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.
Shankar
Pathak
Rtd. Professor
Deptt. of Social Work,
Delhi University
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