Abstract

Below are my personal reflections on social work methods with specific reference to social policy. Based on my thirty years plus experience in the said domain, i engage with issues i consider important, and in the process posit some questions that i think the newer generation of social workers would probably have to engage with.

Laying the Context: Towards Unravelling Challenges Faced by Social Policy Today

The context is one of sixty six years of enormous, worldwide economic and social change. India has become vastly richer with an economy fuelled by ever rising aspirations. Society has become much more individualistic with a decline of a sense of commitment to the common good and public action. Aspirations have become more privatized. It is a society much more concerned with rights. The position of women has changed dramatically. The nature of work has changed with the collapse of many traditional occupations. India has become demographically speaking a much older society. Neo-liberalism has left an enduring mark with almost all the political parties embracing many of its ideas about taxation, competitiveness and the virtues of markets. Indian people, especially some of the progressive thinking people worry increasingly about the sustainability of our contemporary way of life. These are some of the key changes to which social policy in India has had to adapt.

Some sixty six years ago the nation state ruled in social policy. Few issues seemed beyond the reach or grasp of the newly independent nation state. Key social problems were national and nation-specific. National government could deal with them. That has changed in various ways. There are now more and more regions or sub-altern specific social problems which simply cannot be solved by the nation state acting alone in a one-size-fit-all manner. More and more local problems require global level action and it is a huge challenge. That adds another dimension of difficulty because the structures to develop international or global social policies are at best embryonic. (Mishra 1999 :ch. 7 ; Yeates: 2001 : ch. 4 ). Global level actions affect economic competitiveness, on which everything now depends – or so we are told by our political masters – because we want to compete at global level as a nation- state. Promoting competitiveness has now become a – or perhaps even the key guiding principle of all government domestic policies. To be internationally competitive the Indian governments must have at the forefront of their thinking how changes in wage, tax and contribution rates may affect national competitiveness. Today, what in the past were largely domestic matters, have much broader implications.

Population movement and migration is set to become one of the great social policy issues of this century. All developed and developing countries are trying to regulate and control entry into their territories and to their markets. Their need is to make good shortages of skilled and unskilled labour and maximizing economic gains while limiting the inevitable social pressures. In a more global world, with easier travel and huge inequalities in employment opportunities, income and wealth, migration pressures are inevitable. No country can deal satisfactorily with the issue on its own. There must be international policies, programmes and institutions, and they need to deal with the sources of the pressures, not just with developing better methods of border gate-keeping (George and Wilding 2002 : ch. 6 ).

The biggest threat to the future of humankind is clearly climate change – a matter not just of well-being but for many a matter of actual survival. It is by far the biggest social, environmental, moral and political policy issue facing all of us and dwarfs all other issues. Unless we get a firm grip of this issue there is a limited and rather miserable future ahead for many of us. We have to limit carbon emissions and do it quickly. No national government, however committed, can solve the problem for its own people. There have to be international treaties, agreements and action programmes. Tackling the problem requires a daunting list of qualities – imagination, commitment, trust, an altruistic willingness by the rich nations of the world to make sacrifices to help poorer nations. These have to underpin the creation of international policies and institutions. It is probably the most daunting task which humankind has ever faced.

Sixty six years ago we took ‘environment’ so much for granted that it would not have been regarded as a significant element in human welfare. With mounting concern about climate change, environmental issues have emerged as a vast and contested policy arena where the common good and individual desires, present demands and future needs are probably more sharply in conflict than in any other arena of social policy. Most people desire the ultimate ends of environmental policy; few willingly accept the necessary means. Governments are reluctant to grasp the nettle but feel the need to seem to be doing something.

Today, Science, Technology and Society (STS) have become complex and costly inter-depended entities. The boundaries of physical nature and the complexities of post-modern technical devices no more remain limited to the 20th century departments of physics and chemistry. Interdisciplinary research involves two, three or more science departments. Boundaries of science, technology and law merged and moral ethical issues arising now require public policy decision makers, legislators-law makers and the general public to be better informed and device norms and procedures so that at least legal issues can be settled ethically and satisfactorily. Innocence robs entitlements and rights. Sixty six years ago, we just did not know as much as we know now about the scale and complexity of nuclear weaponization. That was both an advantage and a disadvantage. But lack of knowledge today can mean that policies are poorly directed, misconceived or even harmful. At the same time, weaponization, nuclearization and militarization that potentially are destructive can be channelized to serve and promote human wellbeing. This cannot be confined to one nation and involvement of a comity of nations is necessary.

The main focus of those concerned to improve the nation’s health was on improving health services. The approach was essentially service-centered even though radical critics had long been calling for a broader strategy (Bhore Committee Report 1948). Over the 66 years, we have learnt that health services play a fairly limited role in maintaining and improving health. We have learned two crucial things about health. The first is the importance of lifestyle – what people eat, whether they smoke or not, their alcohol consumption, whether they do appropriate physical exercise and so on. These are what really shape people’s health. The second understanding which has come to be generally accepted over this period is the vital importance of poverty and inequality of access to health and medical services. The impact of poverty on health was not too difficult to anticipate. What was more unexpected is the evidence which emerged in the 1980 s and 1990 s of the significance of inequality. To improve the nation’s health we do need better health services; but we also need much more. We need attitudinal changes towards women, aged, persons with disability and other excluded sections. We need a policy focusing on lifestyle factors like diet, smoking, alcohol consumption, opportunities for exercise etc. And we also need a much broader set of social policies to do with income distribution and broader social change towards a more equal society. Obviously, that is a much more complex and difficult task, and much more politically controversial than simply improving health services.

We have realized the difficulties on the road to securing greater equality in educational opportunity and outcomes. It used to be thought that the answer was relatively simple: smaller classes, more teachers and more resources in deprived areas, improvement in syllabus, preparation of appropriate text books – all school- and system-based solutions. Now we know that doing these things about the education system is only a very small part of the answer. The continuing educational failure of children from disadvantaged backgrounds is the result of a whole complex of broader structural factors such as poverty, low incomes, societal attitudes, children’s and young people’s aspirations, role models, local job opportunities, the nature of the neighbourhoods etc. If we want to see greater equality and better quality in educational achievements – whether for broader social or for narrower economic reasons – then we have to set in motion an agenda for broader social structural change. Again, that is much trickier to design and much more politically contestual than modest increases in school expenditure or an extra teacher and a new building here or there.

Government of India produced a Family Policy in 2001. As ‘the family’ is seen to be under destructive pressure from industrialization, modernization and urbanization, ‘social policy’ is expected to have some answers. There are two essential problems in developing family policies. The first is the term family implies that there is one ideal type of family that is natural and desirable form. The increasing diversity of the forms of family underlines the point that no one type of family should be privileged. Different ideological approaches to family have influenced and shaped development of social policy and action in broader political arena. The challenge has been determining the most effective policies to support families without invading family privacy and weakening family responsibility. The second problem is that there is a realization that the traditional family is characterized by inequalities in allocation of resources and that these inequalities are maintained by the state through a gamut of social and economic policies; the state has played a part in undermining the normal family by tolerating high levels of unemployment/ under-employment and domestic violence. The social and economic policies of the state have resulted in lower fertility, older age of childbearing, increasing childlessness, smaller family size, living alone, lone parenthood, rise in co-habitation, prevalence of divorce, greater diversity in family size, composition and kinship patterns, increase in employment of women, more geographic dispersal of families and increase in reconstituted families. A wide range of government departments have an interest and a stake in the family. Urging all relevant government departments to be more aware of the needs of families is simply a recipe for continued inaction as family issues will only very occasionally become a priority. Hence, handing over ‘family responsibilities’ to one ministry is not feasible.

