Social Welfare Law
Social welfare law refers to the legal framework governing the provision of social services and benefits to individuals and families in need. It encompasses laws related to public assistance, healthcare, housing, and other social support programs aimed at promoting the well-being of society's most vulnerable members. This area of law often involves complex regulations and policies designed to address social and economic inequalities.
5 Key excerpts on "Social Welfare Law"
eBook - ePubSocial Work and Social Policy
Advancing the Principles of Economic and Social Justice
- Ira C. Colby, Catherine N. Dulmus, Karen M. Sowers(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley(Publisher)
...42) A system of social services and institutions, designed to aid individuals and groups to attain satisfying standards of life and health, and personal social relationships that permit them to develop their full capacities and promote their well-being in harmony with the needs of their families and community (Friedlander, 1955, p. 140) A nation's system of programs, benefits, and services that help people meet those social, economic, educational, and health needs that are fundamental to the maintenance of society (Barker, 1995, p. 221) These definitions reflect a specific philosophy or view of welfare. Close examination reveals three common themes: Social welfare includes a variety of programs and services that result in specific, targeted client benefit. Social welfare, as a system of programs and services, is designed to address the needs of people. The needs are wide-ranging; on the one hand, they may be all-encompassing, including economic and social well-being, health, education, and overall quality of life; conversely, needs may be narrowly targeted, focused on one issue. The primary outcome of social welfare policy is to improve the well-being of individuals, groups, and communities. Helping those people address their specific needs benefits society at large. The Relationship Between Justice Theory and Social Welfare Policy All welfare policies are extensions of justice theories and reflect particular principles on the human condition. David Miller (p...
eBook - ePub- Arthur Livingstone(Author)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In this particular country, the statutory and private social welfare agencies, and the Schools for Social Work Training, are engaged in a tense argument with a key government department which barely accepts their right to existence. For one or another reason, in national affairs and at the level of international organization, social welfare as a concept and a practice is widely misunderstood, sometimes rejected, and occasionally accorded no more than a peripheral role in the determination of planning objectives. What then is the important contribution that social welfare organization and practice may make to both the definition and satisfaction of human need? Among the many possible ways of answering this question, perhaps the use of illustration is the best starting point. For this purpose we may take four categories of people with whom social welfare is commonly concerned: children, delinquents, the disabled, women. The child Indisputably, many of the issues that determine the fate of a child in any society are essentially economic: the financial resources of his parents; the health and educational facilities available to him; the later prospects of employment. But, as the present experience of many countries can show, there is no absolute connection between a society’s degree of affluence and the state of its children’s well-being. Visitors from developing countries who spend any length of time in the wealthier societies are increasingly puzzled by the contradictions they find within them, not least as regards their treatment of children. The prevalence of the battered-baby syndrome is the more dramatic occasion of their concern. Amid the desperate poverty of some lands, those who plan for a brighter future see in the increase of personal wealth and the improvement of educational and health opportunities a guarantee of greater well-being for the children of the nation...
eBook - ePubExploring Welfare Debates
Key Concepts and Questions
- Gregory, Lee(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Policy Press(Publisher)
...Need, citizenship, equality, empowerment and freedom then became concepts that came to define and justify state intervention. These concepts are explored and challenged in subsequent chapters; as noted earlier, they shape how we define welfare. The remaining focus of this chapter is how this justification for state provision of welfare was generated around claims regarding social and human rights. It is through these rights that other concepts associated with welfare were articulated. Figure 2.2: Welfare provision: the state vs the market Human and social rights: framing welfare entitlement Despite the breadth of analysis regarding the meaning of welfare, it was possible to argue that the central state needed to be involved in its provision. This was articulated through a sense of common humanity encapsulated in the idea of social rights. These rights sought to encapsulate both a definition of welfare and how this justified state provision of welfare support. Such rights, and how they are defined, shape the entitlement of citizens to secure access to welfare support at appropriate moments in their lives. Thus, the study of Social Policy requires an understanding of social rights. However, I wish to start with the more contemporary focus on human rights. While this breaks with the previous historical focus, human rights offer an easier route into the following discussions, and emphasise the common humanity that underpins welfare debates. Social rights, as we will see, are rights that are specifically associated with particular nations; human rights exist across these national boundaries. Human rights Freeman (2011:7) suggests that rights are ‘not mysterious things that have the puzzling quality of not existing, but just claims or entitlements that derive from moral and/or legal rules’ (emphasis in the original)...
eBook - ePub- Maurice Mullard, Paul Spicker(Authors)
- 2005(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The German Sozialstaat is devoted to the service of the economic system, which is seen as the mainspring from which welfare can be delivered. Economic development can be promoted directly, through the provision of services which facilitate the operations of the economic process – employment and labour market policies, or housing for workers; and, indirectly, by developing conditions which favour economic development – the protection of the health of the workforce, or their education. Much of the Marxist analysis depends on extending the principle of co-operation with industry to the point where it becomes the dominant part of its raison d'etre. Although this is far from a full consideration of the aims of welfare provision 37 it is enough to point to a central conceptual problem in the pursuit of social justice: that, whatever justice may be, and however it is understood, it cannot be sufficient in itself to determine the aims or justify the outcomes of social policies. This is why advocates of social equality, like Tawney or Crosland, do not even try to argue for an equal society, or for a just one. They argue only for more justice, and more equality, than we have at present. True equality may be, Tawney commented, impossible, but the impossibility of absolute cleanliness is no reason to roll around in a dungheap. 38 The future of welfare From the perspective of the UK, the existence of welfare services seems at times to be under threat. The welfare state which was founded in the post-war period was supposedly built on principles of universality, with a strong focus on provision by the state. The model which traditionally opposed this was the model of the old Poor Law: the provision of welfare as a public burden, on a residual basis, offered at the lowest level possible, with the normal expectation being that people would provide through the private sector to meet their needs, rather than relying on the state...
eBook - ePub- Hartley Dean(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Consumer protection rights, though they are not usually thought of as social rights, can be necessary to protect human welfare. Even if this author were competent to address such a wide range of issues, time and the limited space available within this book do not permit him satisfactorily to encompass a discussion of all the rights that might legitimately be defined as welfare rights. Although it may seem relatively arbitrary, I shall confine my attention primarily to adult rights and to those rights that flow from social legislation or that are defined through the institutions that constitute the welfare state. Additionally, Part II focuses by and large on the situation in England and Wales and it cannot necessarily be assumed that the provisions described will affect other parts of the UK in exactly the same way. Scotland in particular has its own distinctive legal system and the powers devolved to the Scottish Parliament are significantly greater than those presently conferred on the Welsh Assembly, resulting in distinctively different legislation in certain ‘non-reserved’ areas of social policy. For a variety of reasons, current arrangements in Northern Ireland can also differ in certain quite significant ways from those in England and Wales. Once again, the competence of the author and the size of the book have significantly limited what can be presented here. Given that the process of devolution will probably go yet further, it will in time become necessary to bear in mind the policy nuances and differences of detail that characterise Wales and possibly even the different English regions. The greater diversity that is only beginning to emerge is undoubtedly to be welcomed, although it presents a challenge to the writers of texts such as this...
