Essay On Cultural Competency

In the 1960’s the ADC ballooned into Aid to Dependent Families and Children allowing the stipend to increase to involve the caregiver. The Families used ADFC income to pay for expenses such as rent, utilities, food and other needs (hhs.state.ne.us,2009). ADFC discouraged marriage, pursuing a job which created a dependency on the program. By 1996, TANF was created to replace ADFC and created caps on the system. TANF is public assistance that requires participants to maintain a job and they can only receive benefits for a total of five years. People who qualify for TANF fall under the public’s eye as having a worthiness problem (N. Reid, personal communication, November, 2010). People tend to judge recipients of TANF creating harsh criticism about the program.

The effect of smaller government safety nets on families is drastic. The United States is one of the few countries left in the world that has yet to understand the importance of strong supports for the primary building block of our society. By continuing to balance our competing ideals of individualism against marriage and family we are putting the very foundations of our country at risk. Our current federal safety net is made up of many individual policies and programs. “They are generally independent of each other and attack a single aspect of poverty. Taken as a whole they represent a challenging matrix for the poor to use and the American taxpayer to understand” ("Safety Net Programs - Federal Safety Net," n.d.).

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is intended to assist families that are living in poverty to achieve self-sufficiency by providing the family with cash benefits. The TANF program has several characteristics of early U.S. social welfare programs. Although today, the policies regarding the TANF program are much different than the early programs and changes continue to occur to change the TANF policy. Today the TANF policy provides funding sources, strict income limits, and has incorporated employment programs to promote self-sufficiency of individuals that receive benefits, to name just a few.

Among those: job prospects, family, church, friends, rent and the cost of moving. According to Gardner, Policy experts say California’s large rolls are the byproduct of numerous factors: sheer size, tough job market and sheer numbers of single-parent households, among them. The state has nearly 30 percent of the nation’s one-parent welfare families. One major — and cash consuming — difference is California refuses to push out children even if the parents fail to fulfill requirements. Gardner states California provides unconditional support for children even if parents fail to comply with rules and regulations and according to Caroline Danielson, a policy analyst who tracks welfare issues for the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said the unconditional support for children is “a pretty rare policy in the country as a whole.” While few want to toss children out in the street, there are a number of conservative California lawmakers who believe hard choices must be made given the tough fiscal times for taxpayers, Arguing that California supports dependency on governmental help and handing out cash that it does not have. Furthermore, Gardner states recipient my qualify for Grants even if they go to work depending on how much the job pays. However, from the states point of view , this policy offers recipients incentives to re-enter the work force and move to self sufficiency

In the last 15 years the welfare system has gone from a government run system, to a state run function. This actually promotes a better welfare system that is in favor of all who are involved, including the tax payers whom ultimately fund it. Creating a program that helps prevent drug use while on welfare, and promoting families to find jobs helps everyone in the long run. The real ethical dilemma comes from the effects on families who are on welfare, and have it taken away due to time constraints. Ethical concerns created by welfare affect the families on welfare, as well as

Politics and government intervention has come to represent an increasing influence within Human Services. Our culture has since its beginning valued determination, and the ability of the individual to direct, and build their own future. For the extremely poor, elderly, physically, and mentally ill the task of providing for themselves becomes impossible. The history, and influence of government on human services within our own culture has often been met with controversy. Beginning with the New deal in the 30’s, with the creation of social security and the social welfare system; to today’s newest program involving the forcefully implemented affordable care act. The reliance on government funded welfare for many of the poorest is a necessity.

Many Social Welfare policies and programs that go into effect seem like a great idea, and have many good intentions until they go into practice. While Temporary Assistance to Needy Families tries its best to lift those out of poverty, it often does not. It is the final variation of temporary cash assistance programs that exist today.

Cultural Competency is a topic that resonates greatly with me, partly, because I am an immigrant myself; the biggest part, however, is that in the last 5 years I have been actively involved in the orphanage work around the world. I consider orphaned children one of the most vulnerable populations. The country I visited the most (may be 12-15 times) is Haiti, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The examination of the 30-year crusade to change and at last to end welfare, the book Gwendolyn Mink wrote is a burning arraignment of against welfare government officials' ambush on poor moms. Mink charges that the fundamental components of the welfare approach subordinate poor single parents in a different arrangement of law. Mink focuses to the racial, class, and sexual orientation inclinations of both liberals and preservationists to clarify the odd yet strong agreement supporting welfare changes that constrain the poor single parent to surrender fundamental rights and propel her to discover financial security in work outside the home. The reconsidered and upgraded version, the creator has supplanted the past conclusive part with a completely

The welfare state could be viewed as an assistant to help lower-income to middle-income families. However, even though the welfare state supplies protection against poverty, and other contingencies, it holds society’s construction as a whole in aiding individuals with elements like the in-kind goods and services, which provide health care, food stamps, and education. Until now, lower class citizens in poverty have habitually been a social problem for our conflicted nation for many decades.

One main effort of welfare reform is to replace public assistance with earnings. To date, politicians and welfare reform advocates have applauded the efforts and claimed success. However, lurking at the surface of welfare-to-work policies are serious problems and structural impediments. Lack of jobs, low pay, job-readiness, and difficulties in securing ancillary supports like transportation and child care are obvious problems that are not easily resolved. Full-time low-wage work does not provide enough income to support families, nor does it accommodate the demands that full-time parents have. These problems plague welfare-to-work efforts and make life very difficult for poor, single-mother families. At the same time, they create an opportunity to consider the value of care giving work and to reform the nature of low-wage work. (Albeda 71)

It was documented that reform legislation paves no easy road to helping people out of the welfare system. Some welfare recipients felt like they were just being put out without the appropriate guidance and support to be successful. Welfare recipients talked about receiving bus tokens for transportation and childcare assistance for their children and being told to report to a work-site and look for employment. The states were able to put up to 30 percent of its’ TANF grant into its child care and social services block grant. The funds moved to social services has to be spent on children whose families earn less than 200 percent of the poverty level, but "this provision is cosmetic," says a searing analysis by the nationally respected Center

Moffitt R. (2015). The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System. Population Assistance of America

The theory is based on the assumption that people view welfare policies from a moral point. The theory is largely informed by the belief that permissive welfare policies invite personal irresponsibility while paternalistic welfare policies would better achieve moral uplift and help the poor people on the society (Soss et al., 381). The study found out that welfare policies have indeed been influenced by morality politics and problem solving as evidenced by the TANF resolution in regards to two parent families being crucial to receiving welfare. The policies were in response to the moral illegitimacy of unmarried women benefiting from welfare while they kept on having children. The policies thus sought to discourage this illegitimacy and hence the restrictive policy choices adopted by states in the aftermath of

As a licensed educator and applied behavior analyst working with a diverse group of high