❖ SOCIAL WELFARE – covers practically everything men do for the good of society.

DEFINITION of SOCIAL WELFARE according to the following:

GERTRUDE WILSON - “an organized concern of all people for all people.”

WALTER FRIEDLANDER – defines it as organized system of social services and institutions, designed to aid
individuals and groups to attained satisfying standard of life and health.

ELIZABETH WICKEDEN – “social welfare includes those laws, programs, benefits and services which assure
or strengthen provision for meeting social needs recognized as basic to the wellbeing of the population and the
better functioning of the social order”.

PRECONFERENCE WORKING COMMITTEE FOR THE XVTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

SOCIAL WELFARE – defines social welfare as “all the organized social arrangement which have as their
direct and primary objective the wellbeing of people in a social context”.

In the forgoing definitions essentially we find one idea – that social welfare encompasses the wellbeing of all
the members of human society, including their physical, mental, emotional, social economic and spiritual
wellbeing.

Society responds to unmet needs or problems through the following ways:

1) Individual and Group Efforts: these refer to systematic and voluntary efforts undertaken by
individuals and/or groups in response to the unmet needs of people in community.
2) Major Societal Institutions – Social forces that brings changes which can affect the effectiveness of
these institutions in performing their social welfare functions.
3) Social Agency – Whether under Public or Private auspices, a social agency is a major provision for
helping people for their problems.

Two views of Social Welfare:

1. Residual Formulation – Temporary, offered during emergency situations and withdrawn when the
regular social system is again working properly.
♥ Often carry the stigma of doles or charity
2. Institutional Formulation – Social Welfare as a proper, legitimate function of modern society.

Social Welfare Programs categories:

1) Social Security – refers to the whole set of compulsory measures instituted to protect the individual
and his family against the consequences of unavoidable interruption or serious diminution of the
earned income disposable for the maintenance of reasonable standard of living.
2) Personal Social Services – refers to service functions which have major bearing upon personal
problems individual situation stress, interpersonal helping or helping people in need, and the provision
of direct services on collaboration with workers from government and voluntary agencies.
3) Public Assistance – refers to material/concrete aids/supports provided, usually by government
agencies to people who have no income or means of support for themselves and their families for
reason and such as loss of employment, natural disasters etc. In foreign countries, public assistance is
simply called as “Welfare”.
 ❖ Social Services – refers to the, services and other activities provided under various auspices, to
concretely answer the needs and problems of the members of society.

Richard M. Titmus – sees social problems as structural or basically located in the economy.
♥ “Since we cannot name and blame the culprits and oblige them to make redress, we must
either provide social services or allow the social costs of the system to lie where they fell.
♥ ” He considers social services as partial compensation for the “socially generated disservices”
and “Socially-caused diswelfare.”

Reason for Providing Social (Welfare) Services:

1. Humanitarian and social Justice Goals – rooted in the democratic ideal of social justice, and is
based on the belief that man has the potential to realize himself except that physical, social economic,
psychological and other factors sometimes hinder or prevent him from realizing his potential.
2. Social Control Goal – based on the recognition that needy, deprived, or disadvantaged groups may
strike out, individually and/or collectively against what they consider to be alienating or offending
society.
3. Economic Development Goal – places priority on those programs designed to support increases in
the production of goods and services, and other resources that will contribute to economic
development.

❖ SOCIAL WORK – is the profession which is concerned with man’s adjustment to his environment: a
person (or groups) in relation to a person’s (or their) social situation.
♥ SOCIAL FUNCTIONING – is a result from the performance of person’s various social roles in
society.

SOCIAL FUNCTIONING PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED BY ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:

a. Personal inadequacies or sometimes pathologies;

b. Situational inadequacies; and
c. Both personal and situational inadequacies.

