Working Arrangements For The Welfare & Safeguarding of Child Victims of Human Trafficking - February 2011 (PDF 2.91MB)

Guidance issued by The Department of Health, Social Services & Public Safety & The Police Service for Northern Ireland

The 'welfare of the child' in Shari'a law: an analysis of child custody law and practices in Bangladesh from a feminist perspective

The paper seeks to draw attention to some of the recent cases relating to child custody law in Bangladesh where, deviating from orthodox Shari’a rules, courts have looked to ‘the welfare’ of the child in determining which parent shall have custody. In studying the recent ‘welfare of child’ standard that has been advanced by the courts in Bangladesh, the paper aims to explore its implications for Muslim women from a feminist perspective.

Inclusion of the European Nordic model in the debate concerning social protection reform: the long-term development of Nordic welfare systems (1890-2005) and their transferability to Latin America in the twenty-first century

Includes bibliography

Welfare Lobby Groups responding to Globalisation: A Comparison of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and the UK Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG)

The past decade has witnessed a period of intense economic globalisation. The growing significance of international trade, investment, production and financial flows appears to be curtailing the autonomy of individual nation states. In particular, globalisation appears to be encouraging, if not demanding, a decline in social spending and standards. However, many authors believe that this thesis ignores the continued impact of national political and ideological pressures and lobby groups on policy outcomes. In particular, it has been argued that national welfare consumer and provider groups remain influential defenders of the welfare state. For example, US aged care groups are considered to be particularly effective defenders of social security pensions. According to this argument, governments engaged in welfare retrenchment may experience considerable electoral backlash (Pierson 1996; Mishra 1999). Yet, it is also noted that governments can take action to reduce the impact of such groups by reducing their funding, and their access to policy-making and consultation processes. These actions are then justified on the basis of removing potential obstacles to economic competitiveness (Pierson 1994; Melville 1999).

Skehill, Caroline: History of the Present of Child Protection and Welfare Social Work in Ireland

This unique book has at least three significant strengths. First, it offers an interesting angle on Irish social history and how social work and child protection and welfare services have been developed from the 1860s to the 1990s. Secondly, the author uses the 'history of the present' method of Michel Foucault in a promising manner, incorporating his concepts of archaeology, genealogy and discourse. Most of all she has succeeded in further developing Michel Foucault's concepts and strategies of writing. Although this is a national history, she has made a remarkable contribution to social work research. Her conceptual and methodological innovations are undoubtedly fully applicable to other social and societal contexts. This book is recommendable to those who want to implement genealogical analysis in their own research. Thirdly, her skill in writing and the way she renders the difficult language and concepts of Michel Foucault accessible means that here is a book that can also be read with ease by those whose mother tongue is not English. From the viewpoint of women and women's research the focus in this book is minor but if you are interested in social work history and genealogical analysis, this is a book you have to read!

The foundation of the Mexican welfare state and social security reform in the 1990s

Before 1982 Mexico's welfare state regime was a limited conservative one that put priority on the social security of organized labor. But following the country's debt crisis in 1982, this regime changed to a hybrid liberal model. The Ernest Zedillo government (1995-2000) in particular pushed ahead with liberal reform of the social security system. This paper examines the characteristics and the policy making of the social security reforms in the 1990s. The results suggest that underlying these reforms was the restructuring of the economy and the need to cope with the cost of this restructuring. The paper also points out that one of the main factors making possible the rapid execution of the reforms were the weakened political clout of the officialist labor unions due to their steady breakdown during the 1990s and the increase in the monopolistic power of the state vis-a-vis the position of labor during the negotiations on social security reforms.

Transformation and continuity of the Argentine welfare state -- evaluating social security reform in the 1990s

Beginning after World War II, Argentina institutionalized a limited conservative corporatist welfare state where occupation-linked social insurance held a central position and social assistance had a residual character. This was called a limited conservative corporatist welfare state, because the huge population within the informal sector was excluded from the main system. A populist government supported by trade unions and the economic model of import-substituting industrialization were the background for the formation of this type of welfare state. During the 1990s, elements of a liberal regime were added to the Argentine welfare state under the reform carried out by the Menem Peronist government. However, social insurance reform and labor reform were not as drastic as the economic reform. They still retained a certain continuity from the traditional systems. The government intended to carry out more drastic social security and labor reform, but was unable to do so due to the legacy of corporatism of the Peronist government.

The Malleable Politics of Welfare-to-Work Reform: Germany's "Hartz" activation compared with Dutch, British and Irish cases. ACES Cases No. 2009.1

We compare the Hartz reforms in Germany with three other major labor market activation reforms carried out by center-left governments. Britain and Germany developed radically neoliberal “mandatory” activation policies, whereas in the Netherlands and Ireland radical activation change took a very different “enabling” form. The Irish and German cases were path deviant, the British and Dutch path dependent. We explain why Germany underwent “mandatory” and path deviant activation by focusing on two features of the policy discourse. First, the elite level discourse was “ensilaged” sealing policy formation off from dissenting actors. This is what the British and German cases had in common and the result was reform that identified long term unemployment as social delinquency rather than market failure. Second, although the German policy-making system lacked the “authoritative” features that facilitated reform in the British case, and the Irish policy-making system lacked the “reflexive” mechanisms that facilitated reform in the Dutch case, in both Germany and Ireland the wider legitimating discourses were reshaped by novel institutional vehicles (the Hartz Commission and FÁS) that served to fundamentally alter system-constitutive perceptions about policy. The findings suggest that major reform of welfare-to-work policy may be much more malleable than previously thought.

Recent Changes in European Welfare State Services: A Comparison of Child Care Politics in the U.K., Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands. CES Germany & Europe Working Papers, No. 07.6, 1997

This paper examines recent policies and politics of services, in particular child care services in European welfare states. It is argued that social (care) services are becoming an increasingly political issue in postindustrial societies and are at the very center of welfare-state restructuring. Some countries have recently developed new policy pro­ grams for child care-but there are important differences among these programs. To understand these differences as well as some common features, the paper argues that it is necessary to examine the institutional organization of child care and short-term political factors as well as the rationales articulated in political debates to support or im­ pede various policies. The paper concludes that a comprehensive system of child care provisions is still far off in most countries, despite a rhetoric of choice and postindustrial care and labor-market patterns.

Child labor and inadequate family income; preliminary report on a study of the work and welfare of children of agricultural laborers in Hidalgo County, Texas.

Cover title.

The community welfare picture as health and welfare statistics in 29 urban areas, 1938. A summary of expenditures for health and welfare activities and of reports of cases dealt with in the fields of relief and child care. Children's bureau, U.S. Department of labor.

Reproduced from type-written copy.

Welfare : issues to consider in assessing proposals for reform.

Cover title.

Recent trends in maternal, newborn, and child health in Brazil: progress toward Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5

We analyzed Brazil's efforts in reducing child mortality, improving maternal and child health, and reducing socioeconomic and regional inequalities from 1990 through 2007. We compiled and reanalyzed data from several sources, including vital statistics and population-based surveys. We also explored the roles of broad socioeconomic and demographic changes and the introduction of health sector and other reform measures in explaining the improvements observed. Our findings provide compelling evidence that proactive measures to reduce health disparities accompanied by socioeconomic progress can result in measurable improvements in the health of children and mothers in a relatively short interval. Our analysis of Brazil's successes and remaining challenges to reach and surpass Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 can provide important lessons for other low- and middle-income countries