ABSTRACT
In Peru, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on various dimensions of human and national development. While it is true that children have not been affected in terms of mortality, there is evidence of a negative impact on their development in the short and long term. In this sense, in Peru, timely and quality care through access to the integrated package of services of the Ministry of Health was severely affected, reducing its coverage and generating risk scenarios for the physical, emotional and mental development of children in the future. In this context, the State promoted temporary interventions through Emergency Decree 095-2020, including interventions aimed at early childhood development through the National Program of Direct Support to the Poorest "JUNTOS”. This article aims to examine the implementation of these interventions by "JUNTOS”, analyze the challenges and results achieved, and propose working hypotheses for research. It proposes to explain the success of the implementation through: i) innovation in the face of implementation challenges;ii) the relevance of intersectoral coordination;and, iii) improving the quality of public services through universal mechanisms of affiliation and accompaniment to families. © 2022, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Este artigo apresenta resultados parciais de uma investigação em desenvolvimento por pesquisadores de universidades brasileiras, argentinas e uruguaias. Os programas de transferência de renda são vistos como medidas sociais para mitigar a pobreza, bem como para diminuir o aumento do desemprego, do trabalho informal e do desperdício de renda. A metodologia de pesquisa foram estudos bibliográficos e documentais;dados secundários;acesso a sites e dados da Comissão Econômica para a América Latina e o Caribe. A discussão enfoca concepções, modalidades e o debate sobre Programas Focalizados de Transferência de Renda e Renda Básica Universal como referência para discutir a realidade dos programas de transferência de renda na América Latina e Caribe. Os resultados apontaram para a ampliação dos programas focalizados de transferência de renda;criação de programas emergenciais para atender as consequências econômicas e sociais geradas pela pandemia de Covid-19, mas não foi identificada a implementação da Renda Básica Universal e Incondicional.Alternate :Este artículo presenta resultados parciales de una investigación en desarrollo por investigadores de universidades brasileñas, argentinas y uruguayas. Los programas de transferencias monetarias son vistos como medidas sociales para mitigar la pobreza, así como para disminuir el aumento del desempleo, el trabajo informal y el desperdicio de ingresos. La metodología de investigación fueron estudios bibliográficos y documentales;Datos secundarios;acceso a sitios web y datos de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe. La discusión se centra en las concepciones, modalidades y el debate sobre los Programas de Transferencias Monetarias Focalizadas y la Renta Básica Universal como referencia para discutir la realidad de los programas de transferencias monetarias en América Latina y el Caribe. Los resultados señalaron la ampliación de los programas de transferencias monetarias focalizadas;creación de programas de emergencia para atender las consecuencias económicas y sociales generadas por la pandemia del Covid-19, pero no se identificó la implementación de la Renta Básica Universal e Incondicional.Alternate :This article presents partial results of an investigation under development by researchers at Brazilian, Argentine and Uruguayan Universities. The cash transfer programs are seen as social measures to mitigate poverty, as well as to decrease the rise of unemployment, informal work and waste of income. The research methodology were bibliographic and documental studies;secondary data;access to websites and data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The discuss focus on conceptions, modalities and the debate on Focalized Cash Transfer Programs and Universal Basic Income as reference to discuss the reality of cash transfer programs in Latin America and the Caribbean. The outcomes pointed out the enlargement of the focalized cash transfer programs;creation of emergence programs to meet the economic and social consequences generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, but it was not identified the implementation of the Universal and Unconditional Basic Income.
