1. Introduction
My dear fellow Saxionistanis,
First off I want to thank you all for your
overwhelming support and trust. To receive 70% of the vote in such time of
turmoil and dissention is very encouraging and I think speaks volumes of the
potential of our small country Saxionistan.
I trust that you, who have voted for me,
already know my vision and goals for the Social Work Ministry in Saxionistan,
but in light of this victory I want to take time to outline the most important
points for the other 30% who may not be informed or also may not yet be
convinced by my dreams for this beautiful country.
In my speech I will outline the changes the
welfare system in our country has gone through; how the focus on individualism
has changed the welfare system from the conservative model to a more liberal
model. However I don’t want the past to be the focus of this speech. I think
that we as a country should not forget the past but should also fix our eyes on
the future; on the new chances and possibilities for Saxionistan. In line with
that I will describe my vision for the welfare system, for the profession of
Social Work and for the psychiatry and prison system in this country. I will
also shortly outline solution strategies for our current problems with drug abuse,
high unemployment rates, the rising gap between the rich and poor and our aging
population and the effects this has on our country.
For those who would rather read my speech,
have a hearing disability, are unable to listen to the whole speech or may just
want to review the speech: a written version of this speech will be put online
on the website www.saxionistan.gov/ministrySW.
2. The past of Social Work
The profession of social work has developed
similarly in most European countries. It started out as religiously motivated
charity work, was mostly organized by the church and mainly focused on
providing for basic material needs. After the enlightenment the focus shifted
towards training poor people to become ‘better’ humans, since that was seen as
the cause for their poverty. It was however the industrialization that forced
the government to get more involved in social work. Through the rapid growth of
industrial cities the poor population grew too quickly and too big for civil
institutions (churches and private charitable persons) to deal with. This
marked the official start of the welfare governments. (Horst, 2005)
Since then the welfare state has gone
through many changes and developments. Because of these changes many authors
have written about classification systems for the different types of welfare
states. The two most notable authors are Abrahamson and Esping-Anderson. Both
agreed that there are three main types (Horst, 2005) . Abrahamson classifies
them by who is mainly responsible for the organization of welfare, so either
the market, the state or the civil society. Epsing-Anderson on the other hand
classifies them by ideology so liberal, social-democratic or conservative.
In Saxionistan one of the more important
changes was the influence that the ideology of capitalism had on the welfare
state. Since the beginning, the welfare state in Saxionistan was more focused
on civil institutions and their role in the citizens’ welfare. This means that
non-governmental organisations and church organizations were the main
institutions to practice and organize social work in Saxionistan (Horst, 2005) . However through the
change of ideology in the second half of the 20th century the focus
shifted to the market (ibid). This meant market principles like profit and
efficiency were a higher priority than the professional opinion of social
workers (Blok, 2012) . The result was that
social workers were limited in their work by budgets and cost plans and they
started to use their free time to provide their clients with the amount of care
and time they actually needed (ibid.). That of course is not the sense of
social work; for professionals not to be able to provide adequate care and
having to sacrifice their personal time. But how did Saxionistan get to this
point? To understand that we have to look at two points: meritocracy and
individualism.
3. Welfare Ideology
The idea of meritocracy is basically the
belief that resources and social standing are distributed according to merit.
Merit is a combination of a person’s natural talent and her/his effort.
Basically the idea is that if you are poor, it is only because you didn’t work
hard enough or didn’t use every chance you got, thus you kind of deserve being
poor. It also means that those who are rich also deserve it. This belief is a
way to justify the gap between rich and poor and the unequal distribution of
resources. Michael Young was the first to coin this term in 1958. He also thought
that if education was attainable for the whole of society then everyone would
have equal chances and thus it would be a meritocracy. However if one looks at
empirical studies to this topic it very quickly becomes clear that our society
is still very far away from a meritocracy even though education is free for
everyone. Studies have shown that it is more probable for people from a higher
standing in society who have a low education level to achieve a high standing
in society than people from a low standing in society with the same education
level. (Becker & Hadjar,
2011)
So even though it is proven that our
society is no meritocracy and that indeed this is impossible to achieve, people
from lower economic standing are often treated as though it is their own fault
that they are poor and need help.
This also leads to the
second point: the individual and her/his relation to society. In this point
there are three main ways to think. Either, similarly to the ideology in
meritocracy, a person is solely responsible for her/himself (Staub-Bernasconi, Der
Beitrag einer systemischen Ethik zur Bestimmung von Menschenwürde und
Menschenrechten in der Sozialen Arbeit, 2006). This means that if something goes
wrong or if the person behaves incorrectly it is completely their fault.