More women – the great unpaid and largely unacknowledged caring force – are in paid employment outside their homes not just because they want to be but because household economies and the national economy both need them to be. We have to come to terms with the fact that there are more differently able and elderly people who are likely to be highly dependent for much longer than in the past. The fact that more women are in paid employment opens up another key dimension of care-giving – that of responsibility for the care of young children in this sort of dual employment society. Till recently, governments simply assumed that personal care-giving would go on being carried out as it always had been. Now we have begun rather belatedly to grasp that it will not. How should the young be cared for? Who should care for them? Who should pay for the care they need? It is the famous old question ‘whose children?’ albeit in a slightly newer form. The issue essentially is to do with the proper balance of responsibility between individuals, families, employers, society and state both for providing and paying for the care they receive. Care-giving has to become a major preoccupation for governments. Then there is the question of what policies can best achieve the goals implicit in safeguarding gender equalities.

Now, sixty six years on, the sphere of government action to promote human welfare has hugely widened. To give a few very varied examples of this development – organ transfers, artificial reproductive techniques, surrogacy, stem cells treatment – require government regulation as they have ethical, moral, spiritual and legal implications. Polices in which doctors play a pivotal role, medicines used to induce labour in ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana’ result in maternal deaths rather than prevent maternal deaths and promote mother and child survival. Such initiatives look like rather ill-considered tokenism to deal with an important urgent concern. What it meant was an extension of government action into what in the past would not have been seen as an appropriate area for public policy.

A much more important extension of government action to promote social welfare has been the enactment of The Prevention of Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes and Schedules Tribes Act 1986, the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act 2005, laws concerning marriage and other similar laws that are intrusive. These laws deal with specific acts of human rights violations against untouchables, tribal people, people with disability, displaced people, children and women. Sixty six years ago none of these were accepted social policy territory. Discrimination or human rights violations were simply not seen or accepted as social problems; they were seen more as private trouble than a public issue. Now these arenas are pretty much generally accepted as arenas where government should be active. Tackling inequalities, discrimination and atrocities are certainly basic to people’s welfare. But the task of keeping a watchful eye on the whole area of inspection, responding to individual complaints and dealing with large and complex public and private organizations’ activity, policy development, public education and implementation is a daunting one. It is much more complicated in terms of the policies, programmes and service delivery systems required than is the provision of traditional basic social services such as school education, correctional services etc.

Social policy has always been concerned with crime and delinquency, with how the deviant and the delinquent can be resocialized with relevant policies, systems and institutions. In recent years that brief has hugely widened. In societies where the bondage between different communities traditionally bound together have been weakened, strained or broken, social policy is now seen as having the responsibility of creating, maintaining and, in certain circumstances, restoring social order and social security. Its brief has extended to building societies where there is respect for people and property, a regard for the common good and helping to foster ‘social capital’. Order in society and freedom from fear of crime, disorder and violence are, after all,the very basis of welfare. But it is a new, complex and hugely daunting task. The factors which hold societies together – which create society and maintain order in society – are immensely complex. In the name of national security, state sometimes has oppressed/is oppressing its own people.

Consequences of policy creep

The great danger in the sort of policy ‘creep’ involved in this huge widening of the sphere of social policy is that the reach of social policy all too easily exceeds its grasp. Public opinion feels that something should be done and looks to government for action. Governments extend and expand their roles and responsibilities. As the reach and ambition of governments expand, so their grasp inevitably tends to weaken. They move into areas where it is less clear what they can do or how they can achieve their desired objectives. Certainly, these areas are central to human well-being and so, on the face of it, are proper concerns for government. But the issues are very complex. Failures are inevitable but not readily forgiven by voters and commentators.

Just as we have discovered limits to growth, so we have discovered limits to what the state can do to promote welfare. There are various dimensions to this decline in confidence. Part of the problem is a reduction in confidence in the state’s fundamental capacity and competence to achieve its goals across a range of government activities. This was evident from the fact that India was placed 136 out of 186 countries on Human Development Index in 2012 (Human Development Report -2012 released by UNDP March 2013). Obviously, there are all sorts of reasons for this poor performance. What have governments in India been doing and failing to do in recent years to produce this shameful result? Have government policies simply been misconceived and unfit, or is it their implementation which has been a failure? In the last ten years there is a rush to legislate, but just having laws on paper hardly inspires confidence that the government has carefully considered the issues and knows what it is doing. It looks more like government by knee-jerk reaction to events or media scares rather than a measured, reflective, evidence-based approach to policy-making. What makes it worse is that administrative systems simply cannot cope with the continuous change produced by this sort of knee-jerk reactive governance. Critics make hay in the inevitable chaos which results. Claimants and the standing of government both suffer.

It was some years after 1975 that policy implementation emerged as an issue for discussion. Before that most people did not see that there was a possible problem. Generally people assumed in an embarrassingly simple-minded fashion that once a policy is formulated, it will somehow get translated unproblematically into activities which delivered the desired policy goals. Bitter experience has taught the people that there are lots of implementation deficits. Good intentions do not necessarily translate easily or automatically into desired policy outcomes. Sadly, people now know that it is not that simple. People now know that implementation systems must be examined rigorously and policy aims and objectives must be assessed against actual achievements. Confidence in the state’s basic capacity and competence has been greatly weakened over the years by this kind of serious and well publicized policy and administrative failure. Confidence has also, of course, been eroded by philosophical and intellectual critiques of the impossibility of effective thorough planning and the supposed inevitable limitations of human wisdom (Hayek 1960 , 1979 ).

Another aspect of this loss of confidence in the state is to do with a loss of trust. The rise and proliferation of illiberal ‘majoritarianism’ – the interpretation that their election as a writ to do whatever they want once in office by the democratically elected ruling representatives has contributed to the loss of trust. The elected ruling representatives ignore the opposition, choke the media and behave imperiously as if democracy is only about right to vote. People have begun to sense that those who get elected are stealing something more than money: peoples’ voice and right to participate in governance. A majority of voters do not now trust politicians to tell the truth on controversial issues. Trust in government is central and essential to effective policy development in the modern world because of the complexity, wide-ranging and long-term nature of so many issues. Most people, including elected peoples’ representatives are not in a position to judge for themselves the true seriousness of problems, the range of possible alternative policies available or the criteria for deciding between them. People have no alternative but to trust the government. If governments cannot command, sustain and justify that necessary trust they are hugely weakened. Thanks to ICT revolution, the aggrieved now have much more power to engage in and require their elected leaders to engage in two-way conversation. The result is that autocracy has become much less sustainable than ever.

An area which brings together the two issues of capacity/competence and trust is the position of bureaucrats and professionals. They are the key technicians of the social policy enterprise. Their standing has suffered severely from the decline of confidence in state capacity and the decline in trust and they themselves have played a significant part in that decline. Bureaucrats are no longer generally seen as disinterested servants of the public good but as actual or potential self-interested rent seekers – out for policy developments to secure greater powers and larger rewards for themselves. They must also take a large share of the blame for huge and costly administrative mistakes and inefficiencies, huge under- and overpayments, for the long running failures and delays, shortcomings and massive cost overruns in new and vastly expensive development projects in various departments.

Professionals have their own charges to face. In recent years, doctors have successfully negotiated massive increases in salaries alongside significant reductions in hours of work, so reducing their availability in public health facilities, especially in rural, remote areas. In the area of women’s childbirth, widespread use of outmoded harmful practices and neglect of well-established best practices by doctors are reported regularly. Chartered Accountants have come under attack for manipulating company accounts and for their complicity in defrauding share holders and employees. Lawyers getting criminals acquitted based on shoddy investigation. Social workers, especially those who work in residential institutions are also repeatedly shown to have failed in their basic responsibilities. There seems to be a never-ending flow of inquiries into mistreatment and malpractice in the government residential care homes for vulnerable people.

The Indian state emerged from the clutches of colonial rule with enormous prestige. It was confidently assumed that the state could win the confidence of people as it had during the freedom struggle. Initially it did; and it quickly and successfully laid down the basic infrastructure of the welfare state. But, for a variety of reasons, that crucial confidence in the state’s capacity, competence and trustworthiness has ebbed away. Only as it has ebbed, have people realized just how important is confidence in the state’s capacity to manage social policy development and expanding budgets. Three underlying implicit assumptions guided social policy development in the 1960 s – good intentions produce good results; increased expenditure is always good; professionals and bureaucrats are skilled, well-intentioned and altruistic. No one would now accept any of these assumptions without some qualification. The impact of these bureaucratic and professional failures on public confidence is powerful and cumulative.

