Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Thinking about religious welfare and rethinking social policy
- Part I Religion, social welfare and social policy in the UK
- Part II Sector-specific religious welfare provision in the current UK context
- Conclusion: Theoretical and practical implications for social policy
- References
- Index
six - Social care
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Thinking about religious welfare and rethinking social policy
- Part I Religion, social welfare and social policy in the UK
- Part II Sector-specific religious welfare provision in the current UK context
- Conclusion: Theoretical and practical implications for social policy
- References
- Index
Summary
Summary
• Care is an important moral philosophical concept for social policy that emphasises the moral relations that bind human beings. This ethics of care is juxtaposed with the ethics of justice that stipulates that social welfare is best achieved through the provision of universal social rights and the just redistribution of wealth.
• The ethics of care thus goes beyond social care services to a broader community-based culture of compassion and social trust also denoted by the concept of social capital which shows that individual welfare cannot be separated from the social context within which a person is embedded, or their self-identity.
• Spiritual care helps to develop an holistic approach to human welfare that emphasises the agency of the service users and the importance of their relationship with their care giver.
• Religious welfare organisations provide a variety or residential, community and day centre social care services with residential care for older people being a particularly significant area and most developed in the UK within the Jewish community. Religious teachings generally emphasise family-based care for vulnerable children and adults.
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with social care. It is important to note from the outset that it represents a complementary conceptual progression from previous chapters on social work and health due to the very close conceptual and practical ties between these three domains. Two tasks are accomplished which are consistent with the book's overall aims and the progression of its argument: (1) it develops the discussion of holistic approaches to human wellbeing by honing in on the concepts of ‘worldview’ (Stewart, 2002) and ‘lifeworld’ (Grunwald and Thiersch, 2009) in the provision of adequate social care; and (2) it takes the argument to a higher analytical level by highlighting the normative importance of the concept of care to social policy (Daly and Lewis, 2000) and the useful insights that a perspective on religious welfare brings to the perennial debate on the ethics of justice versus the ethics of care unleashed by Carol Gilligan's seminal book, In a different voice (1982). There are therefore gender-related undertones in this chapter as we explore empirical findings on the role and position of women in faith-based welfare in the UK.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Religion and Faith-Based WelfareFrom Wellbeing to Ways of Being, pp. 169 - 186Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2012