1. Learning outcomes
a. Reader will be able to understand the concept of social welfare administration
b. Reader will learn the linkages of community organisation as it is reflected in welfare administration
c. Reader will be able to learn the principles and process of community engagement.
d. Reader will be able to appreciate the importance of public relation in the context of engaging communities in welfare administration.
Items Description of Module
Subject Name
Human resource Management
Paper Name Human resource development through community engagement Module Title Community engagement in Social welfare administration
Module Id Module no.-29 Pre-
Requisites
Knowledge of the administration , various views of community engagement.
Objectives Understanding the concept of welfare administration , definition ,process of community engagement in administration. Role of Public relation.
Keywords Social welfare administration, welfare state , community organisation , community engagement, public relations
Module no.-29 Community engagement in welfare administration 1. Learning Outcome
2. Introduction
3. Social welfare administration, principles and functions 4. Community engagement and its principles
5. The linkages between engagement and organisation 6. Summary
2. Introduction
The history of welfare administration takes us to the ancient times when altruism was the motive of welfare. Altruism is a sentiment where person has a selfless interestin the welfare of others.Welfare was rooted in the communities and the waycommunities under the able leadership envisaged to bring about social change;initially through social reform and later through social legislation and finally trying to bring a just social order to achieve the goal of social justiceAltruism was taught through religious scripturesand was more of an individual pursuit; which when extended to communities, became welfare. This goal was mandated to be achieved through establishing such a system of governance that marginalised sections were positively discriminated in an otherwise equal opportunity scenario. Establishing a social order where there is equity against the backdrop of highly divisive and diverse country like India, was not an easy task The richness of our culture and diversity of people make it unique.The political system being a democratic one,allows one to participate in the political process. The agenda of social development in India is politically driven with elected representatives paving the path to development. The various ministries and departments are established to make it is a reality by administering the processes. We have declared ourselves a ‘welfare state’ with certain objectives to be achieved. Ironically such a great political will is difficult to meet as our public or government owned service delivery system is deemed inept due to vastness of our country, recruiting a huge task force was not financially feasible.
Establishment of central social welfare board (CSWB) soon after independence, in1953 as an independent body to support the non-governmental organisation in forwarding the agenda of social justice and social development was a step to recognise the value of community participation in the nation development and meeting the goal of welfare. The welfare administration is the service delivery network for disbursing the action plans, program and schemes of the government for the masses to achieve the goal of social and human
development.
3. Social Welfare Services:
The social welfare services responds to the needs of the society and its members for health education and economic and social well-being.Some view social welfare as the front line support to enable individual to cope successfully with a changing economic and social environment and to assure the stability and development of a social institution. Ideally societies use institution to provide all citizens with opportunity to participate fully in society and to achieve their maximum potential. Social welfare addresses the general wellbeing and address universal needs of population.
4. Approaches to welfare administration
Welfare administration has been viewed from two perspectives.
3.1 Residual approach This believes that welfare applies only when family , economic or political structure break down. This is criticised as being a stop gap arrangement leadingto ad-hocism in service delivery.
3.2 Integral or institutional view: this view recognises welfare as an integral function of a modern industrial society that provides services as citizens’ rights. ( Dubois 1997)
In India, welfare services are derived from our constitution where we have services for the entire population, but special groups which are disadvantaged socially or politically are also provided with special services, programs and schemes to ensure equity.
Though social services are the services, meant for the normal population, social welfare services are designed for the weaker sections of society or services for particular groups of people. This is achieved through a welfare oriented social policy framework.A welfare state is a concept of government where the state plays a key role in the protection and promotion of the economic and social well-being of its citizens. It is based on the principles of equality of opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth, and public responsibility for those unable to avail
themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life. The general term may cover a variety of forms of economic and social organization.
5. Definitions of social welfare administration:
Social welfare administration is a cyclic process of facilitating the formulation of appropriatesocial policies, their conversion into objectives and targets and facilitating the administrative structures towards implementation of action plan with inbuilt mechanism for evaluation and assessment of the intervention on significant public to help revision of the policies.