The death of such innocence has led to new watchwords. Perhaps the most famous was the emphasis from the 1990 s on analyzing and promoting economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Because of the concern about government competence, implementation deficits and bureaucratic and professional failures, there is a growing interest in organization and management issues and techniques. There were good and bad sides of this and it made a huge impact. This interest fed and fostered the growth of a major evaluation industry concerned with measuring what staff and services were expected to do but are not doing, what they were costing and what they were actually achieving. The problem is that it is always easier to measure costs than benefits, inputs rather than outcomes. And the bean counters have seized on the things they can measure rather than the more important but more elusive elements of governments’ performance.

In universities, for example, the emphasis becomes directed to the number and peer-assessed quality of research papers published rather than to the number of young minds stretched, the analytical skills polished and refined. The so-called target culture has certainly brought gains. By making rewards depend on meeting targets, government’s chosen priorities have been enforced. The question then becomes one of whether the goals and targets are the right ones. But by its very nature, such a target-centered approach limits organizational and professional flexibility, discretion and independence. This area of concern also stimulated a rich research interest into how organizations work: what makes an organization effective? What makes a good school or a good hospital? How and why do organizations and institutions go wrong and become corrupted? (Martin 1984 ; Wardaugh and Wilding 1993 ); how can high-quality services best be maintained and promoted? (Wilding 1994 ).

Concern for effectiveness and efficiency and a lack of trust and confidence in professionals and bureaucracy to deliver the type of services people wanted stimulated two other linked developments. The first was a move to encourage citizen/user participation in discussions about service development and organization of delivery systems. Peoples’ participation was used more as a rubber-stamp to legitimize than to truly to get them involved in the process of ensuring quality of services delivered. The second was a move to develop new mechanisms to secure the greater accountability of service providers. If the public domain is to be re-invented by giving people a direct say and an ability to call providers to account must be made to work, Marquand argues (Marquand 2004 : 139 ). How to do this economically, efficiently and effectively we are yet to discover!

In recent years the organization and management of services has become much more complex. Sixty six years ago the state simply provided, funded and managed the one-size-fits-all services. Things began to get more complex with the development of the idea that users should have a choice between different kinds and qualities of services. Rise of identity politics added to the complication. Public bodies ceased to provide some services directly; but to contract out aspects of service provision, they had to specify in considerable detail the type and level of the services which were required and had to recruit, fund and regulate a range of providers. The governments were shuffling into a new world where they were to be enablers, funders and regulators rather than simply being service-providers. This was a realization and acceptance that welfare was not simply a field of state activity but was, in fact, a complex mixed economy involving state, market, family, corporate and voluntary bodies. Much more was required of managers than in the past.

The founding members of the Indian state did not give a lot of thought to economics. In 1947, many social policy academics were equally negligent of public finance and economics even though there was an emerging literature on levels of public expenditure, levels of taxation and the supposed virtues of competitive markets. Many of the academics taught their students rather little about the emerging debates about these aspects. They assumed that these issues had been resolved and that history was firmly on their side. They also took continued economic growth pretty much for granted. They assumed that the grand designs they formulated for social development were readily affordable without significant opportunity costs. This state of blissful innocence was brought to an end by two things – events and ideology.

The end of the long postwar boom and full employment in the West in the early 1970 s meant that developments in social policy could no longer be financed painlessly from the fruits of economic growth. Debates about priorities sharpened. These ideas had an influence on the Indian planners and economists as well. Beginning from the late 1970s, health of Indian economy became a greater priority and could no longer simply be taken for granted. The economy became the central preoccupation for governments since the mid 1980s. Equally important was the rise of neo-liberalism at this stage, which argued that the economic growth rather than welfare development was the main engine of welfare. The neo-liberals also promoted a set of powerful, if overly simplistic beliefs about what made for a healthy economy and how growth could best be promoted by reducing rates of public expenditure, lowering taxes, giving greater incentives to risk-taking entrepreneurs, cutting public expenditure on social benefits to reduce dependency, pricing people back into work, and so on. These ‘beliefs’ assumed the status of given truths which can be captured very clearly in the reports of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Five Year Plans, Development Reports and other government documents in the 1990s. Beliefs without supporting evidence were presented as accepted fact because multi-lateral authorities said so.

More problems have to be seen as having a global dimension. Globalization has contributed to the tensions between economic growth and social development goals by the pressure it has put on the states to see competitiveness as the key route to growth and economic success and to an increase in well-being. Again, certain assumptions were made as to what best promotes and ensures competitiveness, and these assumptions can be threatening to welfare development. In a context where neo-liberalism is the dominant ideology these assumptions are a force for holding down taxation especially for business, restraining welfare expenditures and social benefits by adopting target approach , and making large fiscal deficits improbable. If they had to, conservatives defended budgetary deficits for defense outlays, not for anti-poverty programmes and decent wages; and they advocated greater reliance on markets than on state intervention for economic development. Hindu majoritarianism not modern conservatism is yet again getting inextricably interwoven into this thinking. Sometimes, the social conservatives have been a force for the promotion of the so-called ‘social investment state’ where government uses social investment to promote competitiveness alongside social development. For example increasing social investment in skill development for improving quality of the labour force (Patnaik: 31 Oct 2006: Macroscan).

In globalized context, it is argued that a growing economy makes it easier to afford improved welfare services. But a healthy economy is of wider importance than a growing economy. A healthy, full-employment economy is a major engine of welfare development in its own right because work is basic to welfare for so many people. Work has to pay adequate wages and provision has to be made for the increasing numbers of people who are outside the labour market. And the quality of life in society depends increasingly on what governments do about a wide range of social issues.

We are now better aware of the scale and complexity of what once seemed fairly straightforward issues. What we have learned in these sixty six years is just how complex is the interaction between the economic growth and social development policies. Social policies cannot be promoted without reference to their impact oneconomic development and vice versa. The territory of social policy has greatly widened, with mixed results. The future for social policy is certainly daunting.

Where does this leave us? There are two possible responses. It is true that society has become more individualist and consumerist. As people, we lack a strong sense of the public domain and the common good. Governments have shown a depressing and deplorable lack of courage and vision. They have encouraged short-termism and have failed in their responsibility to educate the public on the nature and urgency of the big issues facing us and to provide leadership – for example on climate change, nuclear militarization. Poverty and marginalization persist. Governments and the media are camouflaging unacceptable levels of disparities. The first response simply is, if sadly, to accept the neo-liberal line and say that trying to change and improve society by government action is just too difficult and time-consuming. It may be desirable, but experienceshows that it just does not work because we have lost confidence in the state. We can therefore despair and say social work can only facilitate individuals to change and fit them somehow into the contemporary society. The pressure is off.

The second possible response is to say that trying to change and improve society is more difficult than many of us in the business had thought; but that it is by no means impossible. Social work educators and practitioners have to stand firm for the possibilities of political action, imperfect though the results may sometimes be. Social work needs to develop a new public philosophy and a worldview. Social work needs to clarify its ideas as to what governments can and cannot do; what governments should and should not do; what society must do in the face of daunting social problems arising from changes taking place; and about what constitutes individual and collective wellbeing. Then social work must pursue with equal vigour how those agreed tasks can best be tackled and the chosen policies implemented. The experience of the past sixty six years has much to offer us.

Political and economic transformations have impacted different social relationships, social institutions and individuals differently. Hierarchical Indian society is constantly changing yet appears to retain main features intact. Tradition and modernity are jostling with one another at every level producing new hierarchies, new vulnerabilities. For example, surrogacy. From the centrifugal and centripetal forces unleashed by this churning process new groups are coming to life and are demanding not only recognition but also their rightful entitlements. Women want to be recognized as persons not merely as biological entities for producing lineage. Silent majority is demanding transparency and accountability in governance.

The new scenario requires re-imagining and restructuring perspectives within social work and social workmethods if social work is to remain relevant in today’s India. Urbanization, changing demographics, burgeoning middle-class, increasing marginalization, disparities, changing power relations, decline of state power, assertion of people power and the political consequences call for re-structuring the focus, the goals and the conceptualization of direct and non-directive social work practice and methods appropriate to today’s context.

