Welfare

Identify the current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures for safeguarding the welfare of children and young people including e-safety. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 – which ensure that children are safe and looked after, children have the right to be protected from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect, negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation including sexual abuse by those looking after them.

Children act 1989 Parents and professionals must work to ensure the safety of the child. This act includes two important sections : Section 47 states that the local authority has a duty to investigate if they have cause to suspect a child that lives or is found in their area is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm. Section 17 states that services must be put in place by local authority to safeguard the welfare of the children within their area who need it.

The Education Act 2002 This sets out the responsibilities of Local Education Authorities (LEAs), Governing bodies, head teachers and all those working in schools to ensure that children are safe and free from harm. Children Act 2004 This provides the legal framework for Every Child Matters. It includes the requirement for: •Services to work more closely, forming an integrated service. a common assessment framework to help the early identification of need •a shared database of information which is relevant to the safety and welfare of children •Earlier support for parents who experiencing problems. Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006 This sets out the duties of organisations and how they must work together to safeguard children and young people. E-safety 2008 The council has produced a strategy to increase the awareness of internet safety. Set out measures to protect children from unsuitable sites and establish codes of practice.

In the United States, the word “welfare” is familiar to everyone. People usually consider welfare as government programs that distribute public assistance to the poor and low income people. However, some people, who are able to work, take advantage of or depend too much on welfare, and they consider welfare as their main source of income. To stop their dependence on welfare, the government should put those who are on welfare into the labor area and keep them there.

Besides, the government should change their way of thinking about welfare and make recipients realize the goal of work and self-sufficiency. In order to accomplish this change, the government should replace the existing welfare by education and training programs. Some welfare recipients depend too much and take advantage of welfare. The sponsors of immigrants must be responsible for taking care of their family. However, they refuse to take their responsibility, and they consider that welfare must help them.

For example, one sponsor in Orange County, California placed her parents on welfare even though she owned a $450,000 home and easily could afford to provide for their well-being. However, she notified the welfare agency that her elderly parents either would have to start paying rent or move out (Smith 31). Besides, welfare pays substantially more than recipients could earn from entry-level job (Tanner et al. 22). That is the reason why welfare recipients do not likely to look for job. As a result, if people can earn the same income by either working or not working, most people will choose not to work.

In contrast, other people such as elders, retarded or disabled individuals, and single parent deserve to receive government assistance; however, they do not get as much as they need because the government provides welfare to both deserving and undeserving people. This will create an unbalancing gap between people. Those who really need welfare can not get enough; meanwhile, others receive more than what they need. Therefore, the government should provide welfare to deserving people who really need assistance and jobs to those who are able to work.

In the article “Welfare Pays Better, So Why Work? ” of USA Today Magazine, the authors state “Nearly everyone agrees that a major goal should be to encourage recipients to leave the welfare rolls and enter the workforce” (Tanner et al. 22). In order to encourage recipients to enter the workforce, the government should limit welfare because welfare is a source of income which recipients do not have to work to earn, so why do they have to work? Besides, welfare recipients must realize that welfare only helps them in short period of time.

After that they have to be on their own because there is no one else can help them forever. If there is less welfare, working becomes the only source of income which they can depend on. Indeed, limiting welfare is parallel with seeking job. Once welfare is limited, labor force is the only place where they can get help. In order to encourage recipients to work, the government should create employment programs which assist recipients to look for job, to train and to gain skills. Although the employment programs might cost the nation more money in short term, they will be worth it in the long term.

First, the government should persuade private employers to create more job opportunities for welfare recipients, and also welfare recipients should be required to participate in education and training programs. Besides, more employment services and job search assistance should be establish to help welfare recipients to have an easier time finding jobs. In addition, welfare money should be used to subsidize for education and training programs because these programs can provide skills and train them in order to meet the new demands of the labor market and meet the employer’s specific needs.

Furthermore, unemployment offices would no longer distinguish between those who were recently laid off and those who have been on welfare. Each person would be evaluated on the basis of what services she or he needs in order to obtain employment. Hence, everyone all has same opportunity to enter the workforce. Instead of improving the welfare programs, the government should look at them as an opportunity to create a more comprehensive employment programs that would replace the old welfare and public assistance programs.