Social welfare administration is a process through which social policy is transformed into social services. It involves the administration of public and private agencies. The following definitions are given to elaborate the meaning of social welfare administration.
John C. Kidneigh (1950) defines social welfare administration as the “process of transforming social policy into social services… a two way process: (i)… transforming policy into concrete social services and (ii) the use of experience in recommending modification of policy. This definition, of course, encompasses the idea that administration is the process of transforming policies into action programmes.
Arthur Dunham 1962 describes administration as the process of supporting or facilitating activities which are necessary and incidental to the giving of direct service by a social agency.
Administrative activities range from the determination of function and policies and executive leadership to routine operations such as keeping records and accounts and carrying on maintenance services.
According to Walter A. Friedlander (1958) ‘administration of social agencies translates the provisions of social legislation of social agencies and the aims of private philanthropy and religious charities into the dynamics of services and benefits for humanity.
U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1966): “In the current views of social welfare, two concepts predominate: The residual and developmental. The first holds that social welfare activities should come interplay only when the normal structures of society breakdown. This places social welfare activities in a residual role, ameliorating the breakdown and filing gaps. The second, and for more promising view of social welfare
defines welfare activities as a frontline function of modern industrial society, in a positive, collaborative role with other major social institutions working toward a better society.
HarleighTrecker interprets social work administration as a process of working with people in ways that release and relate their energies so that they use all availableresources to accomplish the purpose of providing needed community services and programs.
Taking a cue from the definitions the contents of the welfare administration have been explored.
6. Scope of social welfare administration
Welfare administration is the basic structure of any organisation which helps any organisation or agency achieve the purpose for which it has been established. Skidmore 1995 has provided a summary “ Social welfare administration may be thought of asthe action of staff members who utilize social processesto transform social policies of agencies into the deliveryof social services …….Basic processes most oftenused are planning, organising, staffing, directing andcontrolling.’‘It includes those welfareprovision and encompassing diverse public and private social services.Social welfare may provide these services that are available to all people and groups as citizens’ rights. Or social welfare services may meet specialized needs or address the unique problems of a particular group of people.’( Dubois 1999)
It is aimed not only at the individual but also the social institution for maintaining of social system and social order.
7. Social Services and Social Welfare
Verma(2014) has differentiated Social welfare from social service, ‘Social services are meant for the normal population and strives for meeting the basic requirements and needs of life such as education, health, housing, recreation and so on. The concentration of social services is to develop human resources of country.’
Social welfare is directed towards upliftment of weaker and vulnerable sections of the society.
Welfare services are given to persons who are suffering from some kind of handicap and need support and help.
6.1 Social Services
Organised activities for every member of society.
No means test for availing the services
Mostly cooperative action.
Fulfilling the needs and solving the problems.
6.2 Social Welfare
Activities for weaker and vulnerable sections of society.
Means test for availing the facilities/ services.
Individual and cooperative actions.
Maintenance of minimum desirable standard of living. (Verma 2014)
As against other core methods of social work practice, the welfare administration is side-lined or marginalised and considered as an ancillary method of social work practice; this is because it does not deal with the client directly. However it needs to be appreciated as the only method which looks at provision of infrastructure , methodology , logistics as well as logical framework analysis of how welfare needs to be done so that it does not remain a distant dream of social worker but take the shape of an vibrant living organisation.It works on certain principles.
8. Principles of welfare administration:
a. Administration is a continues and dynamic process. This is an evolving and iterative process. One cannot stop doing it , there is no ending to it in-fact it exceeds the life of the people, as well as agency. The administration converts the abstract policy into objectives and targets and concrete action.
b. Process set into motion in order to accomplish a common purpose or goal. Resources of people and material harnessed to achieve the common goal and all is achieved through coordination and cooperation.
c. Implicit in these definition are the elements of planning, organizing and leadership.