Social Work Methods

A method is a system of explicit rules and procedures using concepts, techniques and strategies systematically and skillfully to provide a direction to a process of inquiry and intervention. Social work methods are integral part of the process of intervention. In every intervention strategy the method is evaluated in the light of goals specific to the individual, group, community or a social issue. The result is evaluated in the light of the expectations/goals of the mutually agreed intervention strategy adopted. Social work intervention strategies and methods are regarded as the systematic and skillful use of concepts, techniques and strategies to provide a direction to the process of finding solutions to problems faced by individuals, groups, communities, and/or society. The unit of analysis in social work method could be singly and/or in combination individuals, groups, families or a programme or an organization or a social issue depending on the point of entry of/for intervention, time and place. Based on the unit of analysis the choice of techniques and tactics is made.

In social work, methods are modus operandi – intervention strategy. Social work methods/intervention strategies contain ends (goals) and means (processes). The old philosophical paradox of means and ends question continues to haunt social work. Philosophers long ago recognized this dichotomous argument as spurious. Ends and means are both two sides of the same coin. And it is not enough to intervene at micro level. Whether individual is responsible for his/her difficulties or society is also a causative factor can no longer be debated from either or position. Unless macro level changes happen, micro level changes will be limiting and limited to changing the person in difficulty at a given moment. This may amount to reinforcing status quo – continued denial of human rights, continuance of disparity and inequality instead of eliminating such unacceptable conditions. If the solution has to be sustainable, social work should attempt changing individuals, governance practices and the way society is organized. To be able to intervene at micro and macro levels a variety of skills based on broad based theoretical knowledge of organizational systems, organizational processes, collective behavior in the polity, economy and society and individual human behavior are required to achieve immediate, short term and long run goals. Young people are no longer tolerant of slow action.

Social work methods are governed by a set of values and principles namely worth and dignity of each individual; uniqueness of each individual; acceptance, non-condemning attitude; belief that human behavior can change; human material and emotional betterment; individualization and facilitation of each individual to participate in the way s/he chooses to, confidentiality and controlled emotional involvement. Values refer to the ideals to which an individual, family, group, organization, or communityaspires. Values identify what people believe are good or valuable. Values reflect a priority of preferences. All people have values, though different people may have a different selection or ordering of values. Individual preferred order of values are principles. Values however do not declare specific ways of behaving. Whereas values identify a person’s sense of “what is good,” ethics identify a person’s sense of “what is right”. Ethics refer to the rules that define what types of behavior are appropriate and what types of behavior are inappropriate. Ideally, ethical rules provide clear direction on how social workers should conduct their work. In some situations, however, social workers may need to contend with two or more conflicting rules. During the processes of intervention social workers cannot abide by these values and principles in a straight forward way. One has to be tactical to unravel the apparent contradictions. Social workers face ethical dilemmas galore when faced with urbanization, industrialization, modernization, development and other socio political forces of domination.

To be able to focus on solutions, social work education and practice need to recognize the distinct worldviews of the marginalized. There is a need for professional social work to develop consciousness about internal colonialism/hegemony that marginalized experience at this stage of development of the Indian state-nation (Yogendra Yadav:2013). There is a need to be aware of one’s own back ground and self. Being aware of self means – what one’s body language is, what it conveys, whether message conveyed by one’s persona is in sync with one’s ideological stand on issues pertaining to equality fraternity and liberty one professes, how the clients interpret the message, how the rules are interpreted in application, if one believes in change, what kind of change, what kind of society-state- market relations one subscribes to, what should be the nature of state, whether pathologies should be treated as a person’s inadequacies, whether a person can change, what one’s stand is on religion, caste, gender, whether one wants to change and so on. Social workers have to recognize that culture and traditions are important components of the persona of the marginalized to retain their identity and collective consciousness. Does empowering the marginalized as rightful citizen proud of their culture and traditions amount to perpetration of status quo? How to be transparent about one’s stand giving rise to contradictory interpretations and impacts on individuals and different sections in society? Is it necessary to be transparent about one’s stand? Whether a balance between preventive, curative, rehabilitative approach to problem solution is necessary or possible? Whether finding solutions should be piece meal or holistic? Whether one is comfortable and/or capable of working at micro, meso and macro levels? Can one be active at policy formulation stage and at policy implementation stage also? What are one’s strengths and weaknesses?

Accepting that social work is political, it is necessary to grasp the difference between homogenization and standardization in the name of equality and social justice and to recognize diversity in terms of human and citizenship right that entitles them to certain benefits. Social work educators and practitioners have to learn how democratic systems and processes work and how to build their customers’ and their own capacity to function in a democracy from a position of strength to secure human and citizenship rights and the accruing entitlements.

If the social workers’ choice of methods are based on the premise that individual shortcomings are the sources of most of the problems faced by clients and hence social workers’ intervention results in extending financial assistance, advocating leniency in application of eligibility criteria and other charity oriented solutions, then that intervention would end up making the customers perpetually dependent and fail to reduce/alleviate mass poverty and social exclusion processes. It amounts to acknowledging that bringing about systemic change is beyond the pale of social workers. Being practical, doing what one can, what is within one’s capacity to do are some of the pragmatic responses of social workers. While social workers demand social protection for their customers, assumptions and approaches underlying choice of social work methods and intervention strategies reveal their class and cultural bias.

Social workers are required to be active both at interpersonal micro and at policy formulation/implementation macro levels for understanding the problem and for finding holistic solutions to social problems. Is this possible? Social case work, social group work, community organization, community development, social welfare administration, social work administration, management of voluntary organizations, social action, social advocacy, social work research and social policy and planning have come to be recognized as social work methods over the decades. Social case work, social group work and social work research are considered as methods that use interpersonal skills for working at the micro level – with individuals, families and groups. Community organization, social research, social work administration, social work research and management of voluntary organizations are considered as methods that use organizational skills for working at the meso level – with communities and organizations. Community development, social research, policy research, social action and social advocacy are considered as methods that require analytical skills for bringing about macro level systemic changes – in social institutions and systems, national and international regimes/policies. Any one method is not more important than another. Depending on the population group and/or the issue one is focusing, few of the methods listed above will be utilized in combination – some to a greater degree and others to a lesser degree in practice. It is spurious to consider some more useful or important than others for human problems are interlinked at micro, meso and macro levels.

Social work educators have to constantly explain the linkages between the micro, meso and the macro levels while teaching methods by citing appropriate examples of specific population groups or a problem.

A student who chooses social work as an avocation has to recognize which are her/his comfort zones and strengths over a period of time and try to acquire expertise in those methods assuming s/he is on a life-long learning trip. During the period of learning – BSW/MSW – students are helped to identify their inclinations with the help of field work supervisors, research guides, course teachers, fellow students and self-study. Assigning prestige or importance to work at one or the other level is spurious. What is important is one’s perspective because as a nation we have committed ourselves to equality, fraternity and liberty. And this commitment calls for critical social work.

In structural or critical social work practice all the social work methods are recognized as equally important and required. The Integrated Social Work Method attempts to explicate how all the methods are used in an integrated manner. It is an indigenous method and a late comer in social work literature and academia in India. It is inadequately elaborated in social work scholarly literature and in reading material especially relevant to Indian context. Whatever little is available is scattered. Its theoretical base is inadequately developed. Literature on integrated social work method in Indian languages is misleading and not properly understood even by educators. Its theoretical framework is based on systems theory only. Even systems theory has not been understood and conveyed by social work educators properly. The emphasis is on ‘integrated’ – levels, disciplines, spheres, in time and space – individual, family (group) and societal levels. It is not just haphazard usage of some ideas and concepts from anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology and other social sciences and humanities; it is not unthinking use of ethnography, qualitative research methodologies.

