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Social Work

University

Introduction to the Bachelor's Degree in Social Work. Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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Definition, history, and functions of Social Work

  • Definition: A profession with scientific methodology, praxis, and multidisciplinarity.
  • Current approach: Social justice, human rights, and regional/national context.
  • Xunzi (298-235 BC): Recognized the social origin of the discipline.
  • Wang Aushi (1073): Established relief institutions based on Buddhist models (6th-7th centuries).
  • Roman Law: The basis of International Law with humanist principles (Seneca).
  • Patria potestas: The authority of the Paterfamilias over children, women, and slaves in Rome.
  • Quintilian: Precursor of pedagogy; advocated for affectionate treatment without physical punishment.
  • Ezequiel Ander Egg: Divides the evolution into social assistance, social service, and social work.
  • Function of Social Work: Awareness-raising, mobilization, and organization for self-development.
  • Origin of the State: Collective demands from the working class led to public social services.
  • Key functions: Networking, resource management, training, strategy design, and social education.

Functions and fields of intervention in Social Work

  • Functions: guidance, education, and training for the peaceful resolution of conflicts
  • Research: identification of causes of social phenomena and proposal of solutions
  • Management: participation in social plans, programs, and projects (public and private)
  • Labor field: administration of welfare, social security, and occupational health
  • Clinical: application of treatments in psychotherapy and family therapy
  • Reclusion: management of documentary procedures for inmates and liaison with authorities
  • Incarceration: investigation of sociocultural causes of antisocial behavior
  • Incarceration: objective of social, family, and labor rehabilitation and reintegration
  • Incarceration: educational, social, labor, and cultural focus for the inmate
  • Spheres of intervention: assistance, management, and education
  • Assistance: tension between benefits as rights and bureaucratic procedures

Fields of action, instruments, and social work in prisons

  • Fields of action: care for vulnerable groups (disability, abuse, prisoners, immigrants, etc.)
  • Basic instruments: home visit, social report, social history, intake form, diagnosis, project, follow-up, assessment, and genogram
  • Current fields of action: third sector (NGOs, foundations), private enterprise, and the judicial system (expert reports)
  • Role in schools: conflict mediation and treatment therapy
  • Objective in prisons: achieving social reintegration and identifying criminal causes
  • Principles in prisons: respect for human dignity and participation in interdisciplinary treatment
  • Functions in prisons: individual/family intervention, risk assessment, protection, case management, provision of resources, dispute resolution, organizational maintenance, and program development
  • Study methodology: receipt of request, entry in the minute book, preparation of the file, summons, home/institutional visit, interviews with collateral sources, and environmental assessment
  • Relationship between intervention and research: scientific knowledge underpins professional practice

Functions and challenges of Social Work in the prison system

  • Main objective: Adaptive integration and socialization of the inmate.
  • Basis of intervention: Responsibility toward dialogue and conflict resolution.
  • Mental well-being: Social relationships in prison are associated with distress and hostility.
  • Anxiety: Highest level in inmates with marital relationships.
  • Hostility: Highest level in inmates with internal social relationships.
  • Medical care: Management of cases for hospitalized inmates.
  • Legal procedures: Guidance on divorces and birth registrations.
  • Crisis management: Procedures due to death or serious illness of family members.
  • Visit control: Verification of ties for intimate visits and prison-to-prison visits.
  • Structural barrier: Pyramidal organization and lack of autonomy.
  • Operational barrier: Predominance of bureaucratic tasks over technical-professional ones.
  • Security barrier: Hegemony of security forces over professional intervention.
  • Training barrier: Lack of training regarding the problems of incarceration.

Social Work in Protection, Adoption, and the Healthcare Sector

  • Objective of adoption: providing a permanent home and avoiding institutionalization
  • Role of the social worker: informal educator, facilitator, and analyst of social reality
  • Scope of intervention in protection: family (pregnant mothers, children in protection and adoption)
  • Specific functions: arrival diagnosis, selection of families, and collaboration with the family defender
  • Methodologies: preventive, promotional, guidance, evaluative, case method and crisis intervention
  • Techniques: home visits, interviews, observation and experiential dynamics
  • Obligations of the adopter: care, education, love, and provision of well-being conditions
  • Health Social Work: treatment of social factors that influence health
  • Health action: support for patients without resources through socioeconomic interviews
  • Priority populations in health: the elderly, chronic illnesses, severe mental illness, terminal patients, addictions, and gender-based violence

Areas of intervention and work contexts of Social Work

  • Migration: Focus on resilience and individual/family/group resources.
  • Human Rights: Principles of social justice, collective responsibility, and respect for diversity.
  • Contexts of Social Work: Geographical, political, socioeconomic, cultural, and spiritual.
  • NGOs: Non-profit organizations seeking public utility and self-management.
  • Supervision: Defined as meta-work; must be conducted by an external supervisor.
  • Civil Associations: Objective of offering comprehensive services beyond operational support.
  • Justice: The social worker acts as an expert witness (perito) providing reports to the courts.
  • Expertise: Includes areas such as forensic ballistics and automotive mechanics.
  • Education: A preventive and welfare function to mediate between students, families, and the educational center.