The US Council on Social Work Education has this definition of social work:
♥ ”Social work seeks to enhance the social functioning of individuals, singly and in groups, by
activities focused upon their social relationship which constitute the interaction between man
and his environment. These activities can be group into three functions:
a. Restoration of impaired capacity
b. Provision of individual and social resources (DEVELOPMENTAL)
c. Prevention of social dysfunction

JUNE 27, 2001 – The International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International
Federation of Social Workers jointly announced this new International definition of social work which, it is
believed, is applicable to social work practitioners and educators in every region and country of the world:
♥ “The social work profession promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships
and empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well- being. Utilizing theories of human
behavior and social systems, social works intervenes at the points where people interact with
their environment. Principles of human rights and social justice are fundamentals to social
work”.

1930 – Social Work introduced as a systematic method of helping people in the field of public welfare in the
Philippines.
 ♥ Social Welfare work in those times centered on
mutual protection and economic survival.
PRE – HISTORIC PERIOD ♥ This caused groups to band together and
communities to link with each other through marriage
among members.

The Spaniards brought the teaching, to do good to others

for the salvation of their souls, and which for many years
was the underlying philosophy behind all social welfare
activities.

1. HOSPITALS
● The first hospital established in the Philippines was
the one founded by Don Miguel Lopez de Legaspi
in Cebu in 1565. It was transferred to Manila in
1571. It was called Hospitalito de Santa Ana,
under the supervision of Franciscans (1578).

2. ASYLUMS AND ORPHANAGES

● With religious charity as their motivation, pious

SPANISH PERIOD organizations also undertook the establishment of

asylums and orphanages for the poor and the
needy.
● In 1882, an orphanage for girls in Mandaluyong
and boys in Tambobong were founded bu
Agustinian fathers.
● Nuestra Senora dela Consolacion and the Santo
Tomas de Villanueva asylums were organized to
take care of the victims of a cholera epidemic
● In 1885, the Asilo de San Vicente de Paul, an
asylum for girls, were established, offering religious
instruction, primary education, and training in
housework to its inmates.
● Hospicio de San Jose was founded in 1882,
originally to house the aged and the orphans,
mentally defective and young boys recruiting
reform.

3. SCHOOLS
● The first school established was the Parochial
School of Cebu in 1565, founded by Agustinians
friars.
● Christian religion, Spanish culture and language,
music, writing, reading and arithmetic and some
vocational courses were taught.
 1899 – Americans occupied the country and introduced a
new educational system, new health methods,
and religious freedom.
1902 – The Civil government created an agency, the
Insular Board, to coordinate and supervise
private institutions engaged in welfare work.
February 5, 1915 – The American government created
the Public Welfare Board with the passage of
Legislative Act No. 2510, essentially to
coordinate the welfare activities of various
existing charitable organizations.
January 1917 – The first government entity to operate
as a welfare agency, and an initial step in child
welfare services, was set up.
1900 – Attempt was made to alleviate the condition of
deaf children at the Philippine Normal School.
1910 – A school for the deaf and blind was organized.
1905 – The Philippine chapter of the American Red Cross
was established to take charge of disaster relief
AMERICAN PERIOD in the country and to administer Red Cross funds
from the United States.
1907 – La Gota de Leche was established to furnish
child-caring institutions with fresh cow’s milk from
dairy farm in Pasay, Manila, supervised by a
veterinarian. This agency later opened free
consultation clinic for mothers.
1913 – Associacion de Damas Filipinas was organized
by civic-spirited women to help destitute mothers
and their children.
1921 – Office of the Public Welfare Commissioner was
created. It absorbed the functions of the Public
Welfare Board which, while charged with
coordinating and intensifying the activities of child
welfare organizations and agencies, was unable to
cope with the mounting problems in the health
field, which was manifested by the high infant
mortality rate in the second decade of the century.
1922 – The Office of the Public Welfare Commissioner
prepared solicitation forms which it required the
public to demand of any person appealing for
donations and charities. This was done to protect
the public and organizations from unscrupulous
persons collecting funds. This practice, however,
was not legally sanctioned until 1933.
1924 – The Associated Charities had become
independent agency under the supervision of the
Public Welfare Commissioner, and was partly
financed by the government, and partly by private
contributions.
♥ The Philippine Legislature passed a law
(Philippine Legislative Act No. 3203) relating to
the care and custody of neglected and
delinquent children and providing probation
officers for them.
 1933 – The administration of social welfare in the
Philippines was marked by significant
developments when Frank Murphy became the
Governor-General. Scholarship grants for
professional training in social work in the United
States were made available.
♥ The Legislature appropriated funds for the
operations of government child and maternal
health centers which was established in every
town with at least two thousand populations.
♥ The economic depression in the 1930s created
serious economic problems. The Associated
Charities were unable to cope with the number
of applicants for relief and other social services,
despite appropriations made by the Office of the
Public Welfare Commissioner, under its director,
Dr. Jose Fabella.
♥ Josefa Jara Martinez who obtained a diploma
in Social Work in 1921, worked for the Public
Welfare Board where she started to introduce
the scientific approach in social work.
♥ The Murphy administration’s social welfare
programs marked the first time the
government assumed full responsibility for the
relief of the distressed due to any cause.

