Working with Communities in Generating Social Policy - Essay Example

Working with Communities in Generating Social Policy Name Institution Working with Communities in Generating Social Policy Week 1: (Douglas, Friel and Morawetz, 2014). Australia is a country that supports equality. However, over the years, the growth of economy has benefited the rich and left the poor to suffer. With the decline in the resources of Australia, the gap between the individuals on top and those at the bottom in terms of wealth and income has increased significantly. The richest 20 per cent of families in the country now stands at 61 per cent of cumulative household net worth. In addition, the poorest 20 per cent of families in Australia stands at 1 per cent cumulatively (Douglas, Friel and Morawetz, 2014). With the passing years, the income share of poorest 1 per cent has doubled up whereas the income share of wealthiest of 0.001 per cent has tripled. The poverty line in Australia has increase and people dependant on government benefits have gone below the poverty line. If the issue of financial inequality is not taken cared off, the country’s economic circumstances would make it worse. Advancement of wealth inequality would have an impact on trust and equality of opportunities for the poor individuals and finally it can lead to health and social instability. Australia being among the lowest taxing nations, the government revenues has gone down by 3 per cent of GDP from 26 per cent. The government revenues have thus become insufficient to fulfil the needs of the citizens in terms of health, infrastructure, and education. There are many factors that have led to wealth inequality in Australia. They include, globalization, unstable access to technological change, unstable compensation practices for top managers, large tax exceptions and neoliberal policies in economy (Douglas, Friel and Morawetz, 2014). Various practices have been put in place to curb these inequalities. These practices include creation of job policies, fair distribution of health and education funding, reduction of tax breaks, long term improvement of early childhood education, changing the existing transfer payments via pension, establishment of trade policy and prevention of ‘political capture’ by superior companies and individual groups. Week 2: (Clark, John, 2004) The conceptions of public realm are based on the difference between the public and the private. Private is considered as individual/domestic while public is considered as market/state. The market is most of the time considered as private and public. According to Judith Farquhar, the existing differences between public and private is based on the division of activities, institutions and what Ribbens and Edwards refer to ‘being in different realms’. Identities and positions are therefore assigned and a separation is established. Globalisation has been the cause of the challenges of public-private distinction and is responsible for disorganising welfare states, minimizing public spending indefensible and over-utilizing democratic political government (Clark, John, 2004). Public realm has undergone challenges as a result of the ‘private’. According to John Baldock, this has led to ‘declining publicness of public services’. Globalisation and Neo-liberalisation are key factors of dissolving the public. Neo-liberalisation has led to problems of the public interests as it strives to completely replace these by rules and regulations of private interests. Some of the ways neo-liberalization is dissolving the public realm include insisting on the dominance of the private by dividing the market as a centre of private interests. According to an argument presented by Kingfisher, the ‘possessive individualist’ aspect of a man is based on the characteristic understandings of ‘independence and self-sufficiency’. This aspect of individualism is based on the distinction between public and private. In addition, privatization by Neo-liberalization has led to shift of resources, services and commodities from public realm to private realm. Dissolution of the ‘public’ also involves politicising the public realm (Clark & John, 2004). This is done through subjecting the public to other ‘regimes of truth’ and setting up economic and managerial discourses as key issues for decision making. Dissolution of public realm affects social, governmental, and economic welfare. Specifically, the dissolution has dislocated employment patterns and worsened conditions of service. Week 3: (Pawar and Cox, 2010). When social work is extended to the local communities particularly in the developing countries, it is essential to consider political engagement while addressing community issues. It is also essential to focus on key principles involving human rights and also social justice instead of considering social work as non-religious or non-political in nature. Social work education and activities vary significantly from one state to another. Social work practice has not given enough attention to local community activities especially due to political involvement (Pawar and Cox, 2010). The information for this article was extracted from books, reports and authors research and observations on community development practices in Asian-Pacific countries. The data were analyzed and evaluated using qualitative analysis method. According to the research, although local communities are diverse in nature on the basis of political power, religion, population income etc., they all exhibit a common profile. They are all