For this to occur, the government should create education and training programs to provide skills and train people in order to ensure all those who want to work are able to do so. Besides, more employment services should be established to assist people to look for job easier, and private employment creates more jobs to encourage people to work. Also, equal opportunity should be applied to everyone. As a result, all these programs should be shared a single goal: to enable people to work.

This has been the strangest of American election campaigns; the most exciting in 40 years in terms of the closeness of the contest, yet one in which both major candidates have utterly failed to capture the national imagination. The lead in the polls has changed hands half a dozen times since September and, even at this late stage, only the very bravest dare forecast the outcome.

Campaigning, alas, tends to bring out the worst in Gore. As the standard-bearer of the incumbent party, he should have long since locked up this election. Yet his turgid style, his maddening tendency to condescension, and his craven unwillingness to depart from the script provided by his advisers have combined to squander the “peace and prosperity” factor that should have guaranteed victory.

It should be said, too, that his Republican opponent, George W Bush, has improved considerably as the campaign has progressed. Not only has he won the personality contest, a vital component of any American election, hands down; he has held his own in the second debate, adroitly focused his attack on Gore’s weak points, and avoided the gaffes that everyone expected. In short, he has done enough to make a plausible president. But that does not mean he would be a good president.

His short attention p, his pervasive lacks of curiosity, his general lightness of being, remain unnerving. He has mastered his lines, but all too often does not seem to understand them. On the domestic front, Gore’s ideas for using the massive budget surpluses ahead are far more convincing; his ideas on abortions, global warming, education, and campaign-finance reform more clearly address the problems facing America. Gore-appointed justices in the Supreme Court would offer added protection against a social lurch to the right.

Al Gore believes that a woman should have a right to legal abortions, and that they should be “safe and rare.” Gore supports FDA approval of abortion pill Mifeprex and he wants to reinforce security around clinics to protect the doctors who perform abortions, and the patients who seek their services. “I think it”s up to the woman, and I strongly support a woman”s right to chose, and I support the FDA”s approval, assuming it”s safe for the woman who takes it,” said Gore. Bush on the other hand disagrees completely saying that the FDA”s decision was totally wrong.

Ensuring Clean and Reliable Sources of Electricity: Al Gore’s plan would ensure clean and reliable sources of electricity by enhancing our nation’s capacities to reliably generate and distribute electricity and by providing market-based incentives to clean up aging power plants. Gore revived the issue of global warming, a subject from his past that he has generally ignored this year. Seizing on a new UN report asserting that pollution appears to be raising world temperatures, Gore tried to portray global warming as a populist issue.

He called the effort to stop global warming a fight against big polluters, in an attack similar to those he has made on drug companies, insurance companies, & health-maintenance organizations. “It does not have to happen and won”t happen if we put our minds to solving this problem,” Gore said of the predicted rise in temperature and problems that would create. Gore”s turn to global warming suggests he now thinks he can use the subject to cast an unfavorable light on Bush, who has expressed skepticism about the danger. Bush says, “It”s an issue that we need to take very seriously. I don”t think we know the solution to global warming yet and I don”t think we”ve got all the facts before we make decisions.”

In the field of education Gore says: “We can’t reform education with half an agenda. We can’t make education our top priority if huge tax cuts for the wealthy are already the first, second, and third priority. That’s really the choice we face: a commitment to or a set of priorities that could leave us with budget deficits for life.” He argues that if you drain the money away from the public schools for private vouchers, it hurts the public schools. George W. Bush has a narrower education agenda because his massive tax cut leaves few resources to invest in education.

Vice President Al Gore supports reforms to eliminate gray areas in legislation. He backs McCain-Feingold Bill because it”s that important that all of the issues like prescription drugs for seniors that is opposed by the drug companies, will be easier to pass if we limit the influence of special interests. Whereas Bush supports an effort to ban corporate soft money & labor union soft money. Bush thinks that there needs to be instant disclosure on the Internet as to who”s given to whom.

