Social program

“ To-day, this program can be carried out more easily than ever before in human history. The social conscience is already awakening and in his efforts to win more support for his righteous cause, the worker will derive aid from the churches as well as from the many organizations that have come into existence during the past decade solely to cast their influence in behalf of social-welfare movements. The social question to-day includes the industrial question. ”

“ But whereas in earlier years our social welfare program was taken cynically as synonymous with hopelessness and failure, today it is looked on by a con­siderable segment of our people as the promise of a new life. ”

“ The result of all these social programs, whether directed towards the achievement of social justice or the broadening of social services to the people, has been to increase the chances of every man, woman and child of this country for a long and productive life, for a living place in harmony with their hopes, and for an equal share in the benefits of progress. ”

“ The program is a program of extension, rather than of innovation. It has already won the approval of the citizenship.
Spontaneity must be the soul of such a movement. “It was my strong conviction that the development of such a social movement should come from the people themselves, not that a ready-made program or plan should be given them, but that they should develop their own.” One by one centers are being formed. The Board of Education furnishes the building, the local social [152] center organization pays the immediate expenses which its activities incur. ”

“ To this basic reorientation, there was complementary success in the establishment of modern and improved facilities for the program; the recruit­ment and training of skilled manpower for social work; and the participation of local governments in welfare projects, In this manner, the government was able to intensify its welfare services and reached a new group of people whose con­tinued existence without the benefit of these social services threaten the peace and security of our society. ”

“ The Federal Government provides for an extensive and valuable program of constructive social service, in education, home building, protection to women and children, employment, public health, recreation, and many other directions. ”

“ But I wish to predict that its chief service in the end will be, as I hope it will be, to point out some of the needed changes in social, economic and industrial fabric that must be made if we are going to truly conserve the interests of the child. A program of social justice, definitely proposed and persistently carried out will in the end do much more for the welfare of the children of the Nation than all the bureaus that we can establish. ”

“ This program gives priority to services designed for social change and the development of productive skills. Special focus, however, will be placed on services that will advance the welfare of children, the youth and their families. We are determined that the problem of delinquency, of the school drop-out and the beggar shall not persist in our society. ”

“ Our faith in the American people is reflected in another major endeavor. Our private sector initiatives task force is seeking out successful community models of school, church, business, union, foundation, and civic programs that help community needs. Such groups are almost invariably far more efficient than government in running social programs. ”

“ In this framework of the social protection system, the development and social inclusion policy will be approved centered on people and with a logic of articulation and coordination with other sectors and levels of government. Social programs will be strengthened and an effort will be made to improve the household targeting system to serve the country's most vulnerable population. ”

“ After many requests on my part the Congress passed a Fair Labor Standards Act, commonly called the Wages and Hours Bill. That act— applying to products in interstate commerce—ends child labor, sets a floor below wages and a ceiling over hours of labor.
Except perhaps for the Social Security Act, it is the most far- reaching, the most far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted here or in any other country. Without question it starts us toward a better standard of living and increases purchasing power to buy the products of farm and factory. ”

“ The efficient local private agencies suffer in the same way from the lack of a national agency and a national standard in case work. The American Association for Social Work with Families, and the National Conference of Social Work, attempt by conference and publication to spread the knowledge of social technique and to improve the work done by existing societies. ”

“ To help those least fortunate of all, I am recommending a new public welfare program, stressing services instead of support, rehabilitation instead of relief, and training for useful work instead of prolonged dependency. ”

“ It is popular nowadays to apply the term "forward-looking" to people who would make the National Government an agency for social-welfare work, and to characterize as "lacking in vision" anyone who interposes a constitutional principle in the path of a social reform. ”

“ Finally, we propose special attention to the quality and scope of social services to the eleven basic needs of man to ensure that our development will meet the test of social justice and democratization. ”

“ The obligations on the part of the community extend to the provision of employment, mental and physical health care, social security, fair wages, rest and recreation, and a host of other reasonable expectations on the part of the individual members of society. ”

“ The personal, economic and cultural welfare of the private person shall be fundamental aims of public activity. In particular, it shall be incumbent upon the public institutions to secure the right to work, housing and education, and to promote social care, social security, and a good living environment.
The public institutions shall promote the ideals of democracy as guidelines in all sectors of society. ”

“ But I wish to make it clear, in closing this chapter, that the social worker as a citizen is as much interested in these hopes for radical economic reforms as any one else can be, though she does not regard them as her special business. ”

“ Our program is to open to all the opportunity for steady and productive employment, to remove from all the handicap of arbitrary or irrational exclusion, to offer to all the facilities for education and health and welfare, to make society the servant of the individual and the individual the source of progress, and thus to realize for all the full promise of American life. ”

“ The growth—of our cities and the increasing complexity of our industrial life have greatly increased the number of activities which it is to our advantage to carry on, not individually, but collectively or through the agency of government. The spread of altruism and the widening of the concept of social service have caused the extension of governmental activity in such new fields as social insurance, recreation, and public health. ”

