MAKING SOCIAL WORK TRAINING COMMUNITY BASED

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MAKING SOCIAL WORK TRAINING COMMUNITY BASED

• Lessons from Kerala, India
• Palakkappillil J.

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CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL WORK TRAINING PRACTICE

• Social Work is often equated to voluntary
  work, social service or the kind of
  interventions made by a politician.
• Social Work Training in India since 1936
• More or less American in thinking and inputs
• Past 70 years of professional Social Work

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CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL WORK TRAINING PRACTICE -2

• Copying the American Model
• Training based on a clinical and residual
  approach to problem solving
• The entire approach assumed an urban or
  urbanising community.
• The reality of the rural India very minimally
  addressed.

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CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL WORK TRAINING PRACTICE -3

• Opportunities for Social Workers in the state
  welfare schemes very minimal
• Very minimum influence on policy formulation
• A sizeable section migrates to countries like
  UK, US, Ireland, Australia and Newzeland.
• A struggle between activist idealism and
  worker pragmatism

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EXPERIMENTS IN MAKING COMMUNITY THE BASE

• Premise Community and its needs should form the
  basis of training and practice
• As opposed to learning methods out of community
  contexts

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EXPERIMENT 1 A PPP in Poverty Alleviation
Mission

• Context Kerala, the most literate state, said
  to be a development model
• State Governments Poverty Alleviation Mission.
• Kutumbasree Mission (literally Family
  Prosperity)
• An MoU with the Mission for student trainee
  participation

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Kutumbasree Mission

• Identification of the poor 9 point index
• Organising the poor in their neighbourhoods (NHG)
• Women of the neighbourhood as the focus of
  community organisation
• Training for initiating IGPs through SHGs

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The Role of Social Work Trainees

• Designation Voluntary Executives of Kutumbasree
  (VEK)
• Access to communities and documents in a
  semi-official capacity
• Upgradation of units lagging behind
• Improvement in performance through training
• Identifying training needs.

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The Role of Social Work Trainees -2

• Sorting out conflicts
• Liaising with the Local Administration in the
  implementation of various schemes

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Implications for Social Work Training

• Making training more community based
• Direct access to community its needs, and
  resources
• Direct access to a government programme
• Practice of the various methods of Social Work -
  Work with Individuals, Groups and Communities
  within a given community
• Possibilities for auxilliary methods

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Implications for Social Work Training -2

• Familiarisation with policy implications
• Understanding the need for political action
• Remarkable improvement in the efficiency of the
  programme
• Replicated all over the state.

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EXPERIMENT 2

• Premise Social Workers are to be change agents.
• Practice Experience Social Workers function as
  system maintenance workers

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Involvement in Peoples Struggles

• The New Development Scenario
• Development induced displacements
• Dams, High Ways, Speed ways, SEZ

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Involvement in Peoples Struggles -2

• Visits to the affected communities
• Interaction with the leaders of the struggles
• Providing the people in struggle a space for
  expression.
• Expressions of solidarity joining a sit in,
  fast, or protest march (voluntary)

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Impact on Training

• Getting to know the seamy side of development
• Awareness about rights rights beyond the
  framework of client rights in services.
• Possibilities of Social Action for change

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EXPERIMENT 3 Livelabs

• Concept of live labs
• Field action projects in child protection child
  rights womens empowerment and development
  community based experiments in the care of the
  aging natural resources management and
  conservation

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Impact on Training

• The growth of the school from a teaching centre
  to a centre of teaching and practice.
• Possibilities of direct interaction with many
  practitioners
• Association with various practice units
• Involvement in various community based programmes
  (especially through camps)

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Impact on Social Work Training

• Help in familiarising the trainees with the
  actual context of practice.
• Adapting the established methods to community
  context with a fair amount of success.

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Implications for Social Work Practice

• Immense possibilities of research
• Need for theory building
• Need for evolving new methods for a development
  context
• Need for greater focus on social policy a much
  neglected area by SW profession.

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• THANK YOU
• MERCI

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9 Point Poverty Index Urban Revised 2000 onwards

• Dilapidated House / No house
• Less than 5 cents of Land / No Land
• No Sanitary Latrine
• No access to safe drinking water within 150
  meters
• Women headed house hold
• No regular employed person in the family
• Socially Disadvantaged Groups SC/ST
• Mentally retarded / Disabled / Chronically ill
  member in the family
• Families without colour TV

A family having at least four of the above
factors is classified as a Family at Risk or
a Poor Family
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9 Point Poverty Index (Revised - Rural)

• No Land /Less than 10 cents of Land
• No house/Dilapidated House
• No Sanitary Latrine
• No access to safe drinking water within 300
  meters
• Women headed house hold/ Presence of a widow,
  divorcee / abandoned lady / unwed mother
• No regularly employed person in the family
• Socially Disadvantaged Groups(SC/ST)
• Presence of Mentally or physically challenged
  person / Chronically ill member in the family
• Families with an illiterate adult member

A family having at least four of the above
factors is classified as a Family at Risk or
a Poor Family