Gore supports using $2.2 trillion of the Social Security surpluses to shore up the program and pay down the debt, thus saving billions of dollars in interest, which can be redirected to ensuring the solvency of the Social Security trust fund until at least 2050. He supports the elimination of the Social Security earnings limit, which the president signed into law on April 7, 2000. Gore supports an increase in benefits for widows and eliminating the “motherhood penalty” — the resulting reduction in benefits for women who take time off from work to raise children.

“I do not believe it’s right to play games with Social Security or pit young against old in a scramble to fulfill extravagant and competing campaign promises,” he said in a speech in Kissimmee, in central Florida. “I believe we have to strengthen Social Security by giving unprecedented new opportunities for families to save more, invest more and get higher returns,” Gore said. Bush does not rule out the possibility of rising the eligibility age for baby boom-era recipients as part of trade-off for private investment accounts.

Bush freely admits that he would rely on advisers. They are an indisputably reassuring bunch, led by Colin Powell, his likely Secretary of State, and Dick Cheney, his running mate and a former Secretary of Defense. But what if the advisers disagree? Again, I come back to Bush’s lack of depth. The Republican might have won the campaign. But Gore deserves to win the election and the presidency; Gore”s views are clearly more logical and realistic to this country and that”s why I would vote for Gore.

After suffering three long years of economic hardships, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president which gave the nation hope of overcoming the awful years of the Great Depression. The New Deal was Roosevelt’s response to the depression and became effective as soon as he was elected into office. The New Deal was intended to bring relief, reform, and recovery to the country.

Although the New Deal did not end the Great Depression, Roosevelt had great success in reaching his goals of providing relief and reform to the nation, but was unsuccessful in providing recovery for the struggling Americans. Franklin Roosevelt created many different laws and agencies to reach his goals of relief, reform, and recovery. Roosevelt created the Social Security Act. The Social Security Act provided modest pensions, unemployment insurance, and financial assistance to handicapped, elderly, and dependent children.

It was a system that provided for the welfare of individuals in the new industrial act. The National Recovery Administration as meant to encourage cooperation between businesses, government, and labor to achieve economic progress. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration was an effort to support farmers back into success. Relief was one of the 3 R’s that was a success during Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The different laws and agencies Roosevelt developed were all to help the people out of the depression, but on the way he came up with different ways for the citizens to feel relief.

The Civilian Consercation Corps and the Works Progress Administration were made to design new work programs for people and kept people from starving. It also helped citizens restore their self-respect that they had lost during the hard years of the Great Depression. These agencies provided needed labor for public projects. For women, the depression made their position in the economy worse. More than 20% of women were unemployed, but if the women that did work had their wages lowered a significant amount.

If women were raising children, often the oldest male child would have to go out and find work to provide for the household. In the sense of reform, Roosevelt was successful by including Negroes in the government for the first time ever. The New Deal greatly changed the government. Before the Great Depression the government was mostly laissez faire and allowed businesses to act however they pleased. By the end of the New Deal, the government had a much bigger role in regulation businesses and affecting the lives of citizens.

Many citizens felt like the new agencies that were created would help greatly in the role of the government as “an instrument of democratic action. ” Many also disagreed and though it was leading the country towards socialism and communism. The New Deal changed the government into a much larger, more individual government. Although World War II was the reason the Great Depression ended, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal greatly reduced the worst effects of the depression.

After the New Deal ended, Roosevelt was still extremely popular and had revived American optimism. When the New Deal ended, the unemployment rate had dropped significantly from 12,830,000 to 7,700,000. There were many things Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal did to lighten the impact of the Great Depression although it did not end it itself. It changed the way the government functioned and the optimism in Americans. It gave citizens hope in overcoming hardships. Roosevelt built a dominant new political coalition, creating a democratic majority.

Bibliography

1. McElvaine, Robert. The Great Depression. New York: Times Books, 1947. Print. Ross, Stewart. Causes and Consequences of the Great Depression. Texas: Steck-Vaughn Company, 1998.
2. Print. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. 1995-2010 http://wps. ablongman. com/long_divine_appap_7/23/5931/1518562. cw/index. html
3. FDR’s New Deal Summary & Analysis. http://www. shmoop. com/fdr-new-deal/summary. html
4. The Effectiveness of Roosevelt’s New Deal. July 29, 2010. http://voices. yahoo. com/the-effectiveness-roosevelts-6418844. html

Issue: Whether the United States’ policy shift away from institutional care is warranted given the benefits it provides. Description: The stigma associated with orphanages has lead policymakers in the United States to discourage the use of these institutional care facilities. The Social Security Act of 1935 authorized the first federal grants for child welfare services. Since then, the federal government has continued to encourage states to adopt Foster Care as their main child welfare system.