9. Tasks/functions of welfare administration
This is possible by the use of various elements or tasks of welfare administration which are as follows: Planning organising staffing directing, coordination, recording, budgeting. These tasks were given by Luther Gullick called as POSDCORB
9.1 Planning:Planning means looking ahead and chalking out future courses of action to be followed. It is a preparatory step. It is a systematic activity which determines when, how and who is going to perform a specific job. Planning is a detailed programme regarding future courses of action, .It is rightly said “Well plan is half done”. Therefore planning
takes into consideration available & prospective human and physical resources of the organization so as to get effective co-ordination, contribution &.cooperation. It is the basic management function which includes formulation of one or more detailed plans to achieve optimum balance of needs or demands with the available resources.
According to Urwick, “Planning is a mental predisposition to do things in orderly way, to think before acting and to act in the light of facts rather than guesses”. Planning is deciding best alternative among others to perform different managerial functions in order to achieve predetermined goal.
9.2Organising: Organisation can be understood in two forms one as a verb and another as a noun .As a noun it becomes an entity, a structure. Looking at the word as a verb makes it an activity to be performed in day to day functioning of the structure. Organisation can be understood as a collective effort to optimize the outcome of any input. An organization is the form of every human association for the attainment of a common purpose. An organization, divides work among the members, establishes standard practices, transmits standard authoritative decisions, provides a communication system, and trains and orients the members, etc. Organising itself is a huge function of the management which has its own fourteen principles.
9.3 Staffing: Staffing is concerned placement of the right person at the right place. This results in efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation.Staffing entails everything than comes within recruitment and superannuation.
9.4 Directing:Directing is a major administrative function primarily related to instructions, feedback and clarification. A healthy communication between the director and staff is a prerequisite to it.
9.5 Coordination: Co-ordination implies the prevention of both duplication and overlapping so as avoid administrative wastes of efforts, manpower and resources and to pool resources and experiences in dealing problems and in achieving common objectives of social welfare
programmes. The objective of co. is to facilitate better performance and greater administrative efficiency in the execution of social policy.
9.6 Recording: It is also known as maintaining records, it is one of the most important functions of the administration as it ensures continuity, record maintaining, follow up, guide future plan of action as well as helps in assessing the impact of the intervention. It also creates history of the organisation , provides, base for future course of action.
9.7 Budgeting: A budget is a complete financial forecast based on available data, about the financial condition of the agency during the coming year. It is a process of determining distribution of funds for certain define welfare services based on an examination of needs, effectiveness of programmes to deal with them and the relevant importance attached to them by the community. It is an estimate of the proposed expenditure for a specific period, and the purpose, and proposed means of securing the income required. As one of the tools of financial administration, a budget is a basic means of controlling the programmes as well as the funds.(Goel& Jain 1998)
Detailed discussion of these functions/tasks is beyond the scope of this chapter.
10. Welfare administration and community
Welfare administration has its manifestations in the community. A well planned organised program of the government will certainly have a presence in the community of beneficiaries and other stake holders
Even now if we closely look at the welfare administration it is firmly rooted in the communities whether it is right to information or juvenile justice act or the HIV AIDS Act 2017. So we can never disengage the community fromthe welfare administration.
Having said that, now it is important to understand how communities are engaged in welfare administration. As we became more ‘professional’ in our approach to welfare we started to segregate the process of welfare administration from the community engagement .The effort was just to develop a deeper understanding of the processes as administration as more of a profession than a discipline.
Community engagement too is more of a process than a goal or a target to be achieved. Community engagement is grounded in the principles of community organization which are fairness, justice, empowerment, participation, and self-determination. The welfare administration is manifested in community organisation. When both are juxtaposed against each other we can see many points converging. Communities are the places where the profession of administration converges with community engagement. In-fact it is the community where manifestation of the Welfare administration is evident.The slogan of ‘nothing about us without us’ speaks vehemently about community engagement.
The welfare administration is the business of social work whether it involves case work , group work or organising communities. In-fact the welfare administration rightfully is manifested in the very communities where it is serving.Community engagement is inherent in the principles of welfare administration, in the same way as communities are the field of action as well as intervention for the welfare administration.
This implies right from the firstprinciple to the last the participation of the people from the communities not only in identification of the problem to soliciting the solution while making the community leadership participate in the implementationof the so devised plan which was prepared along with the people.
