SWLF 1005 - Weeks 13-14 The double feature week on

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SWLF 1005 - Weeks 13-14 The double feature week
on social work as a profession

• Two important thoughts as we begin
• What are the strengths and drawbacks of a job you
  believe in?
• Generally speaking, what approaches to helping
  professions are most effective?

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Agenda for this week

• My apologies and proposal concerning our
  dilemma last week.
• Paper 2 review of last semesters discussion,
  in-class assessment of stages to completion.
• Now entering the third section todays readings
  Hick 2002 pp. 39-90.
• Quiz 2 handing it back and discussing your
  performance.

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Small group activity Two preliminary questions
one related to our work, one unrelated.

• On Tsunamis and social welfare
• Why do you think so much money has been raised
  (especially through individual contributions) for
  East Asian Tsunami disaster? What set this
  disaster apart from other calamities?
• 2. On Eminem and politics
• Do you think Eminems music has changed in
  recent years from being purely rebellious to also
  carrying a political message? If yes, why? If
  no, why not?

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The history of Canadian social work

• The rise of social work as a profession emerges
  in lock step with the upheaval of the Industrial
  Revolution, and the rise of capitalist,
  wage-based society.
• Those left out or suffering from these momentous
  societal shifts were the first clients of modern
  social work.

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The historical roots of Canadian social work

• Anglo-Canadian social work is a response to the
  policy designed to meet such circumstances in
  Britain and the US.
• Well until 1890, the vast majority of social work
  was delivered by religious organizations through
  volunteer labour.

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Social work and Christian values

• Most early social work in Canada was done under
  the auspices of promoting Christian values.
• But what this actually meant in practice was
  quite controversial.
• The most common interpretation of Christian
  social work was offered by those more inclined to
  a residual model of social welfare.

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The Protestant Work Ethic a residual version
of Christian social work

• Residualist Christians believed volunteer social
  workers should help the poor to be more
  self-reliant. Poverty was seen as a personal
  choice.
• Max Weberamong the most celebrated sociologists
  in historytook the view that this residual,
  Christian approach to social welfare was crucial
  in the early stages of capitalism.

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The Protestant Work Ethic a residual version
of Christian social work

• Why? Because the earliest stages of capitalist
  society saw pronounced shortages in available
  workers.
• In this context, choosing not to workor being
  homeless or unemployedwas regarded as a criminal
  offense.

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Distinguishing between deserving and
undeserving poor

• Recall
• The earliest British Poor Laws (1601, later
  revised in 1834) established the criteria for
  those receiving help from social workers.
• The undeserving poor were put into houses of
  industry or publicly humiliated. The deserving
  poor were either institutionalized or allowed to
  beg.

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The consequences for religion? Weber on
religious purpose under capitalism

• material goods have gained an increasing and
  finally an inexorable power over the lives of men
  as at no previous period in historyand the idea
  of duty in ones calling prowls about in our
  lives like the ghost of dead religious beliefs.
  Where the fulfillment of the calling cannot
  directly be related to the highest spiritual and
  cultural values, or when, on the other hand, it
  need not be felt simply as economic compulsion,
  the individual generally abandons the attempt to
  justify it at all.i
• i Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the
  Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott
  Parsons (London Routledge, 1992), p.124.

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Other approaches to Christian social work

• But not everyone agreed with the residualist view
  of Christian social work.
• The settlement house movement involved a vision
  of Christian social work that did not assume the
  poor were lazy, or in need to close monitoring.
• J.S. Woodsworth was among those social workers in
  the social gospel movement who argued the
  residual view was flawed, and that the real
  source of poverty rested in capitalisms economic
  and social priorities.

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Christianity as communism?