Values underpinning social work methods

In essence, ethics are “the application of values to human relationships and transactions” (Levy, 1993, p. 1). Whether these rules are enforceable, however, depends on whether and how specific ethical rules are formalized. In some situations, ethical rules may be implicit, with no formal mechanism for enforcement. Laws are rules enacted and enforced by the state (e.g., by local, state, or national governments, courts, police, and public justice systems). Many laws are based on ethics (Knapp et al., 2007). The consequences for violating laws vary depending on the specific law that has been broken. Such consequences range from imprisonment to fines, community service, probation, losing civil rights, terminating parental rights, or public censure. These consequences are intended to deter people from certain types of behavior, ideally promoting ethical behavior. If the premise that social work is political is accepted, one’s worldview in social work, usually referred as perspective is important for gaining clarity of the vision and goal of social work intervention in a hierarchical society – whether social work intervention is aimed at social change or at maintaining status quo – because one’s perspective dictates how social work methods are combined.

For example – statements like homeless and pavement dwellers have made a conscious choice to live in that way. So enable them to get Aadhar card, ration card and enable them access public health services, education, public distribution system and so on by pleading lenient interpretation of eligibility criteria……. Often social work intervention makes them dependent by getting them the permission to continue to live on the pavement. They are persuaded to shift to night shelters, residential institutions. Can’t they afford to rent a shack or put up a shack on a garbage dump? Do they not have capabilities or capacity? Should social worker plead with the government that they should be allowed to live on the pavements? Or should social workers be demanding access to housing as a matter of citizenship right?

It is necessary to understand why they deliberately make such choices in life? Who these people are? How should the intervention strategy be planned? What social work methods are to be employed? What perspective is to be adopted? Should decent housing be considered as a human right? Should the individual be blamed for his/her choice? When Rao was teaching in the MA (social Work) with specialization in Disability Study and Action programme, the discussion on the comparison between the medical model and social model was enriching. The ‘medical model’ sees the disabled person as the problem. They are required to fit into the world as it is. The system is treated as given. If they cannot fit into the system, then they exclude themselves from the so called mainstream by their own choice. Only their most basic needs can perhaps be met. The emphasis is on dependence, backed up by the stereotypes of disability that call forth pity, fear and patronising attitudes. The power to bring about systemic change is handed over to the civic officials and professional politicians for normalization because only they have the legitimate authority to change the rules of the game. On the other hand social model holds society, society’s attitude towards the PWDs as barriers to their being accepted as individuals with dignity capability and citizenship rights.

The point is, conservative perspective should give way to more critical change-oriented perspective. Huge arenas of rural, urban, forest, environment, management of common natural resources, local self-governance,malnutrition and other sustainable development agendas remain largely untouched by professional social work because of lack of appropriate perspective. Inadequate role definition, means-ends dilemma, lack of clear ideology, conceptual clarity and middle – class value orientation prevent professional social work from taking up rights-based approach in letter and spirit in these arenas of study and professional practice, and continue to prevent the professional social worker from being an agent of change.

Social Work Education at TISS

The emphasis in social work education and practice at TISS continues to be focused on assisting individual victims than focusing on removing the root cause of problems experienced by the individual victim according to Desai (TISstory interview:2013). The focus of social work education at TISS has been on understanding the problem rather than finding enduring solution to the problem(s). School of Social Work as a collective is expected to find solutions however incremental it may be.

For practical purposes, different teachers are assigned to teach each of the social work methods at TISS to provide adequate time to teach each method in depth. This arrangement conveys a misleading message as if each method is mutually exhaustive and exclusive to the learners. This arrangement glosses over ideological differences and differences in the backgrounds of the teachers teaching social work methods. This arrangement also conveys mixed messages conveyed by the School of Social Work and/or the profession itself. In the process that social work students and practitioners are expected to be change agents is completely lost sight of.

In the early decades of professional social work in the UK and the USA the focus was on individual with a problem. American and British social work literature and practice continue to be focused on ‘treating’ individual inadequacies. Still dependent on Western social work literature Indian social work continues to focus on the pathological perspective of the individual. This perspective takes social hierarchy and other societal processes as given. Although Indian social work requires a perspective appropriate to a changing society, Indian social work educators’ and practitioners’ minds continue to be captive to received perspectives. Among the characteristics of the captive mind are the inability to be creative and raise original problems, the inability to devise original analytical methods, and alienation from the main issues of indigenous society (Alatas, 2000). For instance, domestic violence was treated as a result of alcoholism and personality disorder until recently by social workers whose mental captivity could not comprehend the linkage between poverty, patriarchy and economic development trajectory chosen by Indian nation-state. Captive mind is able only to see the victim and the perpetrator as capable and willing to work hard and change, but cannot find ways to change patriarchy mind-set of the criminal justice system.

The design and analytic strategies in integrated social work method vary as a function of the unit with which practitioners wish to engage at a given point in time. The process of study is objective and considered. One may begin with an individual in one case of domestic violence at the same time begin with OD consultation with the organizations focused on women’s rights. The ultimate aim is to bring about broad based change – making a hierarchical society into a humane society based on fraternity, equality and liberty.

Not all laws are ethical (Knapp et al., 2007). In some situations, a particular law may be viewed as ethical by one segment of the population but unethical by another. Unethical laws, such as those authorizing slavery, may be challenged and changed over time. In fact, challenging unethical laws is a key aspect of a social worker’s obligations to promote social justice (Furman, Langer, Sanchez, & Negi, 2007). In some situations, unjust agency policies can also be changed through court decisions. Typical consequences for serious breaches of policy include suspension or termination of employment. For lesser breaches agencies may simply require greater supervision or further training to ensure that the employee does not commit further violations. As with laws, agency policy may or may not reflect the ethics of particular individuals or groups.

Key to integrated social work method is the relationship between the client (action system), the worker and the employing organization. Intervention depends on the assessment process. Assessment of one’s own perspective, strengths, of the action system and the target system in terms of values, practice options/decisions, functions, delivery systems, programmes, knowledge, sanctions of social, of the profession, governments, corporate world, disciplined use of self, capacity to transcend self in the service of others, one’s cultural traditions, practices and bias are integral to change process. Social work intervention process using integrated method involves mixture of dialectal, ideological, linear and non-linear dynamics, repertoire of interventions strategies, phase-like processes, intervention specific theories, techniques, tactics and skills.

At the TISS there has been confusion between fields of practice and social work methods. Students are offered a range of ‘specializations’ or ‘concentrations’ at the time of admission. Family and child welfare, criminology and correctional administration, medical and psychiatric social work, urban and rural community development that used to be on the offer are fields of practice. Criminology is a field and correctional administration is a method. Social welfare administration is a social work method. Conflict resolution is a method. Development of entrepreneurship is a method. Community organization, development practice and governance are methods. These are sometimes referred as macro practice methods. ‘Disability studies and action’ ‘women centered social work’ ‘family and child welfare’ ‘criminology and justice’ ‘social work in mental health, social work in public health are fields of practice.

In the author’s opinion concentration refers to organizational structures that emphasize methods – case work, group work, social work administration, social welfare administration, social work research, social research, community organization, social action and social advocacy. And specialization refers to organizational structures that emphasize fields of practice – specific population groups or problem areas. Depending on the population group or the problem one is keen to focus on, few of the seven methods listed above will be utilized in combination – some to a greater degree and others to a lesser degree in practice.

Interpersonal and organizational skills are required for working at meso and macro levels while simultaneously attending to micro level problems. Interpersonal skills (case work and group work) – counseling, behavior modification therapy, RET, family therapy, yoga, dance therapy etc are required to assist individuals experiencing difficulties on the one hand; on the other hand, the same interpersonal skills are required to build teams, influence key decision makers in an organization and so on. Organizational skills ( SWA, CO, social work research, social advocacy) are required for resource mobilization, project management, managing relationship between organizations and their environment, building institutions, organization and leadership development, management of development organizations (government and non-government), social advocacy and for changing state-civil society- market relations.