The policies encouraging Foster Care are in large part due to the government’s recognition that the nuclear family is a superior model for child development. This, coupled with the traditionally negative view of children being raised in group homes, has lead to many myths about institutional care and encouraged the public’s negative stereotype of these facilities. The government’s adverse position to institutional care must be disabused. It limits a form of childcare that is proven to be effective and beneficial. The reasons and history behind the government’s biased view of these facilities is still unclear.

Orphanages offer many disadvantaged children distinct advantages over foster care, some of which are structure, stability, and a sense of permanence. Children’s homes permit siblings to stay together, afford children a chance to develop moral and religious values, encourage a sense of responsibility and work ethic, as well as much needed education and job-related skills. There is great potential for orphanages to meet the needs of the many children who currently languish for years in the modern foster care system.

It is time for policymakers to recognize the distinct advantages institutional care can provide. Sources: Barth, R. P. (2002). Institutions vs. Foster Homes: The Empirical Base for the Second Century of Debate. Chapel Hill, NC: UNC, School of Social Work, Jordan Institute for Families Carp, E. Wayne, Orphanages: The Strength and Weakness of a Macroscopic View Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America by Timothy A. Hacsi. Reviews in American History, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar. , 1999), pp. 105-111. The Johns Hopkins University Press) Article Stable URL: http://0www. jstor. org. aquinas. avemarialaw. edu/stable/30031010 Dozier, M. , Zeanah, C. H. , Wallin, A. R. and Shauffer, C. (2012), Institutional Care for Young Children: Review of Literature and Policy Implications. Social Issues and Policy Review, 6: 1–25. doi: 10. 1111/j. 1751-2409. 2011. 01033. x Levesque, Roger J. R. , The Failures of Foster Care Reform: Revolutionizing the Most Radical Blueprint, 6 Md. J. Contemp. Legal Issues 1, 35 (1995)

Nurith Zmora, Orphanages Reconsidered: Child Care Institutions in Progressive Era Baltimore (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994) McKenzie, R. B. (Ed. ) (1999). Rethinking orphanages for the 21st century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Whetten, K. , Ostermann, J. , Whetten, R. A. , Pence, B. W. , O’Donnell, K. , Messer, L. C. , . . . & The Positive Outcomes for Orphans Research Team (2009). A comparison of the wellbeing of orphans and abandoned children ages 6–12 in institutional and community-based care settings? in 5 less wealthy nations. PLoS ONE, 4, e8169. doi: 10. 1371/journal. pone. 0008169.

The current Social Security system should be replaced by a mandatory private pension system. The current system entails workers being forced to give a certain percentage of money out of their pay checks to Social Security. This tax money is used to pay benefits to retired people, disabled people, survivors of workers who have died, and dependents of beneficiaries (SSA). To most, this system sounds unfair because workers put in hours of labor for a paycheck that religiously has money taken out for someone else’s retirement, disability, etc. however, people for this system believe this benefits everyone because workers are not in control of their own specific retirement fund so poor decisions cannot be made. In reality, people should be able to control the fate of their own retirement funds because they can decide when the money is necessary, which can be done by making the change to a private pension system. The current Social Security system creates a lot of concern because of the accelerating demographic factors (NCPA). Life expectancy is increasing faster than expected — in 1940, a 65-year-old man could expect to live another 12 years, today it’s 15 years; the fertility rate is falling faster than expected — from 3. 6 children for a typical woman of child-bearing age in 1960 to just two today; and the elderly portion of the population is expected to rise from 12 percent today to 20 percent by 2050 — increasing the number of retirees from 34 million to 80 million” (NCPA).

The decreasing working population combined with the rising elderly population means the number of elderly people needing benefits will be greater than the number of working people providing the money for those benefits (NCPA). Because of these statistics, the favor for a private pension system is growing so workers can save their taxes for their individual retirements.