Dalrymple was a supporter of this ideology As I think becomes very clear the more individualistic and meritocratic approach to social work is full of pitfalls and negative effects. It is thus my vision for Saxionistan for our welfare state to slowly but surely change from a market focused system to a state and civil society focused welfare system. I believe that history has shown very clearly that a welfare state solely focused on market principles is detrimental to the welfare of the citizens of Saxionistan. Equally history has taught us that the population has grown too big for only civil society to deal with its problems. However I believe that it would be incorrect to have the government play a too direct role in citizens’ lives. That is why I appoint Jürgen Habermas as the Secretary of Social Work Organization. Habermas’ most famous work is about the relation between the System World (i.e. the government) and the Life World (i.e. an individual). He has concluded that direct interaction between the System World and the Life World, especially in the field of social work, can lead to focus on bureaucracy instead of practical help. It is because of this knowledge that I think he will excel in making sure that the government assumes a balanced role in the welfare sector.
4.
The Profession of Social Work
So with the
vision for our welfare state outlined the next topic that has to be tackled is
the ministry’s approach to the profession of social work. There are three main
logic systems that the social work profession can be built on. These three,
bureaucracy, market and professional, also coincide with the three welfare
state types (Wemerman M. , 2015) . And also similar to
my vision for the welfare state system, when it comes to the profession I think
the best way to go is to find a balance, namely between the bureaucratic and
professional logic. On the one hand it is very important for bureaucracy to be
part of social work. Without bureaucracy there is no way to ensure
accountability and check that social workers treat their clients according to
the law (Duyvendak, Knijn, & Kremer, 2005) . However with too
much bureaucracy a social worker is only focused on paper work and isn’t able
to really offer her/his clients the help they need (Blok, 2012) .
That is where the professional logic comes in. If social work is totally based
on the professional logic, then social workers have complete freedom to do and
handle as they seem fit (Wemerman M. , 2015) . Ideally this would
of course be only for the benefit of their clients, but as I think history has
clearly shown, there are always humans that abuse their power to their own
benefit. This was also identified as a problem in late 20th century
which is why bureaucracy was introduced as a social work logic (Duyvendak, Knijn, & Kremer, 2005) . I think through a
balance between both logics social workers will have enough freedom to really
help their clients as they see fit, without however having complete freedom
with no accountability or supervision. One social work professional and great
academic mind who has thought much about this topic is Silvia Staub-Bernasconi.
It is for this reason that I will appoint her as Secretary of Social Work
Professionalism and Ethics. She suggests that the best way as a social worker
to deal with the tension between those two logics is to focus on a third point;
namely human rights and empirically founded methods and competencies (Staub-Bernasconi, Vom beruflichen Doppel- zum
professionellen Trippelmandat. Wissenschaft und Menschenrechte als
Begründungsbasis der Profesion Sozialer Arbeit, 2007) . She says that human
rights should be the focus and compass for every practice and action in social
work (Staub-Bernasconi, Der Beitrag einer systemischen
Ethik zur Bestimmung von Menschenwürde und Menschenrechten in der Sozialen
Arbeit, 2006) .
5. Human rights and Societal Problems
The topic of human rights is also the foundation of my approach to
different problems our society is dealing with right now. In every area of life
of society human rights and the human dignity should be our focus and main
guideline in how to deal with problems.
As many are aware recently there has much public debate about how to deal
with psychiatry patients as well as criminals. The psychiatry system has
undergone many changes in the past towards a more liberal and dignified system.
And though the recent incident was very upsetting and should be taken seriously
I do believe that it was a freak accident and does not correctly represent the
pros and cons of our psychiatry system. However I do believe that a
reevaluation of the system is necessary. That is why I appoint Judi Chamberlin,
a psychiatry institution survivor and mental illness activist, to head the
Committee of Psychiatry Institutions Reevaluation.
Concerning the topic of jails I would like to look towards Norway. Their
prison system is famous in the world for observing the convicts’ human rights
and human dignity as well as having the lowest reoffending rates in Europe (James, 2013) . The main focus of
the prison system is reintegration into society instead of just punishment (Kriminalomsorgen, 2015) . This mentality has
shown great success and I think would be a great step towards a lower
criminality rate in Saxionistan. It is for this reason that I will appoint
Gerhard Ploeg as the Secretary of Justice. He is a criminologist and has worked
as advisor to the Minister of Justice in Norway and will thus be a great help
in the transitioning period of the justice system in Saxionistan (CEP, 2008) .
The next topic that needs to be addressed is drug abuse in Saxionistan. In
this area I think that it would be worth it rethinking Saxionistan’s drug
policy. Many countries have considered legalizing cannabis and some countries,
as for example Portugal, have decriminalized all drugs (Baird, 2012) .
