Neoliberalism In Human Services Essay

Social work is based on respect for the inherent worth and dignity of all people as expressed in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights(1948) It is therefore of paramount importance that a social work professional should work towards promoting the best interests of individuals and groups in society. I very much recognize the contribution that social work brings to inclusion having worked alongside social workers during the course of my shadowing placement. I possess a real commitment to promote equality which I have had the pleasure of doing in a multitude of different roles. From academic journals as well as my lecture notes I now appreciate the central importance of using the fundamental principles of human rights and equality to underpin my practice, and the inherent need to promote justice in relation with the people I will work.

According to (Dulmus & Sowers, 2012, p.106), the history of social work is one of an old religiously grounded ethos of offering, aid and comfort. This shows that social work has been around for quite a long time, helping the unfortunate and it has developed more throughout these past centuries. The profession was largely shaped by Westerns idea and events. (Chenoweth &McAuliffe, 2015, p.32). The ideas and events included could have been war, poverty and other social reforms. That is when social welfare was needed to give aid and help solve these issues. Social work largely expanded in England in the 16th during the Elizabethan poor laws and later on in America between 17 and 18th century (Dulmus & Sowers, p.6). This essay is going to focus on how social work has evolved or changed for the better from the 1960s till present.

Human services is a profession developed in response to the direction of human needs and human problems in the 1960's (Taylor,2015) Characterized by an appreciation of human beings in all of their diversity, human services offers assistance to its clients within the context of their communities and environments (Taylor,2015) The educator of Human service professional, guide to promote and motivate the distinctive values and characteristics of human services. Therefore, human service professionals sustain integrity and ethics of the job, encourage clients, communities, and magnify their own professional development. Some of the basic values of the human services profession include respecting the dignity and happiness of clients; promoting self-determination; respecting cultural differences; advocating for social equality; and to act with integrity, honor, kindness and fairness. Human service professionals utilize these standards in ethical and professional decision making (O’Brien,2010) Conflicts can occur from the code and laws, policies in the work place, cultural practices, credentialing boards, and personal beliefs (O’Brien,2010) A Human service professional should display their ethical-decision making during situations to assure they’re making careful choices.

Economics is based on several theories, whether it is neoliberalism or the welfare state. Neoliberalism and the welfare state are opposite beliefs that have been introduced to help the United States economy. Neoliberalism has a key goal of improving the well-being of society while encouraging a ‘free market’ economy. Similar to neoliberalism, the welfare state is a concept in which the state is supposed to protect and promote the well-being of society, socially and economically. A welfare state can occur in a neoliberal state. When the welfare state is used, then neoliberals believe an abuse of power is occurring. While the welfare state can occur in a neoliberal state, the role of the government should be limited to allow for a free market.

This essay will focus on how contemporary social workers work to balance the competing demand of care and control. It will start by outlining the nature of the contemporary social work and what it is like and how it works within society. The discussion will then move on to look at and discuss the key professional values of social work practitioners and analyse its relationship to their own personal values, this will also bring into account how these values and views influenced the relationship a social worker can have with both service users and other agencies. Lastly it will explore the range of challenges and dilemmas that are faced by social work practitioners in everyday practice when it comes to trying to balance the demand of care and control and how they work to overcome these problems in order to ensure an effective and fair service to all who avail of it.

Social workers fulfill a unique role in policy creation because that is a time for them to advocate for the oppressed or individuals who are attempting to cope with the stresses of everyday life. Most social workers have the opportunity to work hands on in the field with clients during some point in their career, and during that time they are able to get a clear understanding of the problem the client is experiencing. In The Other America, Harrington makes mention of the poor and how they lost their connections to the world; that clearly depicts the importance of the social workers’ involvement with the creation of policy (Harrington, 1962). Since those living in poverty have been referred to as “politically invisible,” social workers are

• The growing number of problems in the modern world: Human services has emerged in response to the growth in humans problems in our modern world.

Neoliberalism began in the 1970’s and 1980’s after advocates supported the economic liberalization policies such as the rule of the market, cutting public expenditure for social services, deregulation, privatization, and eliminating the concept of the public good. Neoliberalism has had a significant affect on social work practice over the decades. There are strategies social workers as well as individuals can use to challenge neoliberalism.

