Introduction to Social Welfare                                                                                                                                       SOWK1003/15102

Course Objectives:

This course aims at introducing the basic concepts and functions of social welfare. It covers an analysis of the range and variety of social welfare services in Hong Kong. Besides, through community visits, the course provides students with direct exposure to the problems faced by the various clients served by the different types of social welfare services. Moreover, through seminar discussions, the course encourages the development of students’ critical perspectives in understanding and appraising social welfare service provisions.

• Basic assumptions on teaching and learning:

• Knowledge acquisition is a LEARNING activity not a TEACHING activity.
• Active learning is the key to successful learning
• Active learning involve raising questions, searching knowledge, analyzing them and integrating them.

• Teacher's role:

• to provide guidance to define the scope of knowledge relevant to the subject area,
• to design learning activities
• to help students to raise questions, to locate and to analyze knowledge.

• Student's role: to learn; to learn actively

• More and more knowledge is now located online. To find the most up-to-date knowledge, the web is the best place. Go to the Internet Resources of the University of Hong Kong Library (http://www.hku.hk/lib/) first. Browse the entries in social work and social administration. You would be able to find most of the knowledge that we need to learn in Social Welfare in Hong Kong and elsewhere.
• To find the right book, the right article, or the right web-site that provides the knowledge needed is a very challenging job and, sometimes, a time consuming task. However, it is the most important skill that we have to learn. The skill to locate the right resource material is the key to the success of our learning activity.

Learning Activities

• Starting from the first lecture, the teacher will provide a list of (open) questions that the students have to address before the next lecture. The students are then expected to find the answers to those questions from the books in the library or via the internet. In the subsequent lecture, a quiz will be conducted. The same set of questions will be raised, except that the quiz questions will be designed in the form of multiple choice.
• Starting from the 3^rd lecture, students can send in "suggested" questions for the lecture topic to be covered in the following week to the teacher before mid-night prior to the date of lecture. (e.g. Students can suggest questions before mid-night of Wednesday on the lecture topic to be covered on Thursday in the following week. If for the following week is a visit-date, it would be on the lecture topic two weeks later.) The Teacher will then incorporate some of the good questions into the list. To encourage students to do this, bonus will be provided in the following schedule:

• The quiz mark of the student, who has suggested at least one question, will be inflated by 10%.
• The quiz mark of the student, who has suggested at least one question that is incorporated by the teacher, will be inflated by 20%

• Each student is going to choose one of the following projects:

1. Choose an English speaking country (e.g. U.S.A., UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, etc.) Locate the material that the government provided on the web about their social security system. Provide a brief description of the information contained in the web and construct a table comparing the similarities and differences between the system in that country and the one in Hong Kong.
2. Locate an online course on "introduction to social welfare" provided by any university outside HK in the web. Go over the material provided in the web. Provide a brief description of the course and comment on the followings: a) the major difference in content between that course and the current course in HKU; b) how would you rate that course; c) name 5 things that you leant from that course but not from the current course.
3. Take 3 web-sites for social work/social welfare resources in the web (e.g. one of them can be http://www.nyu.edu/socialwork) and compare them in terms of the followings: a) types of internet resources available; b) richness/coverage of resources; c) and ease of locating material.

• The projects are going to be submitted on or before mid-night December 31, 2001.

• Seminars are used to help students to have a deeper understanding of some selected topics. There are totally 4 seminars. Attendance is COMPULSORY. Students are expected to participate actively during seminars. All students are expected to read reference material before coming to seminars.

• Each student has to choose 2 topics: 1 presentation and another for critique of another student’s presentation. Notes on presentation and critique have to be submitted to the seminar tutor at least 2 days before the seminar (e.g. if the seminar is to be held on Thursday, the seminar note has to be submitted to the seminar tutor before mid-night of Tuesday). In other words, each student has to prepare 2 seminar notes. The other students in the seminar group should present on 1-2 keywords on social welfare. They should read up textbooks, journal articles, or browse through websites to search for the meaning of such words.

• Visits will be arranged to social service agencies to facilitate students to have real-life exposure of social problems and the problems faced by the various types of social welfare service clients.
• Attendance is COMPULSORY. Students are expected to search the library or web-sites to collect information about the service type of the projects and client groups served. Prepare a set of pre-visit notes including:

• the main points that you have learnt from the library or web-site search, and
• at least 3 questions that you want to ask during the visit.

• The pre-visit notes have to be submitted to the visit-tutor before mid-night of Wednesday prior to the visit.

• Each student should take a seminar topic as his/her term paper topic, but it must be different from his/her seminar presentation topic.
• The paper should NOT be less than 1500 words or longer than 2500 words (excluding diagrams and figures). Any words beyond 2500 words will NOT be marked.

• Quiz - 25%
• Term paper - 25 % Each student may choose 1 topic from a list given by the teachers (mostly related to seminar topics) and write a paper of about 2,000 words. Strict adherence to appropriate formats is required (e.g. footnotes, citations, bibliography, etc. Guidelines will be given later.).
• Seminar presentation and participation (25%) including (a) attendance, (b) seminar presentation & critique, (c) participation
• Visits and mini-projects (20 % and 5%)

• Grades, but not marks, will be given to students’ written assignments.
• NO marks for late submission of any piece of written assignment concerned; NO marks and/or other penalties for plagiarism.

Course Schedule

• Presenter: 2-3 students have to prepare for presentation, make notes on the topic, and to submit it to the tutor and the students who are responsible to be the critic before mid-night prior to the date of the seminar.
• Critic: Another 2-3 students have to be the critic to comment on the presenter’s presentation.
• The other members should choose at least 1 of the key words and search over the internet, library, etc., look up its meaning, and discuss its relevance to the topic. Also state the source of your reference material, e.g. a web site, a book, an article from a journal, a leaflet collected locally, etc., and share amongst group members.

1. What do you think is the model of social welfare characterizing Hong Kong: (a) residual? (b) industrial-achievement? or (c) institutional?
2. What are the effects of (a) political, (b) economic and (c) social-cultural factors on the development of social welfare in Hong Kong?

Key words:

1. How is poverty defined in Hong Kong? a) by the government; b) by the pressure groups (like Hong Kong Council of Social Service, HK Social Security Society, labor unions); and c) the general public or ordinary people?
2. Can Hong Kong’s social security system help to alleviate poverty in Hong Kong? Give reasons and/or evidence to support your arguments.

Keywords

1. Discuss what is mean by “community care”.
2. With reference to 3 different types of community care services, discuss how such services can help to rehabilitate ONE of the following client groups; a) physically handicapped; b) ex-prisoners/drug addicts; c) chronically ill patients.

Key words:

1. Discuss the possible social impacts of an aging population upon social welfare provision.
2. Choose any 2 of the existing elderly service and examine their effectiveness in providing services to the elderly people.

Key words:

1. use / utility / utilitarian
2. stereotype
3. dignity
4. dependency ratio
5. nuclear and extended families
6. dementia/Parkinson’s Disease/Alzheimer’s disease
7. disengage, withdrawal
8. life expectancy
9. hospice