There are numerous studies that show the inefficiency of making drugs illegal
and criminally pursuing drugs addicts. To quote all of these now would take too
much time now though. I know that drugs are a very sensitive topic in society
and can cause many knee-jerk reactions. For this reason I want to appoint Dr.
David Nutt as the Secretary of Drug Policies. He has done extensive research
questioning the common opinion towards drugs and has also worked for the
Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs for the British Government (Wikipedia, 2015) . I believe that his
expert knowledge and critical mind will help the drug policies in Saxionistan
move into a new era.
6. Population and Demographical Problems
The last topic I want to talk about are the more general and demographical
difficulties our population is facing. These are the rising of unemployment
rates, the rising gap between rich and poor and the effect the aging population
has on our society and welfare state.
When it comes to the high unemployment rate I think one of the most
important steps is to set up mandatory retraining programs. This would mean
that in general, of course there are always exceptions, if a person wants to
receive unemployment support than she/he has to actively search for a new job
and if that proves unsuccessful than she/he has to go through a retraining or
refreshing course so that the person is attractive for the labor market. This
may sound like a small step but there is research that proves that retraining
greatly improves a person’s chance to get hired c.f. (Lang & Kruppe, 2014) . Since this system
of retraining does not yet exist, I want to appoint Francis Feldman as the
Secretary of Unemployment Policies. She is a leading personality in social work
and has done much research on the meaning of work in a family life (Work, 2008) . I think through
this research she will have a more humane and holistic point of view about the
whole subject and will consider all the effects unemployment has on a person;
not only the economic effects. I believe that this is very important for a
sustainable and long-term focused program. Though this program will cost a bit
of money, long-term it is definitely cheaper than supporting the unemployed people
and families with government money. And also when these people are working
again they will pay taxes and will thus be supporting the whole welfare system
again.
If we are able to lower unemployment I think that this will also help with
the topic of the rising gap between the rich and poor. The other way to address
this subject is to adjust taxes and benefits as well as focus on better
education (OECD, 2014) . One specialist on this area is Michael Förster. He has worked for the
OECD as Senior Policy Analyst in the Social Policy Division of the OECD and has
written many papers on this topic (European Centre
for Social Welfare Policy and Research, 2015) . It is because of his experience and
knowledge that I will appoint him as Secretary of Social Economic Policies.
The last
problem to tackle is the effect the aging population has on Saxionistan. As
most of you know one of the main effects of a aging population is that the amount
of working people is less the than the amount of people not working who are
also the people who have to be supported either directly or indirectly by the
workforce (Nations, 2001) . This leads to great
economic and social problems. One solution that is suggested by the United
Nations in their paper “Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Aging
Populations?” is to encourage migration to replace
the missing population in countries with this problem (Nations, 2001) . Though many people
view immigration in fear it is a simple fact that the population is Saxionistan
is slowly but surely dying out and that to secure our country we need more
people. Of course to support this change of immigration policy different
services and programs will need to be developed to support the income of
immigrants. For this reason I want to appoint Jane Adams as the Secretary for
Immigration. She has a long history of working with immigrants in the USA and
thus has direct hands on experience (Harvard
University Library Open Collections Program, 2015) . She also was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and has extensive political experience (ibid.). I
think that she will be able to develop a holistic strategy that contains every
aspect of the process of immigration.
The other aspect that will help with the
aging population is making sure families get the support they need. Children
should not be a financial risk and burden in Saxionistan. That is why I appoint
Ursula von der Leyen as the Secretary of Family Policies. She has previously
served in a similar position in the German government and helped introduce many
different policies to help support families (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung,
2015) .
My vision for Saxionistan is that she will be able to help Saxionistan
transition into a country that is welcoming and supportive for families.
7.
Conclusion
As has hopefully become apparent in this long speech, I am passionate to
help Saxionistan become the best it can be and fulfill its potential to
greatness. I do believe that social work and welfare is a major key in reaching
this goal and I hope that you agree with me. For as Kremer and Tonkens have
suggested: in social work there should be neither client nor consumer, but only
co-producers and participants (Duyvendak, Knijn, & Kremer, 2005) . It is in working together and
through collaborating that human kind can achieve great things. And that is my
great appeal for you Saxionistanis: work together! Help me and other social
workers and officials to work towards a better future! Though we may come from
different backgrounds and have different opinions and perspectives, we do have
one thing in common: our love for this country and our goal to continuously
improve it. So never forget the words from Helen Keller “Alone we can do so
little; together we can do so much”
Thank you
for your time, your trust and you attention.
God Bless
Saxionistan!
8.
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