As for the social justice value, we felt that it did not work to address social justice issues, and adhering to the social policies to maintain funding did not leave much room to address social justice issues. We did feel that this perspective did however, meet the values of dignity and worth of the person, as the perspective did work to address the basic social needs of people. The institutional perspective did not appear to address the importance of human relationships, as there was not much connection other than abiding to the expectations to provide service. There did appear to be a fair amount of Integrity, as the perspective stresses the compliance of expectations and laws. The perspective also appeared to demonstrate competence through the maintenance of expectations set forth through the various law and external forces that regulate

According to Duffy (2016), there are two different types of social work practice when it comes to working alongside a disadvantaged population. The first kind, is used more often and is called conventional social work approach, which focuses its attention on undertaking assessment and ensuring that individuals are families are received the correct support through organised services and support. On the other hand, critical social work, the less utilized approach aims to challenge the inequalities and oppression in society, by targeting the societal structure via activism and research, in order to bring forth criticism and questions on discourses attached to particular marginalised groups. The author proposes that both social work practices are important, however, critical social work should be emphasized on more frequently, especially with groups such as the ageing population as it targets the stubborn discourses (Duffy, 2016). Mattsson broadens critical social work, by relating it to critical reflection. Critical theorists have proposed critical reflection as a method to understand how social work practices can uphold oppression due to seemingly everyday actions, words and attitudes. Therefore, this can have an implication on how social workers execute their practice, as ordinary and structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies may senselessly abide social workers to uphold and reproduce social oppression, even though they might be well-intentioned. Critical reflection

The four policies Harvey says are vital to neoliberal accumulation by distribution policy and used to explain the state facilitating the 2008 Economic crisis are 1. Privatization which opened new markets of capital accumulation of 2. Finacilization which allowed redistribution, speculation and fraud 3. Crises Management /Manipulation which allowed “debt traps” a primary means of accumulation by distribution and State Redistribution

Front-line professionals, like social workers and feminist advocates, interpret and fulfill the ambitions of government policies and channel different services to citizens. As the life-long dreamer of those professional obligations, I always, naïvely, concluded that there are coherent morals- and ethical congruence between governmental entities and the profession of social work and most importantly, amongst front-line professionals and advocates in regard to recipients and retention or the strengthening of a welfare state. I deemed that entities serving vulnerable citizens should, but would, without regard, hold moral systems that sustain their ethical codes and constitutional obligations. Thus, recipients of a welfare state would be viewed

The neo-liberal experiment was the policy that transferred the economic controls from the public sector to the private sector by the fourth labour department. During 1980s there were four categories imposed by the neoliberals for the welfare state to follow were: containment of costs- to cut the welfare benefits, changing of entitlement and eligibility rules of getting benefits which increased the rate of poverty and hardships. Taxation was another form of pressure when GST was introduced. Prioritisation was given to health and education by the government while less priority was given to the benefit sector. Privatisation was based on home mortgages and Housing New Zealand was formed to control the state properties. The role of the welfare

The interaction of author’s voices and general perspectives shows the extent that globalization has had on our world and the idea that globally sustainable development needs to be at the forefront of future progress is clear. Alkali in particular addresses what he sees as the benefits from globalization and international groups such as the UN. This global connection however, seems as though for some sources goes hand in hand with the influence of neoliberalism. In A Primer on Neoliberalism, Anup Shah describes neoliberalism as “the mechanism for global trade and investment supposedly for all nations to prosper and develop fairly and equitably”. However, it has created a battle for resources and many of these places are in previous colonies of

Neoliberalism is the fundamental driving force of economic globalisation. It promotes a laissez-faire economy characterized by free trade, free circulation of capital and investment. It is in favour of the privatisation of public enterprises and the liberalisation of industries. The main political actors are Transnational Actors, Transnational Corporations, International non-Government Organisations and International Organisations such as the IMF and the World Bank. National governments provide infrastructure to promote economic growth, but they do not interfere in the economy. Free markets and a strong deregulation are believed to be the most efficient and socially optimal allocation of resources. Transnational Corporations take comparative advantages for differences across countries in terms of land, labour and capital. Neoliberalism is also reflected in an international division of labour.