Communities are like a living organism which can be compared to an amoeba which is unicellular shapeless and led by the nucleus. Similarly the led by leader in the same way as amoeba is led by the nucleus , hence involving community leader ensures participation of the entire community in the program .
Like amoeba,
11. Ecosystem view:
The system theory of the social work practice refers about the micro ,meso and macro system as well as subsystems which complement and complete the system. The ecosystems view establishes the relationship between individual and his physical and social environment. ( Germain&Germain 1995).This is a blend of systems theory and ecological view. This looks at the individual as a part of a system and a system himself. Just like any organism which is made up of many systems, any community or society is made upof subsequent small sub systems which contribute to the functioning of the system.
A society is made up of diverse systems which are in symbiotic relationship with each other supporting each other as well as taking support from each other.
Figure : ecosystem view.
Each part of the system is dependent upon its subsystem and no matter how small that part may be, it has its share of contribution to the whole system. Communities constitute the macro level of the system where the intervention is reflected. In the literature of community organisation we find management approach of decision making as well as prioritising.
When we look at service delivery system to which many name as welfare administration though former is a much wider term which encompasses not only socialwelfare but also social security and social assistance program.
12. Principles of community organisation :
12.1 Dunham (1958) has presenteda statement of 28 suggested principles of communityorganisation. He grouped them under seven headings.
12.1.2Democracy and social welfare
12.1.3 Community roots for community programmes, 12.1.4 Citizen understanding, support, and participation
and professional service, 12.1.5 Cooperation,
12.1.6 Social Welfare Programmes,
12.1.7 Adequacy, distribution, and organisation of social welfare services.
12.2 Siddiqui(1997) has worked out a set of 8principles.
12.2.1 The Principle of Specific Objectives 12.2.2 The Principle of Planning
12.2.3 The Principle of People’s Participation 12.2.4 The Principle of Inter-group Approach 12.2.5 The Principle of Democratic Functioning 12.2.6 The Principle of Flexible Organisation
12.2.7 The Principle of Optimum Utilisation of IndigenousResources 12.2.8 The Principle of Cultural orientation
12.3Murray G. Rosshas given 13 Principles of community organisation which still hold relevant and helps the practitioner in organising communities. However these are specifically relevant to geographical communities. Now in the age of communication revolution, with communities of interest emerging; they are equally relevant. They are as follows:
12.3.1. Discontent with existing conditions in thecommunity must initiate and/or nourishdevelopment of the association.
12.3.2 Discontent must be focussed and channelled into organisation, planning, and action in respectto specific problems.
12.3.3 Discontent which initiates or sustains communityorganisation must be widely shared in thecommunity.
12.3.4 The association must involve leaders (both formaland informal) identified with, and accepted by,major sub-groups in the community.
12.3.5 The association must have goals and methodsand procedures of high acceptability.
12.3.6 The programmes of the association should includesome activities with an emotional content.
12.3.7 The association should seek to utilize themanifest and latent goodwill which exists in the community.
12.3.8 The association must develop active and effectivelines of communication both within theassociation and between the association andthe community.
12.3.9 The association should seek to support andstrengthen groups which it brings together incooperative work.
12.3.10The association should be flexible in its organisational procedures without disrupting its regular decision making routines.
12.3.11The association should develop a pace of workin line with existing conditions in the community.
12.3.12The association should seek to develop effectiveleaders.
12.3.13The association must develop strength, stabilityand prestige in the community.
These are few sets of principles of community organisation but the principle givenby Murray G Ross confluence well with Peter F Drucker’ management and Luther Gullick’s administration process.
Below is the figure of confluence of welfare administration and community organisation.
This analogy reflects that both the areas are linked and connected to each other in more than one ways. His principles reflect the community as well as association which is formed as a result of discontent with some issue prevailing in the given community. This truly reflects the community engagement in welfare administration. This seeks to form association as a result of some discontent prevailing , this association forms goals and targets to be achieved by involving communities and its leaders. The association believes in democratic decision making and seeks to utilize the goodwill of
welfare administration
Community
organisation
people. It uses the management function of communication to create strong bonds between association and community as well as within community.Ninth principle speaks about cooperation which again is a very important principle of administration as well as management. Tenth principle speaks about the developmental approach to administration in the context of community organisation.