1940 – The Office of the Commissioner of Health and

Public Welfare was abolished and replaced by a
COMMON WEALTH Department of Health and Public Assistance

PERIOD Service, which took over the activities that used

to be performed by the Associated Charities
which, by then, had ceased to exist.

♥ Social Welfare activities during the period

consisted mainly of giving medical care and

JAPANESE OCCUPATION treatment, as well as food and clothing, to the

wounded soldiers, prisoners and civilians.

1946 – The Bureau of Public Welfare re-opened

but lack of funds limited its operations.
October 4, 1947 – The Bureau became the Social
Welfare Commission and was placed under the
Office of the President.
August 1948 – President Quirino created the
President’s Action Committee on Social
Amelioration. It is a comprehensive program of
THE POST-WAR YEARS health, education, welfare, agriculture, public
works and financing.
1946 – The United Nations International
Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was created
by the United Nations General Assembly to
further maternal and child health in economically
underdeveloped country.
1948 – UNICEF became active in the Philippines,
establishing basic health care services to mothers
 and children, consisting of medical care, feeding
programs and health education.
January 3, 1951 – The Social Welfare
Commission and the President’s Action
Committee on Social Amelioration were fused into
one agency called the Social Welfare
Administration.

THE SOCIAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION

January 3, 1951 – the Social Welfare Commission and the President’s Action Committee on Social
Amelioration were fused into one agency called SOCIAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION.

1. Division of Public Assistance – which became concerned with the need for a more professional
administration of public tax supported welfare programs and services to needy and disadvantaged
members of the community. This office had two programs:
a) Assistance
♥ This was given in the form of general assistance to dependent minors, the aged and the
handicapped and special assitance to clients with needs and problems of temporary nature.
♥ Given in the form of material aid like food, financial aid, transportation aid, medical aid,
institutional care and work relief.
b) Service
♥ This was rendered in the form of rehabilitation service.

2. Child Welfare Division Services – under this unit included casework and guidance services for
children
3. Division of Rural Welfare - This was created by Administrative Order No. 7, on September 5, 1951.
♥ It deals with the mounting social problems in the rural areas.

“Self-Help” – became the underlying philosophy for the rural community development projects.

1965 – Republic Act 4373, “An Act to Regulate the Practice of Social Work and the Operation of Social Work
Agencies in the Philippines”
♥ The law requires completion of a Bachelor of Science in Social Work degree, one thousand
hours of supervised field practice, and the passing of a government board examination in social
work for licensing or registration as a social worker.
♥ It is the formal recognition of social work as a profession in the Philippines.

THE SEVENTIES
♥ September 8, 1976 – The Department of Social Welfare became the Department of Social Services
and Development shifting emphasis on the traditional, often institution-based social welfare to
community-oriented programs and services.
♥ June 2, 1978 – President Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1397, converting departments into
ministries thus the Ministry of Social Services and Development. The organizational structure, functions
and programs remains the same.
♥ The sixties and seventies marked the existence of voluntary organizations and establishment of even
more agencies.