Social Welfare Administration

In a general sense, welfare means the well-being of individuals and/or groups in terms of their health, happiness, safety, prosperity and fortunes. Welfare signifies all the attempts made by government, voluntary organizations and society to help families and individuals by maintaining incomes at an acceptable level, by providing health and education services, adequate housing and community development, services to facilitate social adjustment and intervention strategies designed to protect those who might be subject to exploitation and to care for those infirm vulnerable groups considered to be the responsibility of the community. It refers to the provision of at least a minimal level of well-being and social support for all citizens without the stigma of charity by government, economic institutions and voluntary organizations. Welfare also refers to all measures undertaken to maintain social solidarity.

Politicians may define ‘welfare’ in terms of rights of cultural, communal, ethnic and/or poverty groups, corruption free governance, positive discrimination, accountable transparent government and/or democratic inclusive decision making depending on the stage of political development of a society and a polity. In Indian context there are in addition traditional, Gandhian, Ambedkarite, Constitutional, development, political and economic perspectives of welfare. Welfare is providedby governments, NGOs, families, kinship groups (like caste association), economic institutions or a combination of all. Welfare measures include prevention, alleviation of recognized social risks/problems experienced by individuals, families or groups, promotion of equality, freedom and social justice and well-being of individuals, groups or communities, and/or a nation-state as a whole. All the initiatives aimed at promoting socially sustainable development of the citizen by a nation-state includes transport, communication, defense, protection of environment, advancement of science and technology, international relations etc. All that a State does for its people is welfare. Welfare can take a variety of forms: monetary payments, subsidies, tax waivers, education, health services, housing, infrastructure, concessions, mobility equipment for the persons with disability and/or other services.

Social welfare is a form of social protection as it is concerned with overcoming adverse situations that individuals, families and groups may find themselves in. Social welfare is commonly provided to individuals who are unemployed, those who cannot work due to illness, disability, advanced age, those with dependent children, and ex-servicemen and the socially excluded. Social welfare is seen as temporary, minimal, emergency relief, ad hoc relief, short-term assistance by government. To access the entitlements, beneficiaries require to prove genuineness of their need; benefits are available only as a last resort; reason why a person finds himself in need is important for defining a person’s need; benefits are standardized; government is expected to play a residual role to the market and the family. Social protection programmes can be grouped into three broad categories: social insurance, social assistance and active labour market programmes. Welfare and socialwelfare are part of human rights and entire development effort of a nation-state and are aimed at changing power structures to make equality, fraternity and liberty a reality.

Welfare state is conceptualized as a political system to afford a minimum standard of material security to every citizen for fulfilling his/her potential implying that the individual is too important to be left to his/her own resources. Generally welfare state is associated with developed countries and ‘developmentalism’ is associated with developing Third World countries – indicating bias that developing countries are yet to reach a state of ‘development’ and become capable of attaining welfare goals on their own. Developmentalism though includes – belief in state intervention in market to achieve growth maximization, egalitarianism, solidarity, democracy, equality, freedom and welfare of all, it contains policy components of western welfare state models and policies. British social thought about welfare state has had an influence on its former colonies (Asia & Africa) and newly independent countries continue to pursue those ideas. Ideas of total centralized planning of the Soviet system also have influenced some Third World countries including India.

After independence ideas about welfare state, centralized state, democracy, and local self-governance were subscribed by national leaders who were convinced that newly independent nation states should pursue ideas about welfare state because of political necessity. Masses were unaware of the implications of these ideas. Such transposition of alien ideas naturally gave rise to skepticism about the feasibility of welfare state policies. Social transformation of a traditional society which was inherently inegalitarian and hierarchical has been a formidable task. Such transformation implied redefinition of old values, institutional arrangements and practices had to be brought about by the deliberate use of the instruments of state policies. In the initial post-independence years nationalist sentiments minimized political salience of major cleavages and facilitated centrist pattern of governance. Social pluralism characteristic of the new nation made it possible to have only a very narrow transitory area of consensus on welfare issues.

State capacity has been a precondition for successful internationalization of welfare state ideas in India. Political leaders have often contributed to the image of government helplessness in the face of global trends. State and central governments sell their policies of retrenchment to the electorate as being somehow forced on India by ‘global economic trends’ over which they have no control. Economic deregulation and liberalization policies have been introduced by government at the country level and state governments have had to fall in line due to political compulsions.

By asserting the inevitability of globalization processes, some governments have been able to overcome disruptive social consequences domestically and have been able to actively pursue global economic integration. It is against this background that social welfare administration is taught to social work students and explained what needs to be done to bring government and people together to achieve the equality, fraternity and liberty goals by the people. All these factors have also influenced emergence, types and regulation of voluntary organizations and the voluntary sector in India.

Is Social Welfare Administration a social work method?

To begin with, the post graduate diploma programme was called Diploma in Social Services Administration when social work professional education was accepted as necessary in 1936. It was accepted as a method from the beginning of the profession in India. The premise was that a method as a system of explicit rules and procedures, SWA is intricately associated with the process of intervention. In every method intervention strategy is evaluated in the light of goals specific to the individual’s, group’s, community problem or a social issue. The result is evaluated in the light of the expectations/goals of the mutually agreed intervention strategy adopted. Social work intervention strategies and methods are regarded as the systematic and skillful use of concepts, techniques and strategies to provide a direction to the process of finding solution to problems faced by individual, group, community, and/or society.

Morals are first-order convictions about what types of behavior are right or wrong . Similar to ethics, laws, and agency policies, morals are rules of conduct, or guidelines that distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Unlike laws and agency policies, morals are not legislated by an external body and they are not limited to a specific professional role (such as social work). People adopt morals from their social context, including their family, religious or spiritual community, cultural community, neighbors, and close friends. Universal morality refers to moral systems that are common to all people, religions, cultures, and social institutions (e.g., the notion that murder is wrong). Particular morality refers to moral systems that are specific to certain cultures or social groups. Morals are considered first-order convictions because they are central to the person, guiding his or her understandings about good and evil without requiring the person to make conscious attempts to reflect upon why certain behaviors are right or wrong.

In contrast, ethics are considered second-order convictions because they require the person to reflect on his or her values and morals in order to determine what types of behavior are considered right or wrong (Hinman, n.d.). We speak of “social work ethics” rather than “social work morals” because social workers must use second-order convictions, taking their professional role and context into account. Professional ethics are rules that guide social workers or other professionals in the choices that they make in their professional capacities. Personal ethics are rules that guide people in their private lives, in their roles as parents, family members, friends, neighbors, citizens, and so forth. A social worker will find that many of her/his personal ethics fit with your professional ethics. For instance, if s/he believes in her/his personal life that it is important to confront racism and oppression, her/his ethical obligation as a professional social worker to promote social justice will simply be an extension of her/his personal ethics. In many situations, however, a social worker will find that her/his personal and professional obligations are different. Professional ethics tend to be more formalized than personal ethics. Most individuals do not write out a list of ethical rules that they intend to follow.

In contrast, professional ethics tend to be codified in agency policies, laws, or professional codes of conduct and standards of practice. Ethical problems refer to any situations involving an ethical issue—a question of right or wrong behavior—to be decided. An ethical dilemma is a specific type of ethical problem in which the choice of how to respond to the issue is particularly difficult. When someone is faced with an ethical dilemma, there is no clear, singular response that satisfies all the considerations that need to be taken into account. Ethical dilemmas are often marked by conflicts among ethics, values, morals, laws, rules, or agency policies. In some situations, ethical dilemmas are created because ethics, values, morals, laws, rules, and agency policies do not provide clear guidelines. Especially in welfare, social worker has to use her/his discretion to decide whether a client is in need and plan intervention strategy. With advances in biotechnology, for instance, professionals have had to figure out how to respond to ethical legal and moral issues raised by the prospects of cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and genetic engineering. In some situations, codes of ethics, agency policies, and laws are completely absent.