Tension between institutional theory and professional praxis in Social Work

  • Inputs of Social Work: transdisciplinary research and feedback from praxis.
  • Core problem: gap between institutional theory and professional practice.
  • Limitation of theory: sometimes fails to provide tools for psychosocial processes or political planning.
  • Functions of praxis: social counseling, case/group analysis, and the use of socio-anthropogogy and family therapy methods.
  • Required competencies: planning, coordination of organizations, and participation in socioeconomic policies.
  • Context: priorities vary according to cultural, historical, and socioeconomic factors.
  • Intervention model: the institution-user-social worker triad.
  • Resource analysis: must be objective and subjective (time, bonds, writings, benefits, etc.).

Nature, dimensions, and evolution of Social Work

  • Ontic-ontological dimension: defines the subjects-objects of the profession.
  • Epistemological dimension: defines modes, methods, and methodologies.
  • Gnoseological-cognitive dimension: defines levels of discourse and terminology.
  • Nature: Historical-subjectal science and subjectal technology.
  • Transdisciplinarity: Emerges from psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, and anthropogogy.
  • Academic degrees: Diplomas (Europe), Bachelors (USA, Puerto Rico, LatAm), Licenciaturas (Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Panama, Costa Rica).
  • Advanced levels: Doctorates (Brazil, Argentina, Puerto Rico) and Postdoctorates (Brazil, Europe, USA).
  • Historical roots: European tradition (Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy) and the American tradition (hegemonic after World War II).
  • Scientific evidence: 64 studies in developed countries show that home visits to older adults do not significantly reduce mortality/morbidity.
  • Latin American context: Structure of the international division of labor based on the extraction of raw materials for external capital.

Origin, consolidation, and trends of Social Work in Latin America

  • Origin: Context of exploitation and misery in Latin America
  • Nature: Division of labor, specialty of historical-subjective sciences, and subjective technology
  • Consolidation: Transdisciplinary process uniting local identities and transcultural criteria
  • Progressive trend: Transformative intentionality, reconstruction of the social fabric, and focus on social movements
  • Technical trend: Neoliberal profile, less ethical-political, predominant in post-dictatorship governments
  • Origin in Brazil (Iamamoto): Initiative of the dominant classes and the Church (reformist-conservative character)
  • Brazilian evolution: Process of secularization and technification under the influence of North American empiricism
  • Contemporary debate: Emergence of Critical Social Work against reductionist visions

The Reconceptualization and the Ethical-Political Project in Social Work

  • Origin: 1960s in Brazil (Cold War context)
  • Objective: Break with Catholic welfareism
  • Evolution: Intensification in the 1970s and democratic transition in 1984
  • Definition: Search for a proprietary vocabulary and categorical platform
  • Barrantes' Critique: Loss of the character of Science and the object (individual, group, community)
  • Brazil: Codes of Ethics of 1986 and 1993
  • Theoretical basis: Marxism (Lukács and Gramsci)
  • Commitment: Explicit with the working class
  • Key actors: Catholic left, Brazilian Communist Party, and academic petty-bourgeoisie

Conceptual Heritages of Marxism and Liberation Social Work

  • Liberation Social Work: rational reconstruction of the genetic emergence of the discipline.
  • Theoretical bases: historical materialism, dialectical materialism, and neo-Hegelian marxisms (Lukács, Gramsci).
  • Key influences: K. H. Marx (Hegelian stage), Paul Baran, Paul M. Sweezy, and Harry Braverman.
  • Structural principle: social dynamics and ideology are explained by the relations of production and the economic base.
  • Civil society: its anatomy must be sought in political economy.
  • Monopolistic capitalism: control of economic sectors by a few capitalists, nullifying competition and the law of supply and demand.
  • Conspicuous consumption: the result of profit optimization through mass sales and advertising in monopolistic capitalism.
  • Social Work: defined as a byproduct of capitalism, linked to its evolution toward monopoly.

