Welfare Reform on the Web (February 2009): Social care - overseas

Cash benefits in long-term home care

B. van den Berg and W.H.J. Hassink

Health Policy, vol. 88, 2008, p. 209-221

In the Netherlands, persons eligible for publicly funded long-term care receive a cash benefit which they use to purchase the home care they require from a provider of their choice (private, commercial or informal). They negotiate with the care supplier about price and quantity, and can keep the unspent portion of the lump sum and income related co-payment components of their benefit. However they cannot keep any of the personal budget component allocated to them. This paper finds that the incentive of being able to keep the unspent portion of the lump sum and income-related co-payments either has no effect or exerts a downward pressure on the price of care. However, the component of the cash benefit which a client may not keep when it is unspent has a positive impact on the price of care.

Human rights and social work: towards rights-based practice. Rev. ed.

J. Ife

Cambridge: CUP, 2008

This book argues that incorporating the idea of three 'generations' of human rights allows us to move beyond the limitations of conventional legal frameworks. It examines current human rights issues and shows how a broader understanding of human rights can be used to ground a form of practice that is central to social work, community development and broader human services. The argument extends the idea of human rights beyond the realm of theoretical analysis, and into the arena of professional practice and social action, using a critical theory perspective. This is set within the context of current debates about globalisation and the need to incorporate an internationalist viewpoint into all social work practice.

Reinventing social work accreditation

D. Stoesz and H.J. Karger

Research on Social Work Practice, vol. 19, 2009, p. 104-111

Since its creation in 1952, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) has been the sole accreditor of social work educational programmes in the United States. The authors argue that the CSWE is performing poorly in its role of maintaining high standards in academic social work training and that its monopoly should be broken if the quality of social work education is to be improved.

(For comment see Research on Social Work Practice, vol. 19, 2009, p. 112-133)