, the results do not show evidence that state welfare policies are systematically associated with parenting behaviour or child outcomes.
A new rural agenda
- Authors:
- MIDGLEY Jane, (ed.)
- Publisher:
- Institute of Public Policy Research
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 168p.
- Place of publication:
- London
Social justice has been pushed to the forefront of rural policy as a priority for Government action, yet it remains unclear how rural areas and progressive rural policy fit into the broader social justice agenda. Rural communities share the same aspirations as communities elsewhere: a prosperous local economy, excellent public services and increased control over their own destiny. However, the route to meeting these aspirations needs to be more readily defined and action taken to achieve these progressive and inclusive aims. This book identifies the key challenges facing rural public policy today.
Defining 'quality' in social policy research: views, perceptions and a framework for discussion
- Authors:
- BECKER Saul, BRYMAN Alan, SEMPIK Joe
- Publisher:
- Social Policy Association
- Publication year:
- 2006
- Pagination:
- 20p., bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- Lavenham
A joint Social Policy Association Joint University Council report examining how quality might be defined in social policy research has been published this week. The report, titled 'Defining ‘Quality’ in Social Policy Research Views, perceptions and a framework for discussion', was written by Saul Becker, Alan Bryman and Joe Sempik
Does decentralisation improve human resource management in the health sector? a case study from China
- Authors:
- LIU Xiaoyun, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Social Science and Medicine, 63(7), October 2006, pp.1836-1845.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
A major obstacle to the provision of health services is lack of an effective workforce. Human resource management (HRM) can improve the effectiveness of the workforce, though this is difficult in large bureaucratic organisations. Decentralisation is a common reform strategy and this paper sets out to examine whether HRM would be improved in decentralised settings. Indicators were developed for three areas of HR outcome: (i) appropriate staff numbers, with (ii) appropriate skills and experience, providing, (iii) appropriate inputs to organisational performance. An attempt was made to link these human resource (HR) outcomes to relevant HRM actions in two counties—one richer and one poorer—in Fujian Province, China. One general county hospital and 5 township health centres were selected for study in each country. A health facility-based survey collected information on characteristics of the workforce and staff surveys identified changes in the management of human resources and staff inputs to performance before and after decentralisation. Whilst some benefits were identified from decentralising HRM, the complexity of the decentralisation itself, and other external pressures coupled with inadequate capacity building meant that some HRM actions were not always aligned with health service objectives. Better planning and preparation coupled with strong monitoring would increase the chances of decentralisation improving HRM in the health sector.
The impact of context on evidence utilization: a framework for expert groups developing health policy recommendations
- Authors:
- DOBROW Mark J., et al
- Journal article citation:
- Social Science and Medicine, 63(7), October 2006, pp.1811-1824.
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
Should the same evidence lead to the same decision outcomes in different decision-making contexts? In order to improve comprehension of this issue, this study considers how context influences evidence utilization in the development of health policy recommendations. The authors used an embedded multiple case study design to study how four expert groups formulated policy recommendations for breast, cervical, colorectal, and prostate cancer screening in Ontario, Canada. The authors interviewed expert group members and analysed meeting agendas/minutes, interim/final reports and other case-related documents. The analyses revealed varying policy objectives; the use, neglect, or overextended consideration of three key decision support tools; the varying skills/abilities of expert group members in using different decision support tools; the varying impact of effect modifiers, resource constraints and political interests; and the differing development/consideration of context-specific evidence to address uncertainty in the external decision-making context. While more work is needed to determine if these findings are generalizable beyond cancer screening policy, the authors believe the central challenge for evidence-based policy is not to develop international evidence, but rather to develop more systematic, rigorous, and global methods for identifying, interpreting, and applying evidence in different decision-making contexts. The analyses suggest that identification of evidence must distinguish between different policy objectives in order to link a broad conceptualization of evidence to appropriate policy questions. Interpretation of evidence must acknowledge the varying nature of evidence for different policy objectives, balancing existing emphasis on evidentiary quality with more sophisticated methods for assessing the generalizability of evidence. The application of evidence must also acknowledge different policy objectives, appropriately employing rule-based grading schemes and agreement-based consensus methods that are sensitive to the nature of the evidence and contexts involved.
Social policy for social work: a teaching agenda
- Authors:
- WEISS Idit, GAL John, KATAN Joseph
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Social Work, 36(5), June 2006, pp.789-806.
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
Though social justice is a central goal of the social work profession, the actual involvement of social workers in social change is very limited. Moreover, training in social policy and policy practice in schools of social work is minimal. As such, practitioners lack the tools needed to analyse existing social problems and policies and to enable them to intervene in the policy process in order to better serve the needs of service users. This article seeks to further social policy teaching within social work education by engaging in a survey of the existing literature on the subject and by offering a detailed programme for integrating this subject into the social work training system. The literature survey that serves as a basis for this programme includes a review of studies on the dilemmas linked to social policy teaching, on the goals and content of social policy courses in social work and on preferred teaching methods in this field.