The associations are flexible enough to incorporate changes if demanded by community. Besides, it is very important for the association to earn respect and prestige in the community which means a good public relations. Hence if we closely look at the process it requires communication as its foundation upon which community engagement can be developed .
13.Continuum of community engagement.
The continuum of community engagement as given by international association of public participation is as follows :
Fig 1. Continuum of community engagement.( Source
IIPP)https://www.iap2.org.au/Tenant/C0000004/00000001/files/IAP2_Public_Participation_Spectrum .pdf
13.1Outreach:In the first stage communication flows from one to another to inform, entities co exist,community is informed. Communication channels are established
O utreach(Some community involvement)
Consult ( More community involvement)
Involve ( Better
Community involvement) Collaborate (Community involvement)
Shared Leadership(Sharing
bidirectional leadership)
13.2Consult:Second stage Communication flows to the community and then back, seeking answers. Entities share information. Development of connection.
13.3Involve: Third Communication flows and sharing of information on issue takes place entities cooperate with each other. Increased cooperation and visibility of partnership.
13.4Collaborate: Communication flow is bidirectional, forms partnerships with community on each aspect of project from development to solution. Entities form bidirectional communication channel. Partnership building trust building takes place.
13.5 Shared leadership: Strong Bidirectional Relationship Final decision making is at community level. Entities have formed strong partnership structure. Strong bidirectional trust built.(International association of public participation2015 )
We see an increasing role of the community in the matters related to them. The civil society sector which is looking at the protection of the rights as well as providing justice to the marginalized section of the society, are the examples of confluence of welfare administration with community engagement.
Public administration belongs to a genus called administration which genus in turn belongs to a family called cooperative human action.Human action is the key to community engagement. This community engagement is crucial for the functioning of welfare administration as without them the policies and plans and objectives and targets will remain rote , rotten and unused and unachieved . It is of great importance in public health.
“Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people. It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioural changes that will improve the health of the community and its members It often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices
(CDC, 1997, p 9) .
An effective welfare service delivery system striving to engage communities must follow these
14. Principles of community engagement in welfare administration:
1. The first principle states that democratic planning and procedures must be followed.
2. Second principle states that, established procedures must be well communicated to the establishment ( administration workers ) as well as the beneficiaries
3. Third principle states that program of the administration must reflect the need of the community
4. Forth principle says “Nothing about us without us”.
5. Fifth principle is about keeping the human resource of the organisation motivated as well adequately paid. Volunteers must be well recognised and
6. Sixth principle is about the resource mobilisation and following the adherence to the budget.
7. Seventh principle is about maintaining the transparency in the system.
8. Eighth principle is about evaluating the performance of the organisation on regular intervals.
9. Last principle is the principle of honesty which is crucial in building trust and social capital within the communities where it is working.
The Welfare administration draws its principle from the democratic ideology as well as the very structured autocratic management knowledge. The management principles are applied to the welfare tasks and it transcends beyond merely managing the people and resource to policy making, deciding the organisational structure , deciding about the structure to be erected for service delivery mechanism.
We need to understand the role of community engagement by understanding the ecosystems theory as discussed earlier in this paper. This theory looks at the communities as a living organism which has its sub systems as well as few leader, few influential persons few mobilizers and few may be target group or the weak person, some may be disadvantaged lot. Going by Ross’s first principle, the discontent with a situation is necessary for initiation into community organisation. This discontent actually acts as a ‘connecting thread’ which connects everyone in the community. This discontent cannot be
‘created’rather, it has to be ‘present’ and affect the lives of the people living in that geographic area.
The role of the community organiser is to identify that discontent and mobilize people around that.
This facilitates their participation in resolving that discontent. This might be tangible or intangible, but the commonality of the issue connects everyone and increases participation.
Community engagement requires participation of community members in projects that address their issues. Meaningful community participation extends beyond physical involvement to include generation of ideas, contributions to decision making, and sharing of responsibility.