ABSTRACT
O artigo analisa as iniciativas de promoção da segurança alimentar na Argentina, Brasil, Colômbia e Inglaterra a partir do desenho de um diagnóstico situacional dos países em questão, no período pós-Covid-19. São dados secundários recentes de agências de pesquisa locais e multilaterais que questionam a gama de indicadores de riqueza e pobreza versus insegurança alimentar entre a população mais vulnerável. Avança também no modo de produzir alimentos em larga escala, principalmente a economia baseada em commodities, questionando a soberania na produção de alimentos e a contradição com as premissas do desenvolvimento sustentável. Busca evidenciar a implementação de alguns programas e políticas sociais. Nesses países, para cuidar de famílias em situação de vulnerabilidade social.Alternate :El artículo analiza iniciativas para promover la seguridad alimentaria en Argentina, Brazil, Colombia e Inglaterra a partir del diseño de un diagnóstico situacional de los países en mención, en el periodo post-Covid-19. Se trata de datos secundarios recientes de agencias de investigación locales y multilaterales que cuestionan la gama de indicadores de riqueza y pobreza frente a la inseguridad alimentaria entre la población más vulnerable. También avanza sobre la forma de producir alimentos a gran escala, en especial la economía basada en commodities, cuestionando la soberanía en la producción de alimentos y la contradicción frente a las premisas para el desarrollo sostenible. Busca evidenciar sobre la implementación de algunos programas y políticas sociales. En los referidos países, para atender a las familias en situación de vulnerabilidad social.Alternate :The article analyzes the initiatives to promote food security in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and England based on the design of a situational diagnosis of the countries in question, in the post-Covid-19 period. These are recent secondary data from local and multilateral research agencies that question the range of indicators of wealth and poverty versus food insecurity among the most vulnerable population. It also advances in the way of producing food on a large scale, mainly the economy based on commodities, questioning the sovereignty in food production and the contradiction with the premises of sustainable development. It seeks to highlight the implementation of some social programs and policies. In these countries, to care for families in situations of social vulnerability.
ABSTRACT
The amount of generated municipal waste depends not only on the population but also on consumption patterns and economic welfare. The aim of this paper was to present the structure of generated waste over the years in the European Union, Poland, in Subcarpathian Voivodeship, and in Rzeszow. It has been assumed that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the political action of the government, and the higher standard of living of the society are the factors influencing the increase in the amount of waste generated by households and waste segregation. The paper analyses the waste management system using the official data collected and published by Statistics Poland – the Local Data Bank (LBD) and Eurostat. The amount of municipal waste and waste collected selectively from households was probably affected to the greatest extent by local regulations. According to the data presented, a sharp increase in the amount of municipal waste, including bulk waste and bio-waste, was observed in 2013 and 2014, which may be related to the amendment in 2013 applicable in Poland of the Act on maintaining order and cleanliness in communes. Unfortunately in the Eurostat database, no accurate data on selectively collected municipal waste is available, and in LBD this data is available for different time spans depending on the administrative level. This makes it difficult to draw unequivocal conclusions on the amount of generated waste and forecast changes. © 2023, Journal of Ecological Engineering. All Rights Reserved.
ABSTRACT
The first wave of the spread of Covid-19 was contrasted by many countries through a severe lockdown of working and learning activities. One of the solutions for preserving the continuity of teaching activities was the adoption of different forms of remote teaching. A similar ‘translation' has been adopted by many universities for re-organizing field placement. This decision was undertaken by bachelor programs in Social Work in Italy too. However, since field placements rely on the physical presence and the participation of students in the activities performed by social workers, this shift was particularly challenging. Moreover, remote interactions hinder the possibility of observing the distinctive relational dimension of social work. This paper examines the process of re-organization of field placements enacted by a Bachelor's Program in Social Work in an Italian university. We propose a preliminary assessment of this experience, reflecting on the positive and critical aspects of the forced reorganization of field placement. We consider this phenomenon as a process of organizational learning, that crosses multiple domains of social work. We discuss whether this process can be the driver of a mechanism of double-loop learning, leading towards the enrichment of teaching and learning activities rather than a temporary adaptation to a contingent need.
ABSTRACT
This article describes how two Southeastern social work programs delivered integrated behavioral healthcare training to MSW students and social work practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 posed challenges across five domains, including: (a) adaptations to course curricula;(b) adaptations to field education curricula;(c) experiences of grief, distress, and behavioral health issues by stakeholders;(d) organizational strain to universities and departments;and (e) effects on clients and the community. This article describes specific ways in which these two training programs were impacted in these five areas and modified in response, as well as similarities and differences experienced across institutions. Implications for these training programs, and social work education programs in general, are offered.
ABSTRACT
Competition to attract students for enrollment in American social work degree programs is intense. Program attributes (e.g. minimum grade point average, maximum transfer credits permitted, institutional tuition rate, and rankings) distinguish social work education programs in the United States. Determining which program attributes appeal to potential students could help increase a program's competitiveness in a crowded education marketplace. The COVID-19 pandemic is further intensifying recruitment of students to BSW programs. This research used a case study approach to compare admission attributes of 21 bachelor of social work programs (BSW) offered at 11 public and 10 private institutions located in one state that could be viewed as representative of American BSW programs. This paper compared attributes that differentiated these undergraduate social work programs, while exploring the potential impact of the pandemic on BSW student recruitment. Implications for social work education are discussed, including lessons learned that may be helpful to BSW faculty and staff responsible for student recruitment activities and related operations. Social work education program administrators and faculty could use this information to review recruitment and application processes and raise awareness of the burgeoning influence of reputational ranking services.