characterized by poor health, low standard of living, low income, imperfect market, and vulnerability. Community practice is divided into five approaches among developing countries. They include community-driven development approach enacted by World Bank and is an approach that gives power over planning decisions to local government putting into mind activities like micro-finance, urban development, and youth inclusion; right-based approach that focuses on emphasizing on human rights other than charity and establishing the cause of poverty; asset based approach that use communities’ assets to develop community other than focussing on the existing needs and problems; sustainable livelihoods approach that is aimed at reducing poverty by involving in activities and using assets needed for survivor; local level development approach that uses social development ideas and principles and is focussed on exclusive dimension and multi-levels (Pawar and Cox, 2010). According to the research, social workers do not fully participate politically in their activities as much as required. Political engagement in social work positively transforms community conditions in developing countries. Week 4: (Craig, 1998) Different political activities impact community development differently. Community and social workers are supported by the government to offer assistance to passive control of economic changes and not to assist individuals to change with insecurity and disintegration of their lives. Domination of free market is considered the best solution to economic ills. The reality however is that, free market increases the number of people in poverty and exclusion. Tausz argue that, the results of free market economy in among Hungarians were increasingnumber of unemployment and homelessness (Craig, 1998). According to the article, the failure of emerging free market to offer benefits to individuals is a global issue and free market approach to development causes poverty. Failure associated with free market ability to accomplish community development vision can be demonstrated in UK experience over the years. One group of individuals affected by the UK economic policy include young people leaving school. Therefore, community development work would be effective if it lies on the basis of a correct analysis of political and economic setting within its operation point. Community development give ordinary individuals a voice to utter on their needs and desires in opposition to economic and political interests. The main challenge of community development according to Craig is reclaiming the language and politics from tigers of the world. The growth of community development may represent essential prospects for political mandate. However, identity politics is not considered the foundation for progressive systems of actions. Therefore, community development workers should analyse the claims of groups based on religion and race to illustrate the amount of support they have on the fundamental values of respect for dignity of all (Craig, 1998). However, this does not cut out social groups that deal with gender and race. There are community development activities that focus on positive practices like disability that retain internationalist perspective. Week 5: (Murphy, 2014) Social services should be decentralized and individuals should be screened and treated in their own communities. Community-based planners are considered part of the community even though they might stay in different location. In community-based interventions, all social workers and community experts are expected to imitate and act like any other typical member. This means that community-based intervention is a communal affair that encourages co-generation of projects (Murphy, 2014). The relationship between community members and community-based experts should be exclusive. It should entail commitments and experiences. Community-based planner should understand the structure of the community, its history and interpersonal relationships, thereby making it easy to define any existing problem and finding its solutions. The traditional theories of social work focus more on what is to be done by an expert and other people are indirectly considered. On the other hand, in community-based intervention, individuals live a communal existence based on the practice of community-based intervention. Unity is created in the process and expert and community participate fully in the creation of social projects. Today, many projects are termed as community-based. Some of these projects are focussed on communities and others on neighbourhoods. However, without a good philosophy at hand, these projects will never be community-based (Murphy, 2014). Becoming community-based involves vivid philosophical shift. Understanding this shift will assist social workers to eliminate any issues that may evolve when they start to build and implement an intervention. Also, projects and activities will not become community-based until dualism is eliminated. Week 6: (McKnight and Kretzmann, 2012) Over the years, community development has been perceived as not important and therefore social workers have a key role to play. With the troubled economy and social challenges, community development should emphasize on community partnership, capacity building, and community empowerment. Community and social workers have the ability to adapt community empowerment and community organising for fight against issues like HIV/AIDS, homelessness, health issues, social problems and domestic