Social Work and Social Welfare

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme has expanded tremendously over the 30 years of its  operation to cover almost all the development blocks in the country. It offers a wide range of health, nutrition and education related services to children, women and adolescent girls. The study wish to find out the impact and efficacy of the ICDS scheme. The study was conducted from April 2019 to December 2019. The study was conducted on purposive random sampling basis covering 19 States/UTs. 510 AWCs were selected and total 15300 children were covered. One of the important findings of the study is that the children in the Normal grade are found to be 77.4% of the total sample size which means that in spite of a lot of bottlenecks, the malnutrition has been reduced among the children of 0 to 5 years of age. As envisages from the field study, people are well aware of the ICDS scheme and are sending their children to AWCs. However, the children from remote areas are not able to avail these facilities. The opening of public nursery school in urban and rural areas poses a great threat to the enrollment of children in AWCs nowadays unless the infrastructural and other facilities of AWCs are upgraded. The working conditions and remuneration of AWC workers needs to be looked at sympathetically. The findings of the study are expected to help policymakers and programme implementing bodies to take appropriate corrective measures to make the ICDS more effective and thereby bringing down the malnutrition in children to zero level.

The Lagos State Statutory (Protection against Domestic Violence) Law was enacted on March 18, 2007 to protect inhabitants of the State against all forms of domestic violence. In spite of the enactment of this law, many inhabitants of Lagos State are still imperiled to emotional, psychological and physical traumas arising from domestic violence. This study validated contextual influences and the understanding of statutory law protecting women against domestic violence in Lagos State. Contextual influences were captured as socio-demographic characteristics, sociocultural and economic factors. The study adopted the quantitative cross-sectional research design method. Information was sourced randomly among police personnel across Police Divisions within the State Police Command from July to November, 2019. The Fishers sampling technique was employed to arrive at a sample size of 312 from a total population of 1650 police personnel in Lagos State. Stata version 14 was used in data analysis. The results showed that a biased approach to domestic violence against women was higher among male (87%) than female (13%) police personnel. A biased approach to domestic violence against women was higher among non-commissioned (65.2%) than commissioned (34.5%) police personnel. Contextual influences such as sociodemographic, sociocultural and economic factors, as well as police understanding of statutory law against domestic violence were found to be significantly associated with police approach to domestic violence against women in Lagos State. The study concluded that the enactment of the protection against violence law was an appropriate measure to addressing domestic violence, still, the police need to be more proactive and unbiased in handling reported cases of domestic violence against women in the State.

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) is a key to the child-parent relationship. It reflects parents’ self-perception of their ability to perform parenting tasks successfully and a high level of parental self-efficacy is associated with positive child outcomes. The literature on cultural differences regarding PSE is scant. This study applied a cultural perspective and examined differences between Arab and Jewish mothers with regard to PSE and associated factors such as marital satisfaction, social support, wellbeing and stress. Based on a sample of 170 married mothers in Israel (age in years: M = 30.14 , SD = 6.1 ), it revealed that Arab mothers experienced a higher degree of PSE, marital satisfaction and wellbeing, as well as lower stress, than Jewish mothers. PSE among Arab mothers was predicted by marital satisfaction and stress. Among Jewish mothers, PSE was predicted by stress and wellbeing as well as financial indicators. The paper discusses the findings from a cultural perspective, focusing on the experience of parenting in an Arab, collective, traditional and patriarchic society compared to parenting in a Jewish, individualistic, liberal society. The study concludes that it is important to consider the cultural context of parenting to the sense of parental efficacy and to understand the cultural norms and values of individuals whose parenting capacity comes under assessment. Based on the findings it was suggested that family therapy or spousal therapy may provide benefit to Arab mothers who report a low level of PSE. For Jewish mothers, alleviating financial hardship and providing material help could provide similar benefits, in addition to lowering the mother’s level of stress. Limitations of the study as well as future studies directions were also discussed.

The objective of the present work was to specify theoretically, conceptual and empirically a model for the study of deliberative co-participation around the Internet request for termination of pregnancy. A cross-sectional, correlational and psychometric study was carried out with a non-probability selection of 100 university students confined from March 20 to May 30, 2020 due to the mitigation policy of the pandemic caused by the SARS-C OV-2 coronavirus. A factorial structure was found that explained 45% of the total variance, although the research design limited the results to the research scenario, suggesting the extension of the work to other areas of conflict between stakeholders.

Korea has experienced several decades of low birth rates, contributing to an aging population. The government has unsuccessfully attempted several policies to develop and maintain childbirth and childcare that would mitigate the reduction of the productive workforce. Korean policy makers consider the Nordic countries the benchmark for the development and implementation of social welfare programs, but they have been unable to achieve similar levels of success in reversing low fertility. Using documentary research, this study explores the nature and impact of childcare policies in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Korea to gain insights that could help optimize childcare policies in Korea. Based on this analysis, this study recommends that Korea adopt childcare policies that focus on defamiliarization, decommodification, gender integration, and a child-centered approach.

Since the long period of political, social stability and especially the peacebuilding under the interfering of the United Nation, in 1991 the Paris Peace Accord was signed. Cambodia was settled in a peaceful state and it has achieved the basic fundamental for county’s economic development with rapidly status. Accordingly, the social protection policy has critically recognized by the government recently, however, whilst the economic gains are more likely fragile, most of the people are still in the poverty line, the long-term economic prospects are uncertain, such as its weak institution, social inequality and unemployment issues, and social protection system. The social protection system in Cambodia, as a particular, is at an early stage, and very limited. With the small proportion of the covered social insurance program, there are lifecycle shocks and economic downturn have resulted. Thus, the role of private insurance (insurance industry) in boosting the domestic financial economy, and its potential in risk management and complement state’s social insurance program have become the prime matters of considerable interest to state’s regulators and policy-makers.

Since social work practice interfaces with the law in various ways, there is a need to integrate legal studies into social work education. Currently, social work curricula leave little room for basic legal education and, furthermore, there appears to be a general negative reaction to the law among social workers. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the importance of law to social work, and discusses aspects of the law that are particularly valuable to social work education and practice. We contend that it is vital to provide social work students with basic legal education in order to promote efficient social work practice and collaboration between the law and social work. We analyze inter-connections between social work and legal disciplines and discuss the challenges and benefits derived from combining the two disciplines. Key areas of legal education that should be addressed in order to educate future effective social work practitioners are also discussed. The discussion is based on our experience in providing legal education to social work students, our belief in the importance of law to social work, and our experience in the practice of both legal and social work.