ABSTRACT
Antisemitism, one of the oldest forms of prejudice and oppression is surging throughout the world. It ranges from verbal abuse to the destruction of property to murder. In the last two years, attacks against Jews in the United States were the overwhelming target of religion-based hate crimes. Stereotypes and myths continue to fuel prejudice and antisemitism in society. Factors such as anti-Israel sentiments, remarks by persons in power, the use of social media, white nationalism, and even the Covid 19 pandemic have contributed to its escalation.As a result of the increasing violence, the U.S. legislature held a hearing on confronting antisemitic terrorism with one outcome being that social workers and community advocates were needed to join law enforcement in the effort to heal and work for justice. Social work with its mandate to promote social justice and human rights and challenge oppression cannot ignore antisemitism and its impact on individuals and societies. However, the subject is basically ignored in the curriculum. This paper offers a brief history of antisemitism and presents guidelines and models for integrating it into social work programs.
ABSTRACT
In October 2019, mass civil protests erupted in Chile questioning the country's vast and historically rooted inequalities and injustices. These protests, which sought structural changes to Chile's neoliberal ethos, were abruptly brought to a halt by the arrival of COVID-19 in March 2020. The political, social, and economic impacts of the pandemic have only intensified the country's historic inequalities and injustices, hitting hardest in areas with higher levels of vulnerability. Increased unemployment, food insecurity, violence, and mental health crises are only a few of the many issues social workers face in the current context. Furthermore, social distancing measures and forced quarantines have caused social programs to rapidly alter strategies to meet the needs of service users, requiring front-line professionals to adapt quickly. To examine and analyse these rapid changes in the delivery of social programs as well as their impact on front-line professionals, a mixed-methods study was undertaken that included the application of an online survey and follow-up interviews with front-line social workers. We found that social workers reported greater workloads and employment precarity within the current context, that programs were changed to meet the immediate tangible needs of individuals and families, and that changes were primarily designed in a nonparticipatory and centralised manner. This chapter analyses the study's results and discusses the challenges social work faces in the current and future context. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.
ABSTRACT
The uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought demonstrates that income redistribution and traditional debt relief mechanisms are insufficient to meet public spending needs, mitigate external debt, and comply with the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to reduce multilateral debt to sustainable levels. Also, West African countries have focused their attention on the long-term fight against poverty and inequality and strengthening their social programs, especially in primary health care and macroeconomic stability. However, for more than a decade, the developing and least developed countries of West Africa have faced rapidly weakening macroeconomic conditions, combining several interrelated crises such as the sharp decline in oil prices, volatile financial markets and tourism disruptions, a global recession, the crisis of climate change, and shortages of food and energy, along with the economic contraction of COVID-19. Data from these countries show that health spending increases economic growth, minimizes infant mortality rates, and reduces debt. Furthermore, increasing government spending efficiency reduces the total debt and improves the health sector, in particular.
ABSTRACT
We assess the ability of Ethiopia's flagship social protection program, the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), to mitigate the adverse impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food and nutrition security of households, mothers, and children. We use both prepandemic in-person household survey data and a postpandemic phone survey. Employing a household fixed effects difference-in-differences approach, we find that household food insecurity increased by 11.7 percentage points and the size of the food gap increased by 0.47 months in the aftermath of the onset of the pandemic. Participation in the PSNP offsets virtually almost all of this adverse change;the likelihood of becoming food insecure increased by only 2.4 percentage points for PSNP households, and the food gap increased by only 0.13 months. The protective role of the PSNP was greater for poorer households and those living in remote areas. Results are robust to definitions of PSNP participation, different estimators, and how we account for the nonrandomness of mobile phone ownership. Furthermore, PSNP households were less likely to reduce expenditures on health and education by 7.7 percentage points and were less likely to reduce expenditures on agricultural inputs by 13 percentage points.