Genesis and nature of Social Work in monopolistic capitalism

  • Origin: Result of monopoly capitalism and the need to control the "social question."
  • State function: Social work is a subjectual technology to execute the social engineering of capital.
  • Control mechanism: The professional acts in the extraction of surplus value, moralization, and refunctionalization.
  • Professional structure: The profession is technified, normalized, and sanctioned by the State.
  • Theoretical basis (Iamamoto): Insertion into the social division of labor and response to the demands of the working class.
  • Scientific limitation: The professional has intellectual training but does not produce their own scientific knowledge.
  • Nature (Montaño): It is a political and economic tool for capitalist accumulation, not altruistic.
  • Historical agents: Predominance of upper-class/upper-middle-class women linked to charity and the Church.

Genesis, identity, and historical foundations of Social Work

  • Underlying variables: alienation, contradiction, and antagonism
  • Professional identity: attributed by the State (not constructed by the agents)
  • Historical role of the Catholic Church: initial protection of the profession
  • Nature: interventional profession in the "social question"
  • Economic framework: part of the capitalist project and positivist rationality
  • State actions: technification, normalization, sanctioning, and direction
  • Labor condition: exploitation and wage labor (especially for women)
  • Professional profile: intellectual person without its own scientific production
  • Demographic origin: predominantly feminine and from middle/upper classes
  • Social context of origin: response to the mandate of the patriarchy

Origins and professional dimension of Social Work in monopoly capitalism

  • Origin: Related to the shortcomings of the bourgeois order and industrialization.
  • Key context: Monopoly capitalism and the "social question".
  • Function of the State: Manages the social question through social policy to control the labor force.
  • Origin of social policy: Result of the mobilization of the working class and conflicts of asymmetries.
  • Psychologization: Conversion of social problems into social pathologies or individual dilemmas.
  • Positivism: Used to naturalize the social and hide intersubjective dynamics.
  • Nature of Social Work: A profession inscribed in the sociotechnical division of labor.
  • Dual role: Participates in mechanisms of domination/exploitation and in the response to survival needs.
  • Basic motive: The profession reinforces the contradictions of the class struggle.

Historical and academic evolution of Social Work in Mexico and Argentina

  • Objective: Addressing basic human needs and improving social conditions.
  • Origin in Mexico: Religious/altruistic charity and assistance activities.
  • 1917 Milestone: Separation of Church and State and change in the figure of social work.
  • First school (Mexico): February 2, 1933 (Julia Nava de Ruiz Sánchez).
  • ENTS (UNAM): Started in 1935 for the Juvenile Court.
  • First academic program: 1967 (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León).
  • First master's degree: 1975 (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León).
  • 2001 Offering: 28 schools in Mexico with technical, bachelor's, and master's levels.
  • Doctors in Social Work: Approximately 10 in the year 2006.
  • Distance learning system: Implemented by the National School of Social Work in 2004.
  • Current functions: Research, planning, education, prevention, and consultancy.
  • Origin in Argentina: Linked to the hygienist movements of the 20th century.
  • Argentine focus: Preventive medicine and social hygiene.

History and Evolution of Social Work in Argentina and Chile

  • Argentina: 1924 creation of the Social Hygiene Visitors Course (UBA)
  • Argentina: 1930 foundation of the first School of Social Service (UBA)
  • Argentina: 1940 emergence of the first private and Catholic school
  • Argentina: First services in maternity wards, dispensaries, and schools (1920s)
  • Argentina: Reconceptualization marked by politicization and ideologization
  • Argentina: More than 27 university centers currently teach the discipline
  • Chile: 1925 creation of the Dr. Alejandro del Río school (a pioneer in Latin America)
  • Chile: Initial scientific focus, rejecting traditional charity
  • Chile: 1929 founding of the Elvira Matte school (religious, PUC)
  • Chile: 1940 Supreme Decree creates schools in Santiago, Concepción, and Temuco
  • Chile: 1948 incorporation of schools into the Ministry of Education at the University of Chile
  • Chile: By 1971, 7 out of 11 schools were dependent on the University of Chile (secular character)
  • Chile: Areas of intervention (1925-1950): Health, Childhood, Education, Rural, Urban, Disasters, Labor, and Social Security

Regulation and Practice of Social Work in Spain

  • Current title: 4-year Bachelor's Degree (under the European Higher Education Area)
  • Professional equivalence: Social Workers, Diploma holders, and Graduates
  • Requirement 1: Degree in Social Work
  • Requirement 2: Registration in the territorial Professional Association
  • Membership: Mandatory (Law 2/1974, Law 10/1982, and regional laws)
  • Regulatory body: Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality
  • Professional body: General Council of Social Work + 36 Official Colleges
  • Legal nature of the General Council: Public law corporation with legal personality
  • Legal basis of the Council: Royal Decree 877/2014
  • Deontological Code: Approved in 1999, updated in 2012, and reissued in 2015
  • Ethical basis of the Code: Principles of the IFSW and the Spanish Constitution of 1978

