Social Welfare

Social Welfare is the primary field of social work practice. The term itself has both broad and narrow concepts. Social welfare is a set of institutions and agencies established by society to provide various kinds of social support to people who may need them. These are established either in response to society’s wish to serve or to help individuals to survive.

In the United States, social welfare is an organized system of social services and institutions designed to aid individuals and groups to attain satisfying standards of life and health and personal and social relationships which permit them to develop their full capacities and to promote their well-being in harmony with the needs of their families and communities.

In the Philippines and other countries similarly situated social welfare refers to an aggregation of specialized programs, institutions, and services intended to meet certain residual needs (like food, shelter, and clothing) not serviced by other types of sectoral action, and receiving some degree of financial support, supervision or recognition from either the public or private sectors or both.

The Social Welfare Act of 1968 which created the Department of Social Welfare is more specific. It states that the function of the DSW is to provide a comprehensive program of social services designed to ameliorate the living conditions of distressed Filipinos, particularly those who are handicapped by reason of poverty, youth, physical and mental disability, illness and old age, victims of national disasters including assistance to members of cultural communities to facilitate their integration into the body politic. This is where social welfare stands today.

Reference:
Lee-Mendoza, T. (2008) Social Welfare and Social Work. Central Book Supply