14. Motivating factors
Among the factors that motivate people to participate are
1. to play an active role in bettering their own lives, 2. fulfilling social or religious obligations,
3. feeling a need for a sense of community, and 4. wanting cash or in-kind rewards.
5. Recognition in their peer group
Whatever be the motivation the fact that community itself is participating makes the NGO more relevant and responsive, it may be due to increased communication as discussed earlier.
This is achieved through the following steps :
Capacity building: Role of the organisation is to build capacity of the people to solve their problem themselves.
Empowering communities: This is possible when mentoring and hand holding of the willing and motivated people is done by the community worker.
Coalition building: This is possible only when the communication between the organisation and association or the NGO is very strong and two way as suggested in the community engagement continuum model.
As Pincus and Minhan( 1978) have stated that the purpose of social work is ‘Enhancing People’s Problem-Solving Capacities’. Community engagement does exactly the same , however it is felt that involving the community is an expensive proposition in-terms of time, energy and money used. As it become a long drawn process. But it must be viewed as an investment for empowering communities and successful program of the organisation.
This brings us to one of the most important activity of the administration towards community engagement ; Public relation.
Public Relations:
Public relations are the asset of any organisation which intends to work with community .Public relation is the backbone of an organisation without which it can not exist and sustain in a community which has a short term memory and where people are extremely busy to engage in any activity other than their own bread and butter related business
Public Relations Defined
1. PR is planned, persuasive communication designed to influence significant publics. Deliberate : A PRO is clear that whatever he does is not by ‘accident’ and instead has been orchestrated for reaching his ultimate objective.
Planned : The job is too vital to take chances and hence PRO must give sufficient thought to planning the public relation activities that are going to take place over a period of time. Sufficient fund as well as personnel also must be allocated to this.
Sustained :It is not a one-time activity but organisation must be regular in a continued effort tot built Public Relation, emphasizing the need to project the feelings of an ongoing concern for the community for which it is working.
2. PR is the management function which evaluates the public attitudes, identifies the policies
procedures of an organization with the public interest and executes a program of action across public understanding and acceptance.
Organization : Every one works with someone and PR persons tries to project a whole organization through organised efforts and through organizational efforts.
Public can be defined as an amorphous group that must be defined to be handled. Public relation cannot be done for public which is not related to the organisation in terms of its catchment area , or interest
OBJECTIVES:
1. Keeping the community informed about problems as well as services of the organisation.
(a) Informing the donors taxpaying to how their moneys is being spent
(b) Informing prospective beneficiariesthe benefits available for their current needs and other agency’s services.
2. Keeping the agency alert about Public criticism.
3. Public Relation is the key to resource mobilization and fund raising by enhancing the reputation of the organisation in the community it elicits support in terms of cash , kind or service of volunteers for which agency might have to pay.
4. Helps getting more membership and throwing services open to more people.
5. Bringing about modification, if necessary in the attitudes of people towards social problems.
Thus we see that the welfare administration needs to have community engagement but it is not possible without a porper public relation system of the organisation , this is reiterated by the community engagement continuum too where communication become the central theme around which the organisation and community get engaged to elicit the participation of the public.
Summary
This chapter has explained social welfare administration as it existed in communities before it became a process. It was rooted and emerged from communities and will always be, as we cannot separate the beneficiaries from the service provider. The growing concern with engaging
communities emerges from the fact asWoodlock(..) and Putnam(..)states; gradually diminishing social capital. Social capital which was a cornerstone of agrarian economies and developing countries was a binding factor which owing to communication revolution, ironically has reduced the social bonding as Amartyasenhas said. Social welfare administration is tool or instrument of achieving social justice, equality and social development. In the field of welfare administration since the agenda of social development has to have its results in the way communities are faring on the development ranking or scale, engaging communities and following a ‘bottom up’ approach is important as it not only follows the democratic principles of participation but also helps the government or the organisation prepare realistic and feasible plans. Public relation is the key to encourage and elicit participation of
significant public in the processes of the organisation.