Functions and competencies of Social Work professionals in Spain

  • Definition: Social action professional with an understanding of social structures and processes.
  • Competencies: Intervention in social problems, mediation, conflict management, and policy formulation.
  • Objective 1: Reduce social inequality and injustice and integrate vulnerable groups.
  • Objective 2: Develop personal and interpersonal skills in users.
  • Objective 3: Assist and mobilize individuals and groups to improve their well-being.
  • Objective 4: Provide information on social opportunities and facilitate access to them.
  • Fields of action: Micro, meso, and macro social levels.
  • Key functions: Information, Research, Prevention, Assistance, Direct Care, Promotion, Mediation, Planning, Management, Evaluation, Supervision, Teaching, and Coordination.
  • Social history: Comprehensive record of personal, family, health, and economic data, as well as the evolution of the intervention.
  • Social record: Support for systematized information regarding the social history.
  • Social report: An exclusive technical opinion by the professional, including a summary, assessment, and proposal.
  • Social assessment scales: A scientific instrument for social diagnosis.
  • Social intervention project: Design including objectives, activities, resources, timelines, and evaluation criteria.

Fields of professional practice of social work in Spain

  • Field of activity: Public (administrations) and Private (companies and free practice)
  • Levels of administration: State, autonomous community, provincial, local, and insular
  • Social protection systems: Education, health, employment, income, social services, dependency, justice, and housing
  • Third sector: Associations, foundations, federations, cooperatives, and labor corporations
  • Target population: Unprotected children, youth in conflict with the law, victims of gender-based violence, people with disabilities, dependent persons, homeless people, substance abusers, migrants, and refugees
  • Historical context: Consolidation of Social Services in democratic Spain during the 1980s
  • Current situation: Resistance to the dismantling of the public system due to economic austerity following the 2008 crisis
  • Key distinction: Social work (profession) is different from Social Services (institution/system)

Historical evolution of social action in Spain

  • Middle Ages: Aid based on alms, brotherhoods, and hospital foundations.
  • 16th Century: Distinction between falsos and pobres verdaderos; public control of begging since 1565.
  • 18th Century: Poverty perceived as a risk of social unrest; use of Hospices, Montepíos, and Houses of Correction.
  • 19th Century: Emergence of the Social Question, trade union movements, and private charitable societies.
  • Constitution of 1812 (Art. 321): Obligation of City Councils (Ayuntamientos) to oversee charitable establishments.
  • Charity Law of 1822: Creation of Charity Boards (Juntas de Beneficencia) and typology of centers (Maternity, Relief, Hospitals).
  • Charity Law of 1849: Organization of the administration of public establishments.
  • 1883: Creation of the Social Reform Commission (improvements for the working class).
  • 1903: The commission becomes the Social Reform Institute.
  • 1891: Influence of social Catholicism through the Encyclical Rerum novarum.

Concepción Arenal and the precedent of social work in Spain

  • Concepción Arenal: key jurist and social reformer in Spanish social work
  • Action pillars: improvement of the working class, penitentiary reform, women's rights, and social action
  • 1859: Organization of a women's section to help the poor (St. Vincent de Paul Conference)
  • Key works: Charity, Philanthropy, and Charity (1860) and Manual for the Visitor of the Poor (1863)
  • Position: General Prison Visitor for Women (1863-1865)
  • Position: Inspector of Houses of Correction for Women (from 1868)
  • Analysis of the "social question": working, sanitary, and educational conditions of the working class
  • Defense of women: intellectual, moral, and educational equality, and political participation
  • Practical actions: founding of workers' housing (1872) and management of field hospitals (Red Cross)
  • Ideological current: reformist liberal bourgeoisie

Historical evolution of labor and social welfare in Spain

  • Key 20th Century Institutions: Instituto Oftálmico (1903), Real Patronato trata de blancas (1902), Consejo Protección Infancia (1904), Comisión Tuberculosis (1906), Patronato Sordomudos/Ciegos (1910).
  • Instituto Nacional de Previsión (INP): created in 1908 for voluntary pensions; mandatory in 1919.
  • Constitution of 1931: defines social assistance as a public, free, solidarity-based activity for basic needs.
  • First training school: School of Social Studies for Women (Barcelona, 1932).
  • Rectifying Biennium (1933-1936): creation of "poor cards" and the Law of Vagrants and Fiends (1933).
  • Benefico-Asistencial Stage (1930-1960): welfare-oriented, religious, operational approach without official recognition.
  • Schools of the Sección Femenina and religious schools: created between 1950 and 1957 with a focus on individual adaptation.
  • Public health milestones in Spain: Health Insurance Law (1944) and the Basic Law of National Health (1963).

