Social Assistance and the Role of Social Work
Paulo Pedroso ([email protected]) - ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
Jorge Ferreira ([email protected]) - ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
The beginning of a period of austerity in March 2010, along with the economic recession
experienced since the end of 2008, could reconfigure the country socially, if this combination
is prolonged and public policies do not adapt to new challenges. The available indicators
point to a reversal of trends in social inequalities, increasing poverty and inequality and
redistribution of vulnerable groups, to the detriment, particularly young families with many
children and large isolated elderly.
Austerity creates new constraints either to public services of general interest or responsibility
in the social economy sector services, given the financial constraints that have been getting
worse and the difficulties of families.
In a country at risk of economic downturn and decline of public policies and social policies in
particular , that new paths must have active social policies to respond adequately to the new
configuration of social risks ? In particular, a country that has little experience of managed
social equilibrium in the context of high unemployment, what kind of social work can be
developed in the new context of high unemployment, especially affecting the young and poor
segments? Since the retraction of policies to combat poverty points to new challenges for
charities and new profile intervention in public policy, what kinds of challenges are posed to
social services and how they relate to the "orders" received from the state and citizens? How
should and how can social constraints stakeholders understand their mandate between
citizens and state institutions?
0021
SOCIAL INTERVENTORS SOCIOPROFESSIONAL IDENTIFICATION AND THE LOGIC
SHIFT IN THE WELFARE STATE
Vera Diogo
Escola Superior de Educação do Porto, Porto, Portugal
Social assistance is at the heart of the constitution of the Welfare State, therefore it is in this
period that the professionalization of social intervention activities takes place.
Professionalization implies the construction and control of a specific knowledge domain;
hence Social Work arises among social sciences.
Since then, this field has been populated with an extreme variety of social policies, regulators,
intervention organizations, educational programs and professional groups. Third sector
organizations occupy a considerable role which can be enhanced in multifunctional
proportions (Evers, 1997).
This paper is based on a Ph.D. project focused on the processes of identification of social
intervention professionals integrated in third sector organizations. The aim of the project is
to understand how do the paradigmatic evolutions of social intervention and the
socioprofessional identification processes of social interventors intersect, having as scenery,
both the educational field and the third sector’s organizational framework. The methodology
is of interpretative nature.
Here, based on semi structured interviews with social intervention professionals, and
professional associations’ representatives, we intend to discuss how these identification
processes can be related to the logic shift, from “welfare policies to social exclusion policies”,
in other words, from equality to safety, within the Welfare State (Fernandes, 2006:112).
0022
SOCIAL WORK, AGEING POLICIES AND TYPES OF INTERVENTION WHIT OLDER
PEOPLE IN PORTUGAL: A CRITICAL POINT OF VIEW
Maria Irene Carvalho
CAPP-ISCSP-ULisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Even before ageing became a challenge to society, it already was for social work
professionals. What interested the social work were the older people who accumulated low
incomes, poverty, loneliness, isolation, disease and several outbuildings. The increasing
number of older and very older people reconfigured the intervention of professionals in this
area. This intervention is in accordance with the policies of the welfare state, based on the
rights and human dignity and a paradigm of social development oriented to social cohesion.
The professionals are now responsible for older people policies in social and health care
areas. These communication includes an analysis of the relationship between social work,
ageing and older policies and some exploratory results obtained through the analysis of
relevant documents that allowed us to characterize the field of social work intervention with
older people in the social security system and field of social action. This integrated analysis
in a context of economic crisis takes a critical perspective on the impacts of reconfiguration
policies for the older people and social work in those days.
Keywords: social work; ageing; older people; social policies; intervention.
0057
SOCIAL WORK: PROFESSIONAL CHALLENGES IN TIMES OF CRISIS
Maria Nuncio
Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas - Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon,
Portugal
The times of deep social changes, we are living in are particularly defying for the professional
praxis of social workers.
The rise of new situations and new problems, the contraction of resources and the new
ideological and political orientations lying underneath them, as well as the change on the
profiles of social workers, confront the professionals with the need of developing and
implementing new responses, based not only in a theoretical and methodological corpus,
strong but innovative, but based also, and priory, on a consciousness and on an ethical
commitment, able to fulfil, even in the most adverse contexts, the major principles and goals
of social work.
In order to evaluate how the professionals see and respond to these changes, we interviewed
12 social workers, working both in non profitable organizations and public services, in
Lisbon's region, about the changes they are facing in their daily tasks, the difficulties they are
facing, and how they think this changes will affect the profession and its fundaments.
It is an exploratory research that, despite the reduced number of interviewees, gave us
information about the new challenges faced by social workers on their professional
performance and goals.