THE EIGHTIES
♥ The Self-Employment Assistance was upgraded to make it more responsive to its client’s needs. Case
Management System was launched. Social Welfare Indicators monitor the level of well-being of the
MSSD service users.
 ♥ January 30, 1987 – President Corazon C. Aquino signed Executive Order No. 123, reorganizing MSSD
and renaming it Department of Social Welfare and Development. The Department was evolving from
mere welfare or relief agency to the greater task of development. The approach taken by the agency
during this period is described as preventive and developmental, participative and client-managed.

THE NINETIES
♥ The DSWD continued the five program areas of concern during the early nineties.It also gave priority
attention to Low Income Municipalities (LIMs) and other socially-depressed barangays. The aftermath
of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption was the use of Crisis Incident Stress Debriefing (CISD), a form of crisis
intervention used with victims of disasters and other crisis situation.
♥ October 10, 1991 – R.A. 7160 Local Government Code was passed. Implementing functions together
with its programs and services were devolved to its local government unit. The Department, however,
retained its specialized social services consisting of four categories: (a) Center/institution-based
services; (b) community-based programs and services; (c) locally-funded and foreign-assisted projects;
and (d) disaster relief and rehabilitation augmentation.
♥ Today, countless social agencies, organizations and institutions under private sponsorship are engaged
in the provision of many different social services. NGOs play a very important role in supplementing the
needs of the rising disadvantaged sectors in our society.
♥ R.A. 4373 (the Social Work Law, 1967) provides that no social welfare agency shall operate and
be accredited unless it shall first have registered with the Social Welfare Administration which shall
issue the corresponding certificate of registration.
♥ R.A. 5416 (1968) empowers the Department to
(1) set standards and policies;
(2) accredit public and private institutions and organizations; and
(3) coordinate government efforts in social welfare work to avoid duplication, friction and overlapping
of responsibility in social services.

Social work – is a profession that is practiced independently or as part of a team in many different fields,
health, education, corrections, and community development.

Social worker – intervene countless problematic situations people find themselves, who needs help in order
to function well socially.

Social Functioning: Social Work’s Focus of Concern

William Schwartz (1961) – states that “Every profession has a particular function to perform in society: it
receives a certain job assignment for which is held accountable.”

♥ The general assignment for the social work profession is to mediate the process through which the
individual and society reach out to each other through a mutual need for self-fulfillment. This
presupposes a relationship between people and their nurturing group which we would describe as
“symbiotic” – each needing the other with all the strength it can command at a given moment. The
social worker’s field of intervention lies at the point where two forces meet: the individual impetus
toward health growth and belonging, and the organized efforts of society in integrate its parts into a
productive and dynamic whole.

Wernes Boehm (1958) – Social Work seeks to enhance the social functioning of individuals, singularly and
in groups by activities focused upon their social relationships which constitutes interaction between individuals
and their environments. These activities can be group into three functions: restoration of impaired capacity,
provision of individual and social resources, and prevention of social dysfunction.
William Gordon (1969) – the central focus of social work traditionally seems to have been on the
person-in-his-life-situation complex – a simultaneous dual focus on man and his environment this focus has
been concentrated at some times on the side of the organism as interpreted by psychological theory and at
other times on the side of environment as interpreted by sociological and economic theory. The mainstream of
social work, however, has become neither applied psychology nor applied sociology.

Harriet Barlett (1970) - Social functioning is the relation between the coping activity of people and the
demand from the environment. This dual focus ties the, together. Thus, person and situation, people and
environment, are encompassed in a single concept which requires that they be constantly reviewed together.

Louise C. Johnson (1989) – Social workers become involved when individuals are having difficulty in
relationship with other people in growing so as to maximize their potential; and in meeting the demand of the
environment. The core of the social functioning which problems are the reason for the worker-client
interaction. Thus the ultimate goal of all social work practice is the enhancement of the social functioning of
individuals.

