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Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Social well-being is holistic. It means having a voice in democratic processes, having housing and food security, having access to leisure and cultural activities, and having a lifestyle that contributes to physical and mental well-being. Fundamentally, social welfare policies are mechanisms to provide resources and services to ensure that everyone has access to opportunities, regardless of their social location.
In some cases, this means universal programs; in others, targeted programs may be needed in order to ensure equity. Many of the people who gained from welfare state programs and the neoliberal policies of the late twentieth century belonged to populations that are considered dominant in Canadian society. This largely unearned privilege provided them more opportunities to increase their individual well-being. A central message in this new edition is to give voice to populations who do not have unearned privilege and to describe and highlight their voices and experiences.
This includes people with precarious work, people in poverty, women and families, children whose early lives are lived through abuse and neglect, those whose lives are affected by mental health and substance use disorders, immigrants and temporary residents, racialized and older people, and people with disabilities.
Perhaps the most important agenda for all social workers embarking on their career in the twenty-first century is Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous people across Canada. This requires acknowledging multiple histories and voices, and ensuring that each nation is respected for their unique history, culture, and healing journeys. Social workers have an additional responsibility to acknowledge past colonial practices within the profession, including within residential schools and child welfare.
As social workers work to redress the harms and find new paths, it is especially important to ensure that practices of today both address the intergenerational trauma of yesterday and support healing for future generations. Social welfare in Canada will always be evolving and changing as the political, environmental, social, and global context changes. The social safety net of the mid-twentieth century will not work for the twenty-first century.
Rather than protections alone, the focus has to be on empowerment and access to opportunity, with decision making that is inclusive of multiple voices and histories. These perspectives are consistent with universal human rights which promote social and economic equality, promote the dignity and worth of people, and recognize the importance of human relationships.
This ebook is a static version of an article from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Social Work, a dynamic, continuously updated, online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through scholarship and other materials relevant to the study and practice of social work. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www. A consistent bestseller since its publication in , Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy is a one-of-a-kind resource in the fields of political science and social work.
Examining current conditions affecting the development of social policies in Canada, this book offers in-depth critical analysis of how these policies first arose and the implications they pose for future policy development. The authors offer fresh considerations of gender relations and families, community agencies and the voluntary sector, as well as the social policy activities of all levels of government in the Canadian federation.
Changing Politics of Canadian Social Policy will continue to provide the much-needed groundwork for students and policymakers, as well as propose real solutions for the future. Following two world wars and the Great Depression of the s, many of the world's nations acknowledged the need for some type of state welfare system to provide a safety net for their citizens. This collection of documents analyzes the global rise and fall of the welfare state in the 20th century.
What are the major issues confronting social policy-makers today? What theoretical perspectives shape our thinking about the causes of social problems and how we should respond? What can we do to influence decision makers about which policy choice to make? In this completely revised and updated edition of Canadian Social Policy, a new generation of social policy analysts discusses these important questions.
Readers who are interested in discovering the current policy debates, and who want to understand the policy-making process at various levels of government as well as how they can influence the process and assess whether policies are working, will find this book invaluable.
The Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America is a unique reference book that provides readers with basic information about the history of social welfare in North America, including Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
Since many themes and issues are similar in the three nations, entries provide comparative information about common as well as distinctive concerns and developments. Significant events, influential people, legislation, social problems, and societal responses are described in detail. Editors include specialists in the social welfare history of each nation, and they have collaborated with scholars from a variety of academic disciplines to prepare entries of varying length addressing these issues.
Included in each entry are suggestions for further reading that will guide readers to the rich resources available for learning about the history of North American social welfare. The Encyclopedia also provides cross-references for important topics. Social policy shapes the daily lives of every Canadian citizen and should reflect the beliefs of a majority of Canadians on just approaches to the promotion of health, safety, and well-being.
Too often, those on the front lines—social workers, nurses, and teachers—observe that policies do not work well for the most vulnerable groups in society. In the first part of this new edition of Canadian Social Policy, Westhues and Wharf argue that service deliverers have discretion in how policies are implemented, and the exercise of this discretion is how citizens experience policy—whether or not it is fair and reasonable.
They show the reader how social policy is made and they encourage active citizenship to produce policies that are more socially just. New material includes an examination of the reproduction of systemic racism through the implementation of human rights policy and a comparative analysis of the policy-making process in Quebec and English Canada. The second part of the book discusses policy issues currently under debate in Canada.
Included are new chapters that explore parental leave policies and housing as a determinant of health. There are very few spaces for children of school age and for children with special needs; indeed, the availability of day-care spaces of any kind falls short of the actual need. There are a number of smaller and in some cases more recent programs designed to support the family, including homemaker services, which provide help in the home; parent-education programs; and respite services that allow mothers a break from the daily demands of caring for young children.
Family-planning programs across the country provide information and counselling to families. There are also a small number of alternative services for women, established at the initiation of local groups of women in the absence of state activity.
The services include local women's centres which provide information, advice, counselling and referral; rape crisis centres; and a number of interval or transitional houses for battered women and their children. To meet the needs of the elderly, residential homes, including large centres for long-term care and an expanding network of smaller community-based nursing homes, have been established. In some areas community-based services for the elderly include drop-in centres, home-delivered meal services and homemaker services.
A network of services has been developed for the physically and mentally handicapped see Disabilities , including large-scale institutions and smaller, community-based residential services such as foster homes and group homes. Some jurisdictions have established sheltered workshops to provide training to facilitate the integration of the handicapped person into the community. Local associations for the mentally retarded, which advocate on behalf of the developmentally handicapped and also provide some services in their local communities, have been founded in many parts of Canada.
Services for the mentally ill have been set up outside the general health system see Psychiatry. In some areas there are community-based rehabilitation programs that help the mentally ill who have been institutionalized to integrate themselves back into the community; in others, emergency housing facilities and drop-in services are provided to assist people recently released from hospital.
Under the Canadian Constitution , the responsibility for social and welfare services rests with the provincial and territorial governments. The services are operated primarily under provincial and territorial legislation. Each province and territory has established its own variety of services. Some provinces delegate partial responsibility for the administration of social and welfare services to the local or municipal level of government, and in some instances the municipal governments also contribute to the financing of some of these services.
The federal government, through its cost-sharing agreements with the provinces and territories, is also involved in social and welfare services. Initially through the federal Canada Assistance Plan the cost for many services was split on a basis with the provinces. However in the federal government imposed spending limits on the 3 richest provinces, Ontario, BC and Alberta, effectively forcing the provinces to increase their share of social funding to as much as 70 percent.
Many critics argue if the present trend continues CAP funding will be eliminated early in the 21st century. With the imposition of severe budget cuts by all levels of government and the general belief that private social services may be a more effective and efficient method of delivering social services, there is much doubt and debate about the utility of public social welfare services see Welfare State. In place of the sharing formula developed under the CAP are block funding arrangements whereby the federal government issues tax points to provincial governments, thereby removing itself from social welfare services.
The federal government merely ensures that all provinces and territories provide assistance to those "in need," that each jurisdiction has a procedure in place to appeal the decision of welfare officials and that all provinces and territories not have a residency requirement as a condition of eligibility.
Yet despite the devolution of social services by the federal government some provincial governments are reluctant to agree with even a minimalist involvement of the federal government.
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