ABSTRACT
While there is currently no cure for dementia, socially prescribing activities can enhance wellbeing for people living with dementia (PLWD). However, accessibility to such activities can be hindered by location, being unaware of activities, scheduling issues, or lack of interest in the specific activity. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated accessibility and changed how coordinators of such programs thought about technology. This PhD research explores how technology can improve accessibility to community spaces and programs for PLWD and their informal carers. The first study involved understanding how technology used for social programs changed during the pandemic and developing guidelines for how program coordinators and technologists can adapt and develop technology for disseminating social programs. The current study aims to discover what elements may be necessary for spaces and programs to feel accessible for PLWD and how these elements can be translated or manifested through technology. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Social workers, especially in the Global North/developed countries such as the United States of America, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, have been actively involved in implementing social programs to improve the psychosocial, health, and wellbeing of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this is not the case in the Global South/developing countries like Nigeria, Ghana, etc. This concept paper aims to describe the current state of Nigerian social workers' role in developing and implementing social programs for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify action plans for further strengthening their involvement. We systematically reviewed the literature to identify Nigerian social workers' role in developing and implementing social programs for older adults during COVID-19. Our review reflected that social workers are rarely involved in developing and implementing social programs; when involved, their involvement is on a consultation basis, which limits their active involvement in multidisciplinary team of COVID-19 prevention and vaccination ad hoc committees in Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>This paper analyzes two types of potential intangible public-sector assets for consideration by public-sector accounting boards. Government investments in health and social programs can create two potential intangible assets: the intangible infrastructure used to deliver the health or social program and the enhanced human capital embodied in the recipients of program services. Because neither of these assets is currently recognized in a government's year-end financial statements or broader general-purpose financial reports (GPFR), these reports may underrepresent the government's true fiscal and service capacity.Design/methodology/approach>The paper uses an international accounting standards framework to analyze: whether investments in health and social programs create intangible assets that meet the definition of an asset as set out by International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), whether they are assets of the government and whether they are recognizable for the purpose of financial reporting.Findings>The intangible infrastructure asset created to facilitate the delivery of health and social programs would often qualify as a recognizable asset of the government. However, the enhanced recipient human capital asset created through the delivery of health and social programs would, in most instances, not qualify as a recognizable asset of the government, though there likely would be benefits from reporting on it through GPFRs or other mechanisms.Originality/value>This paper makes two contributions. First, it identifies a previously overlooked intangible asset – the infrastructure created to facilitate the delivery of health and social programs. Second, it presents an argument regarding why, even when it fails to generate a recognizable intangible asset to government, it would be valuable for government to report such investments in supplementary statements.
ABSTRACT
Pilot projects in the past that have experimented with a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) in Manitoba and Ontario, and a recent study of the feasibility of a GBI in British Columbia, indicate that provinces are not in an ideal position to successfully implement an affordable and effective GBI. However, a GBI implemented by the federal government, financed by eliminating the GST credit and lowering personal tax exemptions, could be both effective and affordable. It could also do so without requiring the elimination of those provincial social assistance programs that are more deeply targeted toward people’s needs. By using its revenue powers, the federal government could create more fiscal capacity for the provinces to provide other cash and in-kind social supports, allowing for greater provincial benefit targeting. The federal government’s centrality in designing and implementing tax structures and collecting tax revenue make it singularly suitable for administering and delivering a GBI. Financing the GBI by eliminating the modest GST credit and lowering the current basic personal income tax exemption could provide a significant reduction in the rate, depth and intensity of poverty in Canada, without imposing an excessive tax burden on Canadians. If provinces use the GBI as a replacement for certain less-targeted provincial social assistance income transfers, the freed-up payments and reduced caseloads could also allow provinces to target more effectively those needs not addressed by the GBI. The recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed longstanding gaps in Canada’s income- support frameworks, with lower-income workers facing exceptional economic vulnerability. At the same time, the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit proved edifying in terms of how to best design a basic-income program. In addition, the federal government’s experiences with the poverty-reducing impacts of the Canada Child Benefit, the Old Age Supplement and the Guaranteed Income Supplement have moved Canada closer than ever to a workable GBI. While it comes with additional costs, those costs will be less burdensome than many GBI skeptics might believe. They must also be put into perspective, by comparing them against the costs of current and, in many cases ineffective income transfers and, just as importantly, against the human cost of leaving more Canadians living in poverty.