• Wordsworths ideas around radical social work
  have remained to this day. Many have cited
  passages from the Bible as evidence of support
  for communal societies that were hardly
  capitalist in nature.
• During a debate held in South Africas Eastern
  Cape Legislature on November 24, 1999, ANC
  Speaker Mkhangeli Matomela claimed that if
  Christianity wasnt Communism at its best,
  please tell me what it is?
• A recent ad campaign in Britain used the previous
  image (a mock-up of Argentinean-born
  revolutionray Che Guevara) to emphasize Jesus
  Christ as a revolutionary figure in world history.

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Jesus Christ as revolutionary?
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Early Christianity as communism?

• Potential evidence
• It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye
  of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
  Kingdom of heaven. (Luke 18 24)
• And the multitude of them that believed were of
  one heart and of one soul neither said any of
  them that ought of the things which he possessed
  was his own but they had all things in
  common......Neither was there any among them that
  lacked for as many as were possessors of lands
  or houses sold them, And laid them down at the
  apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto
  every man according as he had need. (Acts, 4
  32).

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Early Christianity as communism?

• Other examples
• The first reputed act of Jesus upon entering the
  main temple of Jerusalem to drive out the money
  changers (referred to then as usurers).
• Go now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your
  miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches
  are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
  Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of
  them shall be a witness against you, and shall
  eat your flesh as it were fire. (James 5 1)

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Film The Challenge of Love and Justice (2001)

• The producers of this film attempt to portray the
  complexities of Christian social work in todays
  world.
• How does this film address residualist claims
  that poverty is a choice, or the result of little
  self-reliance?

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Three eras of Canadian social work

• The era of moral reform social work via
  multiple, small, religiously-based private
  charities. Adherence to Christian values (a
  disputed term) is important.
• The era of social reform from private to public
  social welfare scientific philanthropy to
  determine access to social workers use of social
  survey research social work professionalizes
  (disputed by residualists).
• The era of applied social science social
  acceptance of institutionalist ideas post WW2.

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The professionalization (bureaucratization?) of
social work

• The example of Mary Richmond, and the social work
  model emphasizing casework with clients.
• Do social workers still engage a casework
  approach in providing social work today?

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Freud and social work theory

• The return of our friend Siggy
• Distinguishing between diagnostic and functional
  approaches to providing social work.

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Social work as a profession

• As a profession, social work has grown
  explosively over the last 75 years.
• Social work is often described as a job that also
  involves making a difference. This is not a
  job most do for the salary involved (Hick 2002
  62, 64).
• But often, ethical dilemmas are posed in the
  course of social work.

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Social work as a profession

• Hick explains that social workers often play a
  wide array of different roles.
• This means those drawn to this profession should
  be able to think on their feet, and adapt to
  the various tasks posed in certain situations.
• Most social workers are unionized in public
  sector unions.

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Different kinds of social work practice

• Social work with individuals
• Intake evaluating requests and eligibility for
  social work services.
• Assessment/planning evaluating the kind of
  process needed based on client request planning
  an (adjustable) course of action.
• Intervention implementing and assessing course
  of action.
• Evaluation / termination determining results,
  and documenting the process.

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Different kinds of social work practice

• Social work with groups
• Accomplished through a recognized agency.
• A group with an active membership is required, be
  it family/household, therapy or self-help/peer
  groups.
• Identifying the stages of group development is
  important.
• Group work intervention functions with the same
  overall methodology as social work with
  individuals.

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Different kinds of social work practice

• Social work with communities
• Formal agencies are often not required.
• Community social work activism can take a variety
  of forms, and address an array of different
  causes.
• Hick identifies four models of community work
  (82-83), all of which aim to create grassroots
  advocacy networks.
• Social work with communities can even take place
  in a virtual capacity (e.g. the Internet)

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Michael Moore and Columbine victims take on Kmart

• From the film Bowling for Columbine
• In the segment you are about to see, Moore and
  his group allies engage in a form of community
  social work.
• How successful was this effort?

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Next class

• Social work children and youth.
• Remember if you are behind on your second
  paper, January is the month where everything must
  come together.