Social Environment – is a network of overlapping social systems and social situations, including ecological
systems, cultures and situations, (including ecological systems, cultures and institutions.)

Social Situation – is an impinging segment of the social environment, smaller, more immediate environment
that “has meaning for the individual land that is uniquely perceived and interpreted by him, in which he has
one or more status – roles identities, is a group member and a role performer.”

The social work job assignment involves:

a. “mediating” (Schwartz) Symbiotic or symbiosis
b. “matching” (Gordon)
c. “Striking a balance between people’s coping ability and situational/environmental demands” (Barlett)

Social Roles – defined as he socially recognized pattern behaviors and activities expected from an individual
occupying a certain position in the society.

CAUSES OF AND RESPONSES TO SOCIAL FUNCTIONING PROBLEMS

● Social functioning problems may be caused by factors inherent in the person, factors in the situation or
environmental factors in both the person and the situation or environment.
● Social Work Intervention is always directed toward enhancing or improving the individual’s social
functioning through any of the following ways:
1. Change strategies directed toward the individual;
2. Change strategies directed toward both the individual and the environment.

FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL WORK

● In 1958 the Commission on practice of the U.S National Association of Social Workers came up with a
statement of what has since been accepted as the three purposes and function of social work.

1. Restorative/curative/remedial as well as rehabilitative function – assists individuals and

groups to identify and resolves or minimizes problems arising out of disequilibrium between themselves
and the environment.
● Curative aspect – seek to remove factors which cause the breakdown in the person’s social
functioning.
● Rehabilitative aspect – tries to put back the person on a normal or healthy of social
functioning.
2. Preventive function – identify potential areas of disequilibrium between individuals or groups and
the environment in order to prevent the occurrence of this equilibrium.
3. Developmental function – to seek out, identify and strengthen the maximum potentials in
individuals, groups and communities.
SOCIAL WORK AS A PROFESSION
♥ RA 4373, promulgated in 1965 – Social Work officially recognized as a profession with the passage of a
law by Congress. The five elements as constituting the distinguishing the attributes of a
profession, according Ernest Greenwood.

1. SYSTEMATIC BODY OF THEORY

♥ Skills that characterized a profession flow from and are supported by a fund of knowledge that has
been organized into an internally consistent system

3 Types of Knowledge
a. Tested Knowledge – is knowledge that has been established through scientific study (research)
b. Hypothetical Knowledge – still has to undergo transformation into tested knowledge.
c. Assumptive Knowledge – practice wisdom.

2. Professional Authority – Extensive education in the systematic theory of her discipline provides the
professional with the type of knowledge which the layman does not have.
3. Community Sanction – the community sanctions a profession’s authority by way of giving it certain
power and privileges.
4. Regulative Code of Ethics – this code serves to check the possible abuses which can arise out of a
profession’s exercise of authority, and tis accompanying powers and privileges.
5. Professional Culture – the interaction of social rules required by the formal and informal groups
generate a social configuration unique to the profession or professional culture. The culture of a
profession consist of the following:

A. Social Values – refer to the basic and fundamental beliefs of a group, practically the reason
for its existence.
B. Professional Norms – are the accepted standard of behavior of doing things, which guides
the professional in various situations.
C. Symbols – of a profession are its “meaning-laden items” including emblems, insignias, dress
history, its idioms and vocabulary and its stereo types of the professional, the client and the
layman.

