scholarly journals Social Services, Social Justice, and Social Innovations: Lessons for Addressing Income Inequality

Religions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiziana Dearing
Author(s):  
Pamela Aneesah Nadir

Zakat or obligatory charity is a foundation of Muslim social services. Social services with Muslims date back more than 1,400 years to the time of the Prophet Muhammad. His biography reflects his involvement in the care of the poor, widows, and orphans and engagement in social justice for women and minorities. Muslim communities throughout the United States are providing social services for Muslims; however, an institutionalized network of professional social services sensitive to the needs of Muslims is in the developmental stage.


2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Corneau ◽  
Vicky Stergiopoulos

Anti-racism and anti-oppression frameworks of practice are being increasingly advocated for in efforts to address racism and oppression embedded in mental health and social services, and to help reduce their impact on mental health and clinical outcomes. This literature review summarizes how these two philosophies of practice are conceptualized and the strategies used within these frameworks as they are applied to service provision toward racialized groups. The strategies identified can be grouped in seven main categories: empowerment, education, alliance building, language, alternative healing strategies, advocacy, social justice/activism, and fostering reflexivity. Although anti-racism and anti-oppression frameworks have limitations, they may offer useful approaches to service delivery and would benefit from further study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-14
Author(s):  
Eric Ng ◽  
Caroline Wai

Increasingly, dietitians have found ourselves working with racialized clients, communities, and colleagues across the health and food systems in Canada. We are often asked to treat the adverse health outcomes of Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities resulting from these oppressions at the individual level. However, it is the role of dietitians to engage in efforts to "reduce health inequities and protect human rights; promote fairness and equitable treatment" (College of Dietitians of Ontario, 2019). An anti-oppression approach is required for dietitians to understand how their power and privilege shape the dietitian-client relationship. The purpose of this commentary is to propose a shift from cultural competence or diversity and inclusion in dietetics to an explicit intention of anti-oppressive dietetic practice. We begin our exploration from the Canadian context. We draw from our background working in health equity in public health, and our experiences facilitating equity training using anti-oppression approaches with dietetic learners and other public health practitioners. In creating a working definition of anti-oppressive dietetic practice, we conducted a scan of anti-oppression statements by health and social services organizations in Ontario, Canada, and literature from critical dietetics. A literature search revealed anti-oppressive practice frameworks in nursing and social work. However, this language is lacking in mainstream dietetic practice, with anti-oppression only discussed within the literature on critical dietetics and social justice. We propose that "dietitians can engage in anti-oppressive practice by providing food and nutrition care/planning/service to clients while simultaneously seeking to transform health and social systems towards social justice."


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Priesmann ◽  
Saskia Spiegelburg ◽  
Reinhard Madlener ◽  
Aaron Praktiknjo

Abstract Energy systems are decidedly the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Therefore, transitioning them from fossil to renewable systems is a top priority for societies committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, such transitions involve substantial costs. In many cases, these costs are proportionally passed on to final energy consumers through levies on their electricity consumption. In our paper, we investigate the impacts of renewable support levies on social justice or, more specifically, on income inequality. For our study, we chose Germany where inflation-adjusted electricity prices for private households increased substantially because of such a levy for renewables. We base our analyses on representative household panel data with over 40,000 households from 2003 to 2018. Our results indicate that indiscriminate renewable support levies on electricity consumption increase income inequality and energy poverty. For our case in 2018, renewable support levies alone led to a relative increase of ~0.23% of the Gini coefficient and ~11.31% of the high cost low income (HCLI) energy poverty indicator measuring energy poverty intensity. Based on our findings, we propose a reform of the renewable support levy and analyze three options: (1) the abolition of the levy, (2) levies which are income-progressive proportionally to the income taxes, and (3) a high and flat levy in conjunction with an income-degressive compensation payment. Our ex-post analyses for 2018 indicate that a reformed levy system would have slightly decreased overall income inequality with relative decreases of ~0.23%, ~0.32%, and ~0.59% of the Gini coefficient for options (1), (2), and (3), respectively. But more importantly, such a system would have substantially decreased energy poverty by ~11.31%, ~30.45%, and ~31.45% for the HCLI energy poverty indicator for options (1), (2), and (3), respectively.


Author(s):  
Donna Baines

Social work labour is increasingly mobile and global, as are neoliberal policy and management models such as New Public Management. These global processes overlap with local contexts to create and limit possibilities for social-justice-directed social work practice. Drawing on qualitative case study data collected in Canada, Australia, the UK and New Zealand, this chapter: 1) briefly sketches the history of colonialism and immigration that shaped, and shape, these four countries; 2) discusses the standardising influence of New Public Management and managerialism on social work practice possibilities in the four countries; analyses, in particular, the increasing use of immigrant ‘volunteer’ labour and other forms of unpaid labour, including student placements and internships, as a response to ongoing under-funding of social services and policies of ‘permanent’ austerity; and 3) explores implications for practice and possibilities for liberatory social work practice.


Daedalus ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 148 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Frank

Incentives that lead sellers to introduce quality improvements and cost-saving innovations in competitive markets also ensure that no opportunity to cheat consumers remains unexploited. That difficulty underlies many American laws. But many people lack the income necessary to pay for legal interventions against unjust treatment, preventing them from meeting basic needs, like protection against financial fraud and abusive relationships. Growing income inequality has made this justice gap worse by reducing public funds available for legal aid in real terms, while also making it more difficult for low-income people to make ends meet. Simple policy changes could ease both problems without sacrifices from anyone. Those who could afford tax increases necessary to pay for more social services, including competent legal representation for everyone, resist this step because they believe that it would make it harder to buy the special things they want. But that belief is incorrect because the supply of special things is limited. The ability to bid successfully for them is unaffected by higher taxes, which do not affect relative purchasing power.


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ewert ◽  
Adalbert Evers

This article discusses localised forms of social innovation in social services in relation to social policy and welfare issues. It draws upon research findings from the EU project ‘Welfare Innovations at the local Level in favour of Cohesion’ (WILCO), which takes in social innovations in twenty European cities. First, we argue why there is currently a significant gap between the debate on social innovation and the debate on social welfare reforms. Second, we present attempts that have been made to identify and interpret recurring approaches and instruments in the social innovations studied in relation to various dimensions of the debate on social welfare and services, such as the search for new ways of addressing users and citizens; the emphasis on new risks and related approaches to the issues of rights and responsibilities; and finally the concern with issues of governance. We argue that the features of the local innovations we identified may be significant for welfare systems at large, going beyond the introduction of special new items in special fields. However, the degree to which this will come about in reality will depend on building more bridges of shared understanding between concerns with social innovation on the one hand and welfare reforms on the other hand.


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