The separation of social services from cash assistance was supported by the NASW since it occupied a lot of their time and limited their opportunities to focus on other areas. Social workers also had to perform the roles of both overseers, checking whether their clients adhere to the rules to receive support, and an assistant, providing help to the clients. They had the power to withhold the money, which often led to clients calling them manipulators (Mott 1976). The separation helped social workers concentrate on their primary tasks and areas of expertise and also protected welfare recipients from situations when they were denied their cash by their helpers. At the same time, some poor families experienced certain problems in being underserved since they stopped receiving enough support. While children whose parents intentionally declined supervised social work were often left without much-needed attention from social workers who specialized in providing care for them (Popple 2018).
Lyndon B. Johnson famously declared the War on Poverty and initiated the Economic Opportunity Act, which marked a major change in the governmentâs approach to welfare. The act expanded the number of social programs which were aimed at helping the most vulnerable segments of society to receive a job, education, and healthcare. The reform altered the public perception of welfare, which was now seen as necessary to address the problem of poverty, which began to be viewed as a social evil (Segal 2016). This also inevitably affected the role of social workers and their own views on their profession. It revived the interest of social workers to change the environment of their clients through government assistance, rather than to encourage them to adjust to their difficult life situations (Zastrow 2017). This enabled many workers to become community organizers and advocates of the poor people they worked with to challenge the status quo and bring change.
References
Mott, P. E. (1976). Meeting Human Needs: The Social and Political History of Title XX. Columbus: National Conference on Social Welfare.
Popple, P. R. (2018). Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Segal, E. A. (2016). Social Welfare Policy and Social Programs: A Values Perspective. 4th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
Zastrow, C. (2017). Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare: Empowering People. 12th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.