0066
ASKING BENEFICIARIES ABOUT SOCIAL SERVICES PROVISION: CENTRALIZED
VS. DECENTRALIZED PROVISION
Bruno Alle1, Pedro Goulart2
1
ISCSP; University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, 2CAPP-ISCSP, University of Lisbon, Lisbon,
Portugal
One key issue in public service delivery concerns the mismatches between the type of
services offered and (i) the services demanded or (ii) the location where these services are
provided, often due to top-down decisions that disregard demand. Latecomer countries
regarding welfare systems have potentially higher redundancy of services by overlapping of
different welfare systems. In Portugal, corporatist insurance bodies introduced social
services exclusive to each professional corporation, contrasting to the later instituted
universal social rights and institutions. While some of the earlier arrangements disappeared
when new ones were implemented, others perpetuate its functioning.
Lisbon Police Department’s social services offer in one location a variety of services also
provided by other public and private sector agents. To understand better the need for such
services, we investigated the perceptions of 2656 (11%) beneficiaries. Regression results
suggest that the major reason for non-usage relate to distance to service location, with a
threshold of half an hour. In addition, unbundling the offer of services seems adequate to
keep the offer of some (leisure and psychological support) and leave others for general
services’ providers. Centralized territorial units should only provide highly-specialized
services, namely the only ones attractive enough for their public.
0071
WHITHER GOES THE SOCIAL ASSISTANCE IN PORTUGAL?
Francisco Branco1, Fernanda Rodrigues2
1
Centro de Estudos de Desenvolvimento Humano, Universidade Católica Portuguesa,
Lisboa, Portugal, 2Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Educativa, Universidade do Porto,
Porto, Portugal
The main proposal of the paper is to analyse the itinerary of social assistance policy in
Portugal, particularly in the context of economic recession and the recent austerity period in
Portugal and capture the meaning of the more structural trends that have been occurred in
this field of public policies in recent times.
The theoretical framework is grounded on the theories of social assistance regimes by
relationship to the theories of citizenship and conditionality of social rights. The article is
methodologically based on secondary sources, either documentary, either statistical.
The analytical path unfolds in two movements. At first, the paper proceeds to a reconstitution
of the major milestones in the evolution of social assistance policy in Portugal in terms of
their significance in building a welfare system based on rights and citizenship status. In a
second part, the article focuses on the period of economic recession and austerity which is
affecting this country and the countries of Southern Europe, analysing, in a comparative
basis, some of the main changes and features of the on-going process of redefining the social
protection policy and particularly the social assistance policy nowadays.
0082
MUNICÍPIOS E AÇÃO SOCIAL: COMPLEXIDADES E DESAFIOS EM CONTEXTOS DE
PROXIMIDADE.
Júlia Cardoso
ISCTE-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal
As transformações da sociedade atual, os tempos de austeridade em que vivemos e a
reconfiguração do papel do Estado na proteção dos cidadãos produzem efeitos de natureza
social e espacial que constituem desafios constantes à governação municipal; a Ação
Social/Assistência Social de âmbito municipal, enquanto intervenção de proximidade aos
cidadãos, representa um domínio onde potencialidades e constrangimentos andam lado a
lado.
Como instrumento do sistema de proteção social destinado a combater ou diminuir os efeitos
da pobreza e vulnerabilidade social, a Ação Social é exercida pelo Estado, as Autarquias
Locais e as organizações da sociedade civil. Enquanto organizações públicas próximas dos
cidadãos, as Autarquias detêm, potencialmente, importante papel na prevenção e
minimização dos efeitos da austeridade na vida das comunidades.
Propõe-se a reflexão sobre a Ação Social concretizada no espaço local pela entidade pública
municipal, a partir de estudo realizado que incidiu, no plano teórico, na abordagem da Ação
Social na sua relação com o quadro evolutivo do Welfare State e do Serviço Social, enquanto
profissão associada a esse quadro evolutivo; no plano empírico, pela análise da Ação Social
concretizada pelos municípios e das perspetivas de políticos e assistentes sociais quanto
aos modos de agir nos problemas.
0115
THE NEW SOCIAL QUESTION IN PORTUGAL - CHALLENGES TO THE
RECALIBRATION OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND TO DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIAL WORK
METHODOLOGIES
Paulo Pedroso
School of Sociology and Public Policy of ISCTE, Lisbon University Institute, Lisboa,
Portugal
The economic crisis has accelerated the emergence of a new social question in Portugal.
This social question is characterized by increased social vulnerability of broad strata of the
young adult population. The current public social welfare policies were not primarily designed
to target this type of citizens.
Moreover, current policies are under stress, with restrictive adjustments that reduce their
availability and impact.
The new social question’s incidence has been increasing in recent years. The recalibration
of social assistance to address it implies taking measures in the perspective of social
investment and of life-cycle. This approach, nevertheless, has not been followed consistently
in social assistance policies in Portugal.
The new social question also raises challenges to the methods of social work. Social work is
again dealing with social movements, though in a different context of the sixties.
Nevertheless, it should adapt its critical inspiration to new reality.