How is addressing the welfare state system the social changes?

Abstract

The Beveridge models are all about institutions with finite resources, anonymously managing access. On the front line, we can see, again and again, how up to 80 percent of the resources is spent shutting people out. So professionals have to manage these increasingly complex forms of administration that are basically about stopping people from accessing the service or managing the queue. We have to address all the current social problems with a collective relational challenge, and it can't be addressed by a traditional bureaucratic response. Today, we need to bring people and their communities back into the heart of the way we design new systems and new services, in an approach that Cottam (2015) calls "Relational Welfare." We need to leave behind these old, transactional, unsuitable, outdated models, and we need to adopt instead the shared collective relational responses that can support families that can address an issue like loneliness, that can support people by putting them back to work as well as improving their skills for this daunting, modern labor market, that can address the challenges of education, of health care, and so many other problems we are facing in today’s society. It is all about relationships. Relationships are the critical resource we have. It is all about relationships. Relationships are the critical resource we have. Thank you.