“ We will improve the system of primary level self-governance and strengthen community governance in both urban and rural areas. We will see that trade unions, Communist Youth League organizations, women's federations, and other people's organizations fully play their roles. We will reform and improve the system for overseeing social organizations, encourage sound and law-based public-interest activities and charity, and promote specialized social work and volunteer services. ”

“ All these conditions are abnormal, wholly unfavorable to a fair consideration of what will promote welfare. Even if socialistic methods might work fairly well when all were favorably disposed, there is great question whether they would work as well as present social methods, under equal good will. ”

“ In recent years governments, municipal and other authorities, industrial corporations and voluntary associations of all kinds have been compelled to make ever-extending provisions for industrial protection, social insurance, public health service, housing improvement, recreation and various other forms of organized social effort. All these activities have created the sphere of a new profession, that of the trained social worker. ”

“ These aims of welfare policy shall be attained through the constant improvement and equalization of the conditions of life and work, the transcendence, on the basis of solidarity and reciprocity, of differences stemming from economic un-development and other unequal conditions of life and work, the equalization of possibilities for education and work, and through the prevention and elimination of social differences which are not based on the application of the principle of distribution according to work performed. ”

“ The social organization system and legal regime, ranging from ancestral family and community principles and ethical and moral standards, passing through production and trade relations, solidarity and social responsibility, forms of community and state administration; up to a very complex system of laws, rules, uses and customs that embodied free work by the community, the stewardships and charges system, which allowed the orderly and balanced community life as well as relationships and exchanges with other communities or states. ”

“ It is within our local communities that the real contribution to the welfare of our citizens is made. Those closest to the problem-the social workers in State and local governments, area agencies, and private and voluntary organizations-are usually the most qualified persons to decide what help is needed and the best way to provide it. ”

“ The third thing that I'd like to see is an expansion of national service programs so that if young people are committed to going into teaching or going into nursing or going into social work, or going into the public sector that they can get significant loan forgiveness so that they can actually afford to do those jobs. ”

“ The theory upon which governmental institutions are founded, and those established by private citizens or boards are assisted is, that of protecting society from a large, idle, ignorant, vicious population, by providing the means for the temporal relief and social improvement and correction of these classes, so as to bring them to the age of self-support in the case of children, to punish criminals, relieve the poor, and thus gradually return them all to society as sober, enlightened, honest, industrious, and thrifty citizens. ”

“ While the first class seems to identify group welfare with individual welfare, all the others imply divergence of interest and seek to safeguard the general interest at the expense of private liberty. While groups 2 and 3 aim at this directly, group 4 seeks the same end indirectly, while groups 5, 6, 7 and 8 pertain to the system of control, by which alone obedience is secured and the preceding ordinances made effective. Putting aside the extraneous matter, which often obscures the real purpose of a code, I believe that all bodies of social requirements can be split up into the above groups. ”

“ The Social Welfare Administration has performed excellently during the past three years in spite of fund limitations that affect all government offices and in spite of the ever growing demands for its services. ”

“ This means that, in many cases, society must provide pensions, insurance against accident and sickness, legislation to check social abuses, and, above all, proper facilities for education. Here comes in the need of child-labor legislation, of better housing, of industrial insurance, of industrial education, and the like. ”

“ To this end we are ready to begin to meet this problem—the intelligent care of population throughout our Nation, in accordance with an intelligent distribution of the means of livelihood for that population. A definite program for putting people to work, of which I shall speak in a moment, is a component part of this greater program of security of livelihood through the better use of our national resources. ”

“ This is the clearest and completest program of civil service reform ever put forth by a public man in this Republic. Not a single essential point is forgotten,—and what is more, there is in it no vagueness or equivocation of statement or promise. ”

“ By some such plans relief could be afforded to all who belong to what may be called the lowest class; for the assistance of those who could be helped by tools, emigration, or money, the great Friendly Societies, the Society for Relief of Distress, and the Charity Organisation Society might act in conjunction. These societies are unsectarian, are already organised, and may be developed in power and tenderness to any extent by the addition of members and visitors. ”

“ In formulating and implementing policies that have implications for faith-based and other neighborhood organizations, agencies that administer social service programs or that support (including through prime awards or sub-awards) social service programs with Federal financial assistance shall, to the extent permitted by law, be guided by the following fundamental principles: “ (a) Federal financial assistance for social service programs should be distributed in the most effective and efficient manner possible. ”

“ To define the really democratic organization as one which makes expressly and intentionally for individual distinction and social improvement is nothing more than a translation of the statement that such an organization should make expressly and intentionally for the welfare of the whole people. The whole people will always consist of individuals, constituting small classes, who demand special opportunities, and the mass of the population who demand for their improvement more generalized opportunities. ”