With a private pension system as opposed to the current, honored system, the working class has more control over their retirement funds because for one, they would be earning the money for themselves, and two, the money would be in a private account for them. With the money accumulating in a private account, it is not exposed to risk. “These federally regulated personal accounts would allow individuals to invest only in diversified, approved utual funds and not in single stocks or highly volatile stocks” (Procon). In addition to its added personal safety, a private system would help the economy. “Privatizing Social Security into individual investment accounts would boost economic growth by injecting money back into America’s failing financial system” (Procon). With the economic growth this would cause, there could be a possible decrease in unemployment rates, pulling the economy out of the current recession.

In conclusion, the switch from the current Social Security system to a mandatory private pension system is ideal not only for the working class, but also for the environment. Even with the criticism that a private pension system would tempt workers to make poor decisions with their retirement funds, people should have control over the money they make and be able to determine their own fate. Working for a paycheck that loses a percentage of its total to be given to the current retirees, the disabled, etc. s unfair and will discourage the working class. A private pension system that will actually save an individual’s own money will be more motivating to work towards and will better prepare him or her for their elderly years.

Works Cited

1. NCPA.  “Social Security Problems Accelerating. ” NCPA. org. National Center for Policy Analysis, 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.
2. Procon. “Privatize Social Security. ” Procon. org. Procon, 13 Mar. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.
3. SSA. “Social Security. ” Ssa. gov. Social Security Administration, Mar. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2012.

When you bring up the subject of drug testing recipients on welfare there are a variety of stands and opinions that people have on this matter. People who are providing their opinions come from many different cultures and important positions that may affect how they feel about this subject. My objective is to explore these different stands to give everybody a better understanding of where our peers may be coming from. The idea is not for me to take a stand but represent each stand there is in a neutral form. Should recipients of welfare be drug tested? Is it constitutional or unconstitutional?

Lawrence Mead, Professor of Politics and Public Policy at New York University says yes, but the drug testing should only be required of recipients with a history of substance abuse. This is a viewpoint of somebody that agrees generally with both sides of the issue. We can also look at the viewpoint of a person who entirely agrees with welfare recipients being drug tested such as Ohio State senator Tim Schaffer who was quoted saying in the Toledo Blade newspaper that “the drug epidemic is tearing families apart and if taxpayer dollars are fueling it then we’ve got to bring it to a stop. But someone with an opposing view might say that we can’t assume that welfare recipients are using drugs at a higher rate than the general population because if the focus were really about addressing substance abuse it would be more realistic to go about it with a more treatment and screening approach. We can also look at some of the views of people who are entirely opposed to the idea of drug testing welfare recipients.

In 1999 Michigan ran a pilot program to drug test welfare recipients and was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union claiming that constitutional rights were violated because testing was done without “individualized suspicion. ” Many other state such as Florida, Virginia, Ohio have all attempted to pass these bills but to no avail because already two months into this state legislative session and not a single bill has been passed. Many states according to the American Civil Liberties Union feel that this approach is far too expensive and not saving enough money in the end for the bill too be passed.

The overall opposing view is that drug testing welfare recipients targets them and invades their privacy without any proof that this action is necessary. As of today March 13th, 2013 according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, Michigan lawmakers are still considering passing this bill. References: Giammarise, K. (2012, December 16) Drug tests for welfare recipients weighed. The Toledo Blade. Retrieved from http://www. toledoblade. com/State/2012/12/16/Drug-tests-for-welfare-recipients-weighed-Multicounty-effort-proposed-for-Ohio. html Bloom, R. (2012, March 12) Drug-testing welfare recipients: a trend with no traction.

American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved from http://www. aclu. org/blog/criminal-law-reform-racial-justice/drug-testing-welfare-recipients-trend-no-traction The Debate Club. (2013) Should welfare recipients be tested for drugs? U. S. News. Retrieved from http://www. usnews. com/debate-club/should-welfare-recipients-be-tested-for-drugs The Seattle Post Intelligencer. (2013, March 13) Bill requires drug tests for welfare recipients. The Seattle Post Intelligencer. Retrieved from http://www. seattlepi. com/news/article/Bill-requires-drug-tests-for-welfare-recipients-4350335. php