SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL WELFARE*
Two models of
social welfare are usually mentioned in historical reviews of social welfare
and also in the contemporary literature on the subject. The dominant and
popular model is usually referred to as the remedial or residual model which is
contrasted with the other model described variously as the
institutional/institutional-redistributive or developmental model of social
welfare. It is frequently argued by some wellknown Western and Indian writers
that the latter model is more suited to the countries of the third world which
includes India.
Professional
social work as evolved in the west, particularly in the U.S.A., and U.K., has
been greatly influenced by the remedial model of social welfare for a variety
of historical reasons. This in turn has moulded the nature of social work
education which has the objective of preparing professional manpower for
employment in the field of social welfare. We in India are completing seventy
five years of social work education. It is an appropriate time for an overview
of both the profession and the social work education. While it is not possible
to do justice to such an assessment in this paper, a few observations would be
made before taking up one or two features for discussion.
Some manpower
studies carried out in a few major states in the country indicate that during
this period of seventy five years the growth of the profession has been very
slow. Even highly developed states do not have more than 25 per cent of the
employed social welfare personnel with professional education. For most jobs in
the field, professional education is not a required qualification. Salary
scales are unattractive and promotional avenues are very limited, both
vertically and horizontally. While official pronouncements of plans and policy,
especially from the 5th Five Year Plan onwards, emphasize developmental aspects
of social welfare, the financial allocations in the subsequent plans and the
programmes included in them retain, with one or two exceptions, the traditional
model of social welfare. The Integrated Child Development Services ( ICDS ) is
one of these exceptions. But the employment potential for professionally
trained social workers is practically nil because at the level of project
supervisors, home science graduates are preferred and the field level jobs are
not attractive or suitable to professional social workers. The other exception
is the programmes of integrated rural development, though politically important
and with substantial financial allocations, the employment potential for
professional social workers is not any better than in the ICDS.
Social Work
Education in India has been based on the traditional model of social welfare
and social work practice with some modifications to suit the Indian situation.
At the beginning of the decade of 1970's a few social work educators in India
(including this writer) began to advocate developmental orientation to social
welfare and social work education which was also the emerging new trend, both
regionally and internationally. The factors responsible for this have been
discussed elsewhere. An official committee endorsed this new orientation to
social work practice and education by recommending that social work education
should be in tune with social reality and it should have a rural bias in
contrast to the prevalent urban-industrial-metropolis model (UGC 1980). While
almost all social work educators publicly seem to be committed to the
developmental model of social welfare and social work education, there is very
little evidence of the implementation of this commitment either in social work
practice or social work education. We need not go into the reasons for this
here.
A brief
explanation of developmental social welfare, a convenient shorthand term for
the new model, will be made, before illustrating some of its features in a few
selected areas of social work practice. The term 'development' and 'social
development' are frequently used in the literature dealing with this model.
There are no widely accepted definitions of these concepts in the disciplines
concerned such as economics, sociology and social welfare.** The economist's
perception of development is based on his own discipline's bias and
expansiveness which has been described as economism by Nieuwenhuize, a well
known Dutch sociologist. Conceptually the economists have moved from economic
growth and later economic development as the central objective of planned
nation-building by the newly independent countries of the third world to a
broader but not significantly different concept of development. They include in
it some non-economic variables which together are referred to in a residual
meaning of the term 'social' as social development. It may mean either or both
of the following: social prerequisites to (economic) development and social
consequences of development (considered as undesirable). In U.N. literature it
tends to be stated as economic development plus institutional change without
clearly defining institutional change, but with occasional references to family
planning and land reforms as programmes or to the objective of social justice,
sometimes also referred to as redistribution or distributive justice. Gradual
elimination of the mass problems of illiteracy, unemployment and poverty are
included in this view of development.
The
sociologists tend to take a holistic view of the term social development which
includes economic development as one of the many components rather than as the
dominant feature of it. In a recent major treatise on development a western
sociologist defines social development as social-culturally relevant
development (Van Nieuwenhuiz 1982). To conclude, while at the level of
conceptual description this is done very elegantly by some, its operational
discussions tend to remain vague if not quite impractical and thus vulnerable
to the critical attacks by the economists (Sovani,1975). Social development, in
the words of Myrdal, “is the movement upward of the entire social system” (
Myrdal 1975 ). The goal of planned social development in India is to create a
secular, democratic, egalitarian society, which ensures welfare of all the
members of the society. The Gandhian concept of Sarvodaya with its emphasis on
the welfare of the weakest and the poorest (Antyodaya) would be a relevant
goal for this country.
The
developmental functions of social welfare have been discussed by some Indian
and western authors (Druckers, 1972, Gore, 1973, Kendall, 1974, Kulkarni 1974,
Pathak 1981). Promotion of values necessary for social development like secularism,
equality, social justice; to advocate the rights and interests of the
disadvantaged; to promote social change as part of social development; to
anticipate dysfunctional changes which are the inevitable part of the
developmental process and to provide for the protection of vulnerable sections
of the population who are affected by these; to initiate macro-level prevention
of major social problems; and to participate in the formulation of social
policy and social planning are stated to be the developmental tasks or
functions.
In what way
developmental social welfare differs in practice from the traditional remedial
model? One or two illustrations are presented. It is, methodologically
speaking, community oriented social work practice with the members of the
family/extended family as the smallest micro-level unit of attention at one end
and the change-orientated macro-level social action/social policy planning at
the other end. This approach discards, to a great extent, the philosophy of
individualism and the adjustment of deviant individuals and marginal, alienated
groups to the existing social structure which is taken as given, unchangeable
and generally beneficial to the people. Its emphasis is more on prevention from
the level of the community leading to the state and national levels, of social
conditions considered as harmful.
A recent survey
of a slum community in Baroda revealed that most of the handicapped children
suffered this physical handicap due to polio. Instead of referring them as
cases to the few health agencies in the city for individualized treatment and
rehabilitation, a community based programme of rehabilitation would be
organized by organizations like the Baroda Citizen's Council or some other
organization with the collaboration of trained health and welfare personnel. It
attempts to include all the cases of children identified by the survey.
Simultaneously, a community wide health education campaign would be launched
with audio-visual aids to reach out to every family in the community, supported
by a selective face-to-face group discussion, to prevent other children from
being victims of polio or other crippling disease. This would entail vigorous
immunization programme in the community by mobile teams which could be linked
up with the recently launched universal national immunization programme for
children below the age of 3 years. This is qualitatively and quantitatively
different from the traditional medical social work practiced through
institutional medical and allied services like hospitals or rehabilitation
centers, whether independently operating or attached to medical institutions.
The social worker works in and through the community with the support of the
medical institutions. The social worker works in and through the community with
the support of the medical institutions as and when necessary to deal with
severe and complicated cases. It should be obvious that the traditional service
infrastructures and practice approaches will not be totally irrelevant but the
emphasis is markedly different.
*Reproduced
from Social Work Review, 1987 M.S. University of Baroda.
** Some years
earlier I had stated that the economists tend to use the term 'development' and
sociologists use the other term 'Social development' for conveying an idea
which was essentially similar. (Pathak 1981). This needs to be amended
because of my subsequent reading and
reflection on this theme.
Shankar Pathak
Rtd.
Professor, Deptt. of Social Work,
Delhi
University
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