Towards Inclusion in Health and Social Assistance Implications for Statutory Social Work Practice

• Published in: Minding the Gaps and Challenging the Change in Social Work. International Research in Poland under Erasmus Mundus ADVANCES pp. 147 - 166
• Main Author: Sichone, George
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Poland University of Warsaw Press 2021; Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
• Subjects: Pedagogy; intervention and biopsychosocial response; wellbeing; health and social care; social work
• ISBN: 9788323549796; 8323549796; 8323549877; 9788323549871

The literature shows that different social work approaches have been used in health care to generate different user experiences. However, there is limited empirical data on the implications for its practice in promoting health. The present study examines the pathways and implications for statutory social work approaches in promoting child health and family wellbeing. The provision of child and family allowance benefits and the integration of biopsychosocial model into health care planning, implementation, and evaluation through procedural, individualized, and progressive approaches seemed to characterize inclusive social work interventions and provided positive family health and social care experiences in Poland. However, at the system level, the limited coverage of benefits, policy inconsistences, and poor family empowerment mechanisms emerged as challenges in enhancing inclusive health and social care. The difference in value bases between social work, on the one hand, and the social assistance system characterized by insufficient professional knowledge of health care issues, work overload and bureaucratic procedures, on the other, tended to affect health care delivery. Finally, family inabilities towards positive health seeking behaviors, including poor self-reliance, were some of the common problems. This study demonstrates that the integration of the biopsychosocial model into welfare policy and social work practice could provide a solution to the challenges faced in promoting health. It is argued that effective health management can be attained if resources, global and local institutional and structural systems are mutually integrated with health care social work.