ABSTRACT
Introduction The emergence and the frequency of what may be described as monumental crises, such as devasting hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic, their impact on human health and economic development and the need to forcefully address them have brought forth or resurrected the idea of the administrative state and its role in governance as broadly defined once again (Lin et al., 2020). The policies implemented in the name of the NPM led to the erosion of the institutions of the administrative state through policies that sought to cut social programmes and public sector jobs, through the sale of public assets and privatization (Cordelli, 2020), along with a more general weakening of regulation and the underfunding of public infrastructures, particularly healthcare and emergency management systems (Hood and Scott, 1996;Tomic and Heims, 2022). [...]the essence of this essay is to understand the administrative state and the various trajectories it has gone through up to now. [...]while it is clear that the state's role in almost all nations has continued to experience dramatic shifts, especially in dealing with wicked problems, the need to understand this dramatic shift from a more general perspective continues to be obscured in the current discussion. [...]as argued, there is the need to look at the role of the administrative state in a more holistic perspective rather than the current obsession to examine it mainly from how the state has evolved under the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many households to experience income shocks because of the unprecedented job loss, resulting in the demand for public and private food assistance programs and a surge in unemployment insurance filing in the USA. This study aims to investigate the association between social safety programs (e.g. supplementary nutritional assistance programs (SNAP), unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance) and household food sufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.Design/methodology/approach>The authors used the Household Pulse Surveys (HPS) conducted by the US Census Bureau from August 2020 to March 2021. And, the authors used an ordered probit model for the empirical analysis because the indicator of food sufficiency constructed from the HPS is an ordinal variable with four categories. The indicator identifies four groups of households: severe food insufficiency, moderate food insufficiency, mild food sufficiency and food sufficiency.Findings>The results show that food sufficiency is significantly higher among the SNAP, unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance recipients than non-recipients. Furthermore, the results indicate that food sufficiency is significantly lower among black, Asian, Hispanic and other races than white households. Concerning the intersectional effect of social safety net programs and race/ethnicity on household food sufficiency, the authors find that the household food sufficiency is significantly higher among white, black and Asian households who benefited from SNAP, compared with non-beneficiary households. On the other hand, the authors find no evidence that participation in SNAP increases food sufficiency significantly among Hispanics and other races. In addition, the likelihood of food sufficiency increases significantly among white, black, Asian, Hispanic and other races that received unemployment insurance and charitable food assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with those who did not benefit from the programs.Practical implications>These results underscore the critical role collective America’s social safety net programs played in increasing food sufficiency among Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the results suggest that families' basic needs (food sufficiency) would have been at risk if these safety net programs were not available to households during the pandemic. This, therefore, highlights the important role that government- and non-government-supported food emergency assistance programs can play in preventing people from facing food insufficiency problems in a tough time or during a crisis in the USA.Originality/value>This study highlights the dynamic relationship between Americans’ social safety net programs and household food sufficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Under Medicare, older Americans have access to government-subsidized health insurance to protect them from catastrophic healthcare costs and ensure access to needed care. And yet, one in ten Medicare beneficiaries report delaying care due to cost, and 6 percent report having problems paying medical bills. The health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated issues of healthcare affordability for older adults, particularly those with low incomes. This article reviews the financial impact of gaps in the Medicare program, and proposals designed to meet Medicare beneficiaries' evolving needs.
ABSTRACT
Neoliberalism is a policy framework that promotes the transferring of economic factors from the public sector to the private sector;it endorses limiting government spending, government regulation, and public ownership;and fosters stimulating free market capitalism (Brown, 2003;Greenhouse, 2010). Since the 1980s, with Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the U.K., neoliberalism ushered in the policies of austerity and reduced government spending on social programs in general, and for older people (Pierson, 1995). In gerontology, this set of ideas challenged the heterogeneity of aging, contributing insights on power relations in regard to age and multiple and diverse social locations (Calasanti, 2009;Calasanti and King, 2015). (2017) , "Precarity draws attention to the implications of neoliberal practices that have altered late life through the combined impacts of the increased short-term contracts, decline in trade unionism, and declining forms of social protection that include a reliance on family/kin or market care, and private market pensions." Even prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the relationship between the construction of older people and the political response to their needs was shifting. Since the 1980s, a vortex of complementary demographic (the older population's tremendous growth), economic (anemic growth);fiscal (unprecedented budget deficits), and political (deeply embedded left-right conflict) pressures emerged (Hudson and Gonyea, 2012).
ABSTRACT
[...]governments took new steps to include labor market outsiders in social programs. [...]new forms of participation and organizing emerged. Political scientists thus switched from analyzing informality as a dependent variable to thinking about how informality influenced a range of political outcomes—social policy, elections, organizing, enforcement and regulatory policy, and most recently, public health (Blofield et al. 2021;Hummel 2021;Moncada 2021). In studying such a broad range of political behaviors, informal sector workers are similarly defined in a general way, as salaried or self-employed workers who are not enrolled in social security (Baker and Velasco Guachalla 2018, 173).