Evolution and professionalization of Social Work in Spain (1960-1985)

  • Stage of Expansion and Development: 1960-1970
  • Stabilization Plan of 1959: the engine of economic development and rural-urban migration
  • 1964: Official recognition of studies and Official Study Plan (theory-practice dissociation)
  • 1967: Beginning of professional organization and the creation of FEDAAS
  • 1968: I Congress in Barcelona; beginning of the Technical Stabilization and Scientific Perspective Stage
  • 1970: General Education Law (Ley Villar Palasí)
  • 1967: Social Security Basic Law
  • 1972: Law on the Financing and Improvement of Social Security Protective Action
  • FNAS: Means of financing for charity and economic aid based on proof of need
  • Professional Crisis (1970s): Reflection on the role of the social worker regarding social control and case fragmentation
  • 1970-1972: Debates in Mallorca, Manresa, and Los Negrales on the community dimension and critique
  • Basic Method of Social Work: Result of methodological and scientific revision
  • 1976: III Congress in Seville; name change to Social Worker and rejection of charity

Evolution and consolidation of Social Work in Spain (1977-1991)

  • Turning point: II Social Work Conference (Pamplona, 1977)
  • Objective of Social Work: Social welfare
  • Object of Social Work: Social needs in relation to resources
  • Operational framework: Social Services
  • Field of intervention: Social action
  • Social policy institutions created in 1977: INSS, INSALUD, and INSERSO
  • Stage of professional consolidation: 1980-1990
  • Incorporation into the University: Decree of August 20, 1981
  • Guidelines for Diploma curricula: 1983
  • Creation of the Specific area of knowledge: 1990
  • Consolidation of specific knowledge in the university: 1991
  • Creation of Professional Colleges: 1982
  • Creation of the General Council of Social Work: 1983

Origin and structure of the Public Social Services System in Spain

  • Turning point: Constitution of 1978 and political Transition.
  • Conceptual shift: from 'charity' to social assistance as a right.
  • Main competence: Autonomous Communities (Art. 148.1.20).
  • Art. 41: Reorganizes Social Security and social benefits.
  • Art. 50: Express mention of the elderly.
  • Art. 9.2: Mandate to promote freedom and equality.
  • Municipal obligation: Municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants must provide social services.
  • Provincial Council (Diputación) competence: Services of a supramunicipal or supracomarkal nature.
  • Concerted Plan (1988): Articulates cooperation between the State, Autonomous Communities (CCAA), and Local Entities.
  • Basic benefits: 5 types (information, home help, housing, prevention/insertion, and promotion/cooperation).
  • Level 1: Primary Care (general, basic, and emergencies).
  • Level 2: Specialized Care (complex or long-term needs).

Evolution, regulatory framework, and current status of Social Services in Spain

  • Second generation of laws: focus on universalization.
  • Third generation of laws: normalizing nature, quality, and subjective right.
  • Catalog: set of guaranteed services and benefits.
  • Portfolio: regulates requirements, modalities, professional profiles, and quality standards.
  • Access to guaranteed benefits: requires professional assessment and objective proof.
  • Access to non-guaranteed benefits: subject to budgetary credits, priority, and concurrence.
  • Law 39/2006: defines benefits as a subjective right.
  • Law 27/2013: "improper" competencies in municipalities of < 20,000 inhabitants since 2016.
  • Moratorium on Law 27/2013: in effect since 2017 due to social and professional pressure.
  • Social Services: defined as the 6th Pillar of the Welfare State.
  • FITS Recognition (2014): social work's approach to the crisis is a "good practice".

References and external links

  • External link: International Federation of Social Work

Flashcard preview (6 of 40)

  1. 01

    According to the new definition, in which two spheres is social work expanded?

    National and/or regional.

  2. 02

    In Chinese history, who was the first to recognize the social origin of the discipline?

    Xunzi (298-235 B.C.).

  3. 03

    In Roman Law, what term designated the authority of the head of the family?

    Parterfamilias.

  4. 04

    According to Ezequiel Ander Egg, what are the three essential moments in the history of social work?

    Social assistance, social service, and social work.

  5. 05

    According to Andrea Oliva, what type of demand allowed the creation of social services with public funding?

    Collective demand.

  6. 06

    In social work, what is the objective of social research on problematic social phenomena?

    To identify and interpret their causes and propose alternative solutions.

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