SOCIAL WORK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26584, 6 October 1947, Page 4

SOCIAL WORK

PAST AND FUTURE ACHIEVEMENTS OF SOUTHERN DOMINIONS ASSISTANCE FOR FAMILIES “New Zealand and Australia have both, for many years, held positions of leadership in the matter of financial aid to the family,” said Miss Lyra Taylor, a New Zealander who is director of social work and social research in the Australian Commonwealth Department of Social Services, in a broadcast talk last night. Responsibilities Realised i “Both were among the group of countries that early accepted and translated into practical terms the Idea that a Government bears a great responsibility for the health and being of all its citizens.” she said. “New Zealanders and Australians of the present day have grown up in a * climate of opinion ’ in which it is taken for granted that ,a family cannot be expected to meet, alone, unaided, and from its own resources, such hazards- as widowhood, old age, sickness and unemployment. The Governments of New Zealand and Australia have taken care that ,no family in the Dominion or Commonwealth shall have to meet such hazards without substantial assistance. These two Governments have gone further. They, have established reciprocity of benefits in some cases, so that, for the purpose of receiving some types of pensions and allowances, residence in the Dominion of New Zealand counts as residence in the Commonwealth of Australia, and vice versa. “ But social services in the modern sense embody much more than financial aid.” said Miss Taylor. “A definition of the term ‘ social services ’ put out only a few months ago by the Social Commission of the United Nations Organisation ‘ the organised activities for promoting the physical and mental welfare of the members of a community by close personal contact, which may involve direct assistance to the individual or have in view the improvement of his environment.’” Future Developments “ There are three forward steps which New Zealand and Australia must take if they are to hold the leading place in social services which they established long ago,” concluded Miss Taylor. “ First, we must be represented at international conferences of social workers —for instance, at the first postwar conference in Atlantic City, next April; secondly, the interchange between Australia and New Zealand of personnel trained in social work; and thirdly, greater co-operation between Government, municipal and private social workers, which can best be achieved by a community council. National welfare calls, in every part of our economy, including its social services, for a judicious mixture of the expert and the average citizen. The expert, of course, needs the ordinary people, but we, the ordinary people, also need the expert.”