violence (McKnight and Kretzmann, 2012). An external organiser can also be used to create a situation where community groups can assess their social and health issues and find solutions that can bring positive changes. It is important for social workers to include community building approach to their activities as this has led to increasing currency in areas of health education and urban planning. However, it is argued that community building approach is not a strategic means of fixing problems since it just aligns community practice and emphasizes on building the dimensions of complex communities. It hypothesizes community as being inclusive, complex and dynamic system. The feeling of lack of family and community foundation represents an example of public health social hazards. Lack of community embeddedness has been associated with adverse health outcomes. Social workers who use their resources to enhance community building and who attach community members to relationships make a contribution to reducing public health issues. Jacqueline and Scott argue that social workers are conscious contrarians who reject the dominant nature of power (McKnight and Kretzmann, 2012). According to Beauchamp, social justice is an ethical and a key foundation of public health. Ethical challenges faced by social workers and other professionals dealing with community work include conflicting priorities, racism, sexism to name a few. General Evaluation of Articles Social work is a complex and contextual activity. Due to the many barriers that influence social work practice and formal context of their profession, I as a social worker am required to aggressively rebuild my purpose and professional framework by resisting and changing some aspects of my formal professional base. Social work is considered a means of positively impacting people’s lives. Therefore, I have the responsibility of working towards securing human rights for community; work with people faced with crisis and take action to help those at risk. Inequality is dramatically increasing in various countries. Economic growth benefits the rich and the poor suffer as a result. This causes problems related to social stability, health and long-term wellbeing of the community (McKnight and Kretzmann, 2012). With the gap between the rich and the poor increasing, an immediate remedial action is required. However, until the community understands and accepts the situation, neither the social workers nor the government will act on it. With inequality levels going up, I as a social worker should understand that working alone would be very difficult. Government revenue is required to support any project implemented to restoring equality. However, Community development activities are effective when they are in line with accurate analysis of political and economic setting. In order to maintain quality social work practice, I should strengthen and earn the trust of the community in order to attract the confidence of individuals. According to the articles, for a sustainable community development, as a social worker, I must appreciate the need to engage politically to social activities. Prevailing dominant leadership style and power concentration of particular leaders are problems faced by most communities especially in developing countries (Pawar and Cox, 2010). Political processes and leadership groups are some cause of non-development. It is difficult for such communities to be people-centred. Breaking the existing power structure in every community and eliminating dictatorial will help in community development. As an essential section of political engagement, I as a social worker should address the following questions: what is to be done to eliminate existing intolerant leadership style? Is it possible to share concentrated power among common individuals? Community development activities that can be developed implemented and continued by common individuals and community should be put in place without any external support. In addition, I am expected to exit my comfort neutral zone in order to enable effective community development free from political engagement (Murphy, 2014). Therefore unnecessary external dependence should be eliminated from community activities. However, if assistance is needed, I should cooperate with local community-based organisations and local institutions. Through this kind of networking, flexible techniques of self-governance should be established. In general, it is essential for me not to be involved in any religious or political group since am expected to be neutral irrespective of my beliefs and culture. References Clark, John (2004). Dissolving the Public Realm? The Logics and Limits of Neo-Liberalism. Journal of Social Policy, 33 (1): 27–48. Craig, G. (1998). Community Development in a Global Context. Community Development Journal 33(1). 2-17. Douglas, B., Friel, S., Denniss, R. & Morawetz, D. (2014). Advance Australia Fair? What To Do About Growing Inequality in Australia. Australia21 in collaboration with The Australia Institute, pp. 12-36. McKnight, J. & J. Kretzmann (2012). Mapping Community Capacity. In Minkler, M. (Ed.), Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare, 3rd Edition, Piscataway: Rutgers University, 171-186. Murphy, John (2014). Dimensions of a Community. In Community-Based Interventions: Philosophy and Action. Dordrecht: Springer, 31-46. E-book. Pawar, M.S. & Cox, D.R. (2010). Social Development. In Pawar, M.S. & Cox, D.R. (Eds.), Social Development. N.Y.: Routledge, 13-36. E-book Read More