Volunteers can help reduce costs, but most nonprofit social service groups rely heavily on government funding.
Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images
By relying heavily on privately run organizations to deliver social services, the government employs fewer people, reducing the size of its bureaucracy. But these partnerships can flounder.
Sometimes emergency housing programs encourage domestic violence survivors to use unsafe alternatives to public programs − even staying with their abusive partner.
Claudia Wolff/Unsplash
In the 1940s, Britain’s nascent welfare state was designed around male financial responsibility for their families – unmarried mothers were intentionally disregarded.
People receive crates of water in the aftermath of earthquakes in the Samandag district of Hatay, Turkey.
Erdem Sahin/EPA
Social workers encountered challenges in providing their services in the aftermath of the Turkey earthquakes, facing obstacles outside of their control.
A new program at the Hamilton Public Library is making on-site social workers available to the public.
(Hamilton Public Library)
Tom Baker, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
The local and international track record of social investment funds and social impact bonds is far from convincing. A better-resourced public sector would be a simpler solution.
Retirement homes might seem like less of a lifestyle choice and more like relocation imposed upon older adults by fragmented and under-resourced primary and community care services.
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Publicly funded primary and home care should be accessible to all older adults, regardless of where they live.
The Crime Severity Index is calculated like a crime rate, but different crimes are given a different weight, or importance, based on their severity.
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Recent data from Statistics Canada shows crime rates in Canada rising. Crime has become a hot-button political issue in Canadian cities. But what does the data actually mean?
Peter Whiteford, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Robodebt affected hundreds of thousands of people and undercut trust in our political and social welfare systems. Unless we act on today’s royal commission report, something like it will happen again.
A homeless person lies in a tent pitched in downtown Toronto in April 2020. New research suggests we need to focus less on new technologies to streamline social services and more on the people entwined in these systems.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
While technology can be a useful tool, it can also divert funding and attention from the root causes of the social welfare issues it aims to address.
Income inequality is the gap between the highest and lowest earners in a given area. It can contribute to people’s risk of poor health, and specifically mental health.
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Higher levels of income inequality in youth are associated with increased ‘deaths of despair’ in young Canadians.
In a neoliberal era, where profitability is prioritized over social duty, all orders of government in Canada are increasingly shirking responsibility for providing social services onto non-profits.
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Bill C-7 has created ethical tensions between MAID providers and palliative care, between transparency and patient privacy, and between offering a dignified death rather than a dignified life.
Antonio Magalhaes holds his wife Andrea Magalhaes as they walk towards Keele Station, where their 16-year-old son, Gabriel Magalhaes, was killed in a random attack in the Toronto subway system.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tijana Martin
Andrea Magalhaes hasn’t demanded vengeance since her son was murdered — she’s called for expanding the social safety net to address the root causes of crime. Public officials should listen to her.
Family court proceedings place a huge strain on survivors and their families. Here’s what you need to know.
Cities that have vibrant cultural and public services tend to withstand mass plant closures and layoffs better than communities lacking them, and young people either move to them after plant closures or remain living in them.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
Preliminary research suggests cultural and social services retain or attract employees hard hit by plant closures in other communities. Preserving them may help cities withstand future crises.
A Roma boy and his horse in Velykyi Bereznyi, a settlement in the Carpathian mountains, in Western Ukraine.
Brum | Shutterstock
Romani children across Europe are overrepresented in institutional care. Research shows widely held prejudical views and structural inequality is to blame.
Could postcards help reach people who need social services?
Image Source/Digital Vision via Getty Images
Government agencies are setting up new websites and phone hotlines to provide information. But those might not be the best ways to engage with people who need help the most.
Tight funding and COVID-related limits on face-to-face contact have forced academics to find other ways to expose students to the real-life work they are preparing them for.
Identity documents are important for access to many public and social services in Indonesia.
Raisan Al Farisi/Antara Foto