Three essential components:

1. VALUES – Defined as that worth which man attaches to certain things, systems, or persons within the
realm of usefulness, truth goodness or beauty.
2. KNOWLEDGE – refers to what id thought to be, as confirmed by reality.
♥ Refers to what, in fact seems to be established by the highest standards of objectivity and
rationality of which man is capable.
♥ Concerned with facts and information.
3. SKILLS – concerned with application, with doing, but not hust doing any way but ably, expertly,
proficiently.
♥ PROFESSIONAL SKILL: Refers to one’s ability to apply the knowledge and values of one’s
profession in her work with people. Developed not just by understanding of theory but also by
practice
♥ ART: Social Work practice has been referred to us an art with scientific and value foundation.
Social worker has to use her skill in using the relationship between the client and herself to
achieve certain objectives.
 PHILOSOPHY OF SW VALUES OF SW CONCEPTS OF SW VIEWS ABOUT MAN
Democratic Theory – 1. Each person has the 1. CONCEPT OF HUMAN 1. NATURAL vs
♥ Man has worth and right to self-fulfillment, POTENTIALS AND TRANSCEDENTAL
dignity. deriving his inherent CAPACITY. VIEW
♥ Views man as capacity and thrust ♥ That man can fulfill ♥ In naturalistic view,
having worth toward that goal. himself is premised man is part of
because he is on the belief that he nature. He can be
capable of reason, 2. Each person has the is inherently studied and
of rational analysis, obligation, as a member endowed with understood
and choice. of society, to seek ways potentials and scientifically.
of self fulfillment that capacities. ♥ The transcendental
HUMANISM – (Howard contribute to the view holds that
Mumford Jones) common good. 2. CONCEPT OF SOCIAL science can never
♥ Implies an RESPONSIBILITY. fully explain man,
assumption about 3. Society has the ♥ That the invidualhas partly due to our
man. obligation to facilitate the the obligation to ignorance and partly
♥ Every human being self-fulfillment of the contribute to the because man has a
by the mere fact of individual and the right common good and potential to
his existence has to enrichment through society transcend the
dignity. the contribution of its natural order of
individual members. 3. CONCEPT OF EQUAL things, to choose, to
CHRISTIANITY – OPPORTUNITIES. create and to be
♥ Human worth and 4. Each person requires for ♥ This concept is rational.
dignity in terms of the harmonious premised on the
man’s having been development of his ideal of social 2. MAN as SOCIAL,
created in the image powers socially provided justice, two ASOCIAL or ANTI –
of GOD. and socially safe-guarded elements of which SOCIAL.
opportunities for are fairness and ♥ Being social, men
satisfying his basic needs equality. aspire to live on
in the physical, good terms with
psychological, economic 4. CONCEPT OF SOCIAL others.
cultural, aesthetic and PROVISION. ♥ As asocial beings,
spiritual realms. ♥ This concept is they are discreet
based on the individuals who
5. As society becomes more premise that there come together to
complex and will always be form groups for
interdependent people everywhere, their mutual
increasingly specialized at all times, with protection and
social organization is unmet needs or safety.
required to facilitate the problems which are ♥ As anti – social, men
individual effort at self beyond their are viewed as
realization. capacity to solve. inherently self
seeking, egotistical,
6. To permit both self out to extend
realization and personal gain at the
contribution to society by expense of others.
the individual, social
organization must make
available socially
provided devices for
needs.

DOMINANT VALUES OF THE FILIPINO

1. SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE – defined as being taken by one’s fellows for what one is, or believes he is,
being treated in accordance with his status, this value is facilitated by the following intermediate
values:
A. SMOOTH INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS (SIR) – This is a facility at getting along with
others in such a way as to avoid outward signs of conflict.
♥ It is believed to be acquiared and preserved principally by three means:
I. PAKIKISAMA – This means “giving in”, “concession”, or following suggestion of
others.
Exanple: A youthful offender, while wanting to reform, continues to meet with his
deliquency – prone gang in the name of “pakikisama”
II. EUPHISM – this means stating of an unpleasant truth, opinion or request as
pleasantly
Example: A request for help from politician may elicit “pipilitin ko”(will do my
best)
III. The use of a “GO – BETWEEN” or TULAY – this means a third party who will
arry a message
Example: A wife whois estranged from her husband will, not frequent, ask the
social worker to convey her conditions for reconcialition.
B. AMOR PROPIO – term used to refer to the sensitivity to personal affront and functions to
protect the individual against loss of social acceptance.
Example: A social worker