Whereas an ethical dilemma has no clear-cut or universally acceptable answer about right and wrong conduct, an ethical breach is a clear violation of a specific ethical rule. The term zone of moral indifference describes choices that a professional can make without having to worry about moral or ethical issues; all of the choices would be considered appropriate. A belief is an understanding of a particular phenomenon. Beliefs may be based on fact or fiction, accurate perception or misperception, and sound reasoning or faulty reasoning. Beliefs may also be based on faith, such as faith in a higher power, a trusted friend, or parents. Convictions are beliefs that are strongly held. People may hold tightly onto convictions for various reasons. In some situations, convictions are based on religious faith. In other situations, convictions are based on information that has been indoctrinated into people by parents, teachers, media, or other important influences in their lives

A feeling is an emotion or affective response such as fear, anger, excitement, eagerness, or hurt. An attitude is a complex mental state in which the interactions of a person’s values, beliefs, convictions and feelings predispose her to particular opinions or behaviors.

Rules and standards tend to be more specific guides for professional conduct, whereas principles tend to be more general (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). In a welfare organization SWA is generally responsible for formalizing the rules and standards; rules prescribe mandatory and universal expectations about conduct, whereas standards merely state the customary or ordinarily accepted ways that professionals should conduct themselves. As a rule, it does not leave social workers room to argue. Standards suggest that social workers should ordinarily behave in a particular way, but there may be situations in which alternate forms of behavior could be ethically justified. For example is there a legal obligation to report suspicions of child abuse? It is important for a social worker to know what specific law creates this obligation, and what this obligation specifically says. Whenever a social worker is analyzing a situation with ethical and legal implications, the most persuasive sources are the specific codes of ethics, agency policy, or statutory law that spells out the relevant ethical guidelines, agency rules, or legal obligations. SWA is about creating these guidelines in an agency and ensuring that they are complied with.

SWA endeavours to provide values clarifications and fit them together as a system. Values clarification is an ongoing process, particularly for professional social workers who must continuously reappraise their values to ensure that they are using these values appropriately in their work with various clients. If and when a social worker finds that her/his values are inconsistent with those of clients or the social work profession, s/he will be in a better position to make conscious and deliberate decisions about how to resolve these value conflicts. “Social justice” is one such value that evokes different images for different people. Some people view social justice as equality, having everybody treated exactly the same. Others view social justice as respecting differences, treating people differently because they have different needs, wants, or opportunities (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). A social worker has to define social justice and how important that value is, as compared to other values (e.g., diversity, universality, competition). Her/his understanding of social justice is also affected by her/his life experience. By gaining a better understanding of one’s own system of values, a social worker will be better prepared for making tough choices in a deliberate, strategic manner.

Attending to other people’s values with an open mind is neither assuming nor judging. Social justice refers to a world in which everyone is treated fairly. Social work values and ethics are not just minimum standards to which practitioners are held accountable but ideals to which all social workers should strive. By valuing social justice, social workers commit themselves to rectifying social injustices such as discrimination, poverty, unemployment, oppression, lack of opportunity, and social exclusion. Whereas some professions claim to be objective, neutral, or apolitical, social work takes firm positions on social justice issues and is necessarily political (Parrott, 2006). When a client is experiencing discrimination, for instance, some mental health professionals would focus on helping the client cope with it. Social workers not only help clients cope but also strive to remedy the systemic malaise called racism (e.g., by offering advocacy, education, or community empowerment strategies) which was the cause of mental health problem in the first place (Appleby et al., 2007). Although social workers do not impose their values on clients, this does not mean they are value free (Corey et al., 2007). They promote equality, respect, fairness, and inclusion throughout their practice.

Human relationships are integral to effective social work practice. Social workers help clients by developing affirming relationships with them. Social work theories refer to explanations that are pertinent to understanding individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities (Banks, 2006). The interplay between values, ethics, and macro theories of social work, that is, theories related to larger social systems such as business organizations, professional associations, ethnocultural groups, neighborhoods, religious communities, political systems, and nations require critiquing a theory in relation to social work values: (1) identifying the values that underlie the chosen theory, and (2) identifying which social work values are to be used in order to critique the theory. A critique answers the questions, “In what ways does the theory fit with and promote social work values?” and “In what ways does the theory conflict with and detract from social work values?”

Analysis indicates, for instance retributive justice has many limitations in relation to its ability to foster social work values. In contrast to retributive processes (especially court hearings that determine blame and punishment), restorative processes brings people together to engage in dialogue and work out their own solutions. The values fostered by restorative justice generally fit well with social work values (Van Wormer, 2004). In terms of social justice and human relationships, for instance, restorative justice takes social context into account. For example, what values does patriarchy theory promote? To what extent do the values promoted by this theory fit with or conflict with the core values of social work namely (i) service, (ii) social justice, (iii) dignity and worth of the person, (iv) importance of human relationships, (v) integrity, and (vi) competence? To understand how social identity affects a particular individual’s moral decisions, social worker must consider (a) the social context, (b) the social identities the person assumes in that particular social context, (c) what moral guides stem from the individual’s situation-specific social identity, and (d) the ways in which in-group and out-group perceptions may affect how the individual treats others affected by the decision. When engaging in ethical decision making, social workers must also factor in their own social environments, including their organizational context. Social workers practicing in school settings, for instance, will have a different set of ethical expectations from workers practicing psychotherapy in private practice.

To ensure ethical legitimacy, policy processes should be guided by the following five principles: accountability, inclusiveness, transparency ,reasonableness, and responsiveness (Thompson, Faith, Gibson, & Upshur, 2006).

Shifts in the contents of professional social work education in India have been dictated by perception of social need and place of individuals in society. A poor backward people needed ‘social services’ during colonial rule. So curriculum in Diploma in Social Services Administration (DSSA) focused on systematic administration of social services in 1936. As there were few laws, rules and procedures in place, system had to be put in place. And social services represented mainly remedial and residual support such as monetary or other material help, recommendation for preferential attention in schools, hospital, police station, employing organization etc. The curriculum focused on individual and the perspective was remedial and charity oriented to begin with. Students were required to study psychology, humanities including philosophy to be able to assess their needs. To assess the client’s needs his/her personal history, culture, regime ideologies, identities, relationships, social organization, material resources at one’s command, temporal location, technology etc needed to be taken into consideration. And ‘administration’ referred to development and institutionalization of norms, authority relations, rules and procedures for raising resources, distribution of resources and accounting for one’s responsibilities. There was little emphasis on ‘management’ as the term is used today – in derogatory sense. ‘Administration’ implied good intension, trust and effectiveness. Today, in Orwellian sense, all these terms are double-speak is another matter. Today administration means delivery of social welfare services as a matter of human rights.

The newly independent nation-state began its journey towards modernization. It must be remembered that the concept of modernization was perceived in terms conceptualized by the West. As Akup maintains a traditional society was perceived as backward and needed to be civilized. When twenty eight years later the Diploma programme was converted into a degree programme in 1964, the need of the hour was to socialize people to understand implications of swaraj, democracy development etc and the task was to be undertaken on a massive scale. Though the responsibility to socialize the people naturally fell on the state, individuals as citizen had to be socialized about their Constitutional rights and duties. Socializing a diverse people has been a formidable task.

When state’s role in social welfare expanded exponentially beginning from mid 1960s, the state required human resource for implementing public welfare programmes. Apart from that, ‘social welfare’ was assigned different connotations by politicians in the electoral processes at different points in time. It will not be off the mark to state that social welfare became a hand maiden in the hands of competitive politics as well as a cementing force and an incentive for the marginalized to be engaged in democracy and development processes. Though captive mind of social work in India at the time was preoccupied with individual and his/her problem, was responsive to the changing and emerging needs of the polity and society. SWA as a specialization was introduced in the MA (Social Work) degree programme in 1971.

The SWA specialization was introduced in the MA (Social Work) programme with the financial support of Tribal Welfare Department of the Government of India. In this period ‘social welfare’ became synonymous with ‘public welfare’. Since public welfare was tax supported, programme planning and implementation had to be as per a system of explicit laws, rules and procedures; and the system had to be developed and put in place. And social workers with expertise in SWA were considered to be uniquely suited for this task. And SWA came to be accepted as a social work method.

Premises of Social Welfare Administration Method

Human behaviour is inextricably connected to the social and physical environment. It was considered that SWAprovides an opportunity for enhancing the functioning of a human system including changing the system itself, modifying its interactions with the environment, and altering other systems within its environment. It was considered that SWA is designed to work with any level of human system from individual to society. SWA includes responsibilities beyond direct practice to work toward formulating and implementing just social policies as well as to conduct and apply research to refine solutions.

Role of professional social worker with SWA expertise at micro, meso and macro systems was seen as

• Counsellor and therapist
• Case manager
• Advocate
• Enabler or facilitator
• Educator, teacher or coach
• Mediator
• Outreach worker
• Social broker
• Evaluator

Generalist practice in integrated social work method involves ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ perspectives. ’Etic’ involves a perspective from an outsider’s position, allowing general comparison across cultures. “Emic” refers to an insider’s view; one that is local and specific to a group with a sense of belonging. SWA considered as integrated social work method endeavours to know about a client’s perception of what has occurred, what factors in his or her life have played a part, and what the client thinks might help. As a social work method, SWA relates to clients openly and genuinely without being patronizing or condescending. Social workers with SWA expertise do not see themselves as experts but as generalists who understand the clients’ needs and how government, democracy and complex organizations work , who could do the needful to help the persons in need within the welfare system. They are in a position to use authority vested in them to mobilize a variety of resources by using the agencies in which they work. At the same time, social workers with specialization in SWA are experts in bringing about organizational changes and institutionalizing norms and procedures. For this purpose, they have to work with legislative, executive and judicial wings of the government, functionaries of NGOs, masses, interest groups, and mobilize public opinion and mass support.

SWA curriculum included social policy related themes such as welfare state, social policy, welfare and social welfare, social planning, administration of social welfare programmes, designing organization and governance structures of government and non-government organizations, theories of peoples’ participation, democratic decision making, staff development and supervision, organization behavior, budgeting and accounting, proposal writing, planning and programming, project management, development communication and social action/advocacy besides courses on social work history and philosophy, social work methods, social work research and field work. It was considered that the curriculum prepared social workers for the world of work both in government and non-government organizations. In the process of learning students are helped with choosing the target group and the issue with which they wish to engage.

By the mid 1970s and 1980s, considered as golden era of professional social work, entry into government service had become more and more competitive and restricted. It was only through civil service that MSW graduates could enter government service. During this period due to state failure to meet the rising aspirations of the people, NGOs mushroomed almost throughout the country to deliver a variety of welfare services. Relatively speaking, employment opportunities were easily available only in the voluntary sector for MSW graduates. This development had two consequences.

At the government level, bureaucracy became more powerful and social welfare came to be politicized. People had begun to see the State as being predatory. Development of voluntary sector made it possible for marginalized sections to assert their demands and their dissent was articulated increasingly in militant ways. Generally government found itself pushed against a wall with no option but to respond by using violence against its own people. As a result, emphasis within SWA pedagogy also changed. On the one hand social advocacy and anti-oppressive critical social work gained in importance. On the other hand management of social welfare organizations – both government and non-government organizations – in ways that were in compliance with the regulations while maintaining their functional autonomy gained prominence. Consequently, it was considered social work administration should be the substantive content of what was erstwhile SWA in the MA (Social Work) programme. Courses on intricacies of compliance with laws and regulations applicable to voluntary organizations, development and management of human resources and financial management assumed central focus in SWA specialization.

Social policy, social planning, administration and implementation of social welfare programmes, governance structure – central, state, district and local self-government, democratic decision making and governance were taken out of SWA specialization and made compulsory for all social work students regardless of their area of specialization or concentration. In addition social action for social change, originally a SWA paper, was made available to all the social work students by 1986 as an optional paper.

These changes created confusion in the minds of teachers and students not to speak of policy makers and public. The confusion was regarding conceptualization of welfare, social welfare, public welfare, social services, social sectors, social security, welfare state, social development and social work. The confusion was also regarding nation building, democracy, citizenship rights, rights based approach and what ought to be the scope, role and function of social work. And there was confusion also about the appropriate pedagogy to be adopted. The faculty was also divided on giving complete option to each student in choice based credit system because scheduling was problematic. If students were given choice based credit system, they cannot complete MA degree in two years. If the entire system was changed, a new system of accountability of teaching faculty would have to be developed.

Structural Social Work : re-imagining social work methods

It is against this background of changed demands placed on social work education and logistics of offering a two year MA (Social Work) programme that SWA specialization was transformed. The transformation was also in response to a discomfort felt by SWA faculty that social work education at TISS was moving away from its self-proclaimed vision and mission. SWA’s brief was to bring the current vision and mission of social work back into social work education. The re-imagined SWA took the form of structural social work and came to be known as Dalit and Tribal Social Work.

The debate on whether Dalit and Tribal Social Work is structural social work or anti-oppressive social work or critical social work or radical social work remains to be settled. The jury is still out on the issue. In any case the objective was to bring the perspectives of the marginalized back as the central focus of social work and social work methods.

Structural social work, a perspective articulated by Moreau (1979), and later championed by Mullaly (1997), offers a direct practice application of radical social work that leads to social change. Radical social work ideas disagree with a singular focus on the individual, and stresses how problems are caused by or related to social structural factors and events that are beyond an individuals’ direct control.

The goal of structural social work is to eliminate social oppression of the voiceless people, inequality, marginalization, indignity and exploitation . Structural social work is based on marxist radical social work theory. Structural approach is an effort to put into practice the tenets of dialectical process of collectively defining inequality, marginalization, indignity and exploitation; finding ways to eliminate these processes using the instrumentalities of social trust among and civic engagement of people; and bringing a transformed society into existence in which people are equal, there is fraternity, solidarity and liberty for everyone. Collective social action is central to this approach. Collective social action is a powerful political tool that can initiate change, often beginning at the grassroots level. The process may be gradual and take several generations.

Social work operates within the parameters of a wider social context which may not be open to individual social workers or participants. In order to understand and take effective action, structural social workers have to perceive and act outside the social framework as well as within it . To do so, they must protect themselves both within social agencies in which they work and outside their confines (Moreau & Leonard, 1989, p. viii). Mullaly (1997) suggests that structural social work practice can take place inside and outside the socio-political system. However, he emphasizes that in both instances the goal of working for social change works against the system. Working outside the system is essentially a political activity. It entails social activism related to social movements and building coalitions to challenge established institutions.

Structural social work challenges the problem-solving approach through its focus on collective social action – working together for change beyond the client-agency boundary at the levels of community and society. Structural social work emphasizes the connection between the personal, the individuals’ social roots and the political. It emphasizes collective action at the macro level (Structural and Feminist Social Work) to solve problems experienced by individuals and empowering people individually and collectively. Within integrated social work method, Social Group Work, Community Organization, Social Welfare Administration, Social Work Research, Social Research, Social Action and People Centered Advocacy methods are considered main in structural social work, supplemented by social casework method. Analysis from political economic perspectives has been important in shaping the integrated social work method within structural social work.

Literature and pedagogy portrays integrated social work method utilizing only systems theory for strategizing intervention which gives some idea about the macro forces and processes of power relations. But, it provides little guidance about what to do or how to or where or when to begin. To explore and gain an in depth understanding of the complex nature of power relations, especially beginning at the interpersonal level (Payne, 1991, p. 215) and to go on to macro system level – public policy and caste, patriarchy mind-sets, it is essential to have knowledge about decision making theories, theories of democracy, interest group theories, theories of peoples’ participation and debates about development.

Some Thoughts on Proces Related to Restructuring social work methods

In an open social democracy, only incremental changes are possible. This should not be understood as giving up. Small successes increase social workers’ confidence and power of the change agent in the eyes of the public and establishment. Every year each centre will go through an OD exercise to re-structure its focus, the issues that faculty and students as a team will take up, methods/intervention strategy to be adopted and pedagogy to be adopted by each course teacher for integrating field practicum experience into the course content. Each Center faculty also will plan who will document the entire process with clear objectives linked to substantive content and social work method that students will learn. For this purpose, appropriate field settings and placements will be selected. And faculty will have flexibility in scheduling field and classroom learning sessions. Each center will have resources and infrastructure at its disposal. As a School, entire faculty in different centers will have joint one week conference to concur on new grounds covered in producing indigenous social work knowledge at the end of one academic session.