Causas de corrupción

There has been a continuous flow of cultural influences from the outside from the beginning of the contact in the mid eighteenth century and that has grown and strengthened. It has not weakened. You can call it globalisation if you like and that would be a term that would cover the whole period. That particular aspect if you look at social work in relation to those international influences, the institutions that were set up by the early pakeha settlers bore the aspects of avoiding the poor law from the UK but stressing the need for self reliance. All those things have been built into the kind of attitudes developed by this society in which we now live... I want to always see the global influences as being important and they are not just new, they are not of now. They all have a history and have their own particular reference in the present time but they have their own history (M. Hancock, personal correspondence, 2/11/05).

Margaret Tennant’s Paupers & Providers-Charitable Aid in New Zealand (1989) documented the early beginnings of the strands of social work within Aotearoa New Zealand. Like the USA and UK, social work here grew out of the role of providing for the “poor and destitute” through “charitable aid”.

Tennant described that despite the hope that things would be brighter in the “colonies”, “by 1860 most provinces had the item ‘relief’ …upon their financial estimates. By the early 1870s the expression ‘charitable aid’ had come into currency” (p.1). Evidence of one of the first versions of a social worker is seen around 1868 at the time of Auckland Sick and

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Destitute Act when there “was the appointment of an official termed the ‘relieving officer’ to distribute rations in Auckland” (Tennant, 1989, p. 17). Tennant described how, “As the ‘frontline’ agent of the charitable aid system, the relieving officer had considerable power to determine the outcome of cases, but was also subject to innumerable social pressures” (1989, p.69). As in the UK and USA, relief clients were seen to fall into the categories of “deserving” or “worthy” or “undeserving”.

Similar to the USA, the Depression saw an increase in applicants for relief who once would have been considered “worthy” poor. The provision of relief services was shifted to the state through the enactment of the 1930 Unemployment Act. As the country’s unemployment and economic situation worsened the government responded with the 1938 Social Security Act. This act was to shape the provision of health and welfare services, and provide the ethos of the “Welfare State” from which social work was to grow until the 1980s and 1990s when there was a significant shift in ideology regarding the role of the state in welfare provision.

The beginnings of social work, and the counselling role as part of social work, were evident here and in other countries. Providing rescue and counselling to “fallen women” was one of the growth areas of voluntary welfare in New Zealand between the 1880s and 1900s (Tennant, 1989, p.113).

Tennant described that during the 1890s many policies aimed at child welfare emerged:

The Education Department, with its expanding range of specialised staff, played the larger role in these developments. By 1918 the Department employed juvenile probation officers, attendance officers, district agents under the Infants Acts, visiting nurses, and the personnel of the special and industrial school branches. From 1925 the appointment of Child Welfare officers provided a core of professional social workers with a well defined career structure to oversee the welfare of children (1989, p. 143).

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Social Security and the State

The development of New Zealand’s social security system was an important factor that was to influence what was to become the profession of social work in this country. As has been seen in terms of the UK and the USA, described in the previous chapter, differing philosophies in terms of economics and social responsibility contributed significantly to how social work services were developed and provided. A free market, non-centrally regulated economy within the USA allowed for the growth in private practice and counselling in social work as a “user pays” philosophy was engendered as the profession of social work began. With the “cradle to grave” care offered within the UK, social work developed and sat to a large degree within statutory services (Payne, 2005b).

New Zealand has its own unique history of social policy which has also been influenced by international trends. Much has been written about this history and a detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this thesis. Comprehensive accounts can be accessed through the writings of Cheyne, O’Brien & Belgrave, 2004; Dalley & Tennant, 2004; Duncan, 2004; Kelsey 1997; Lunt, O’Brien & Stephens, 2008; O’Brien, 2008: Shaw & Eichbaum 2005; Tennant, O’Brien & Sanders, 2008.

Belgrave (2004) discussed three key phases of social policy reform in Aotearoa. The first reform phase occurred in the 1890s with the introduction of the Old-Age Pension Act. Despite basic state provision for a certain group of people, notions of deserving and undeserving remained and it wasn’t until the 1930s that public opinion on the provision of aid and the role of the state within this was to change significantly.

McClure (2004) examined the shift from welfare “need” to welfare “rights” following the enactment of the Social Security Act 1938. As in the UK and the USA, the Depression created a situation where even the most “moral” sometimes found themselves in a state of poverty and where previous systems of aid no longer could meet demand. These conditions prompted the election of New Zealand’s first Labour government in 1935 and eventual radical policy reforms as had occurred in the USA in 1935 with the Social Security Act, and would eventually occur in the UK with the Beveridge Report (1942) and the National Assistance Act 1948.

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With the Social Security Act of 1938, the state in New Zealand signalled its role in the responsibility for the wellbeing and maintenance of its citizens. Comprehensive provision of services occurred within the context of the state or through not-for profit agencies funded to a large degree by the state. In describing the mix of social services at a later time, Tennant, O’Brien & Sanders stated that “In the social service sector, an almost symbiotic relationship prevailed between key organisations and the post-World War II welfare state” (2008, p.4).

Some of the interviewees discussed how this system was looked at with admiration from other countries, and that government was wary of developing social work due to the perception that their system was not meeting ALL the needs of its people. Ken Daniels summarised a statement made by Jim Robb which demonstrated this point:

New Zealand’s approach to welfare can be characterised by a “kind hearts and cashbox” approach. That was the view that if you had difficulties, a kind heart or money would solve the problem. So a whole lot of our social interventions were about welfare benefits and it was only when there was a realisation that that wasn’t actually bringing about any change, that there was a reflection on, “Well what do we need to be doing”? And it was at that more intensive level of intervention, and that meant that there needed to be skills and knowledge for handling that. And that meant there needed to be education and training. And here we are (Personal correspondence, 01/02/06).

He then drew a parallel to a more current situation which gave a more vivid portrayal of the point Jim Robb may have been trying to make:

I was in Vietnam last year doing some work for UNESCO and one of the things that I was told there, was that the term social work wasn’t allowed to be used in Vietnam because as a communist country to acknowledge the need for social work was to acknowledge that the state had failed (Personal correspondence, 01/02/06).

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This was reiterated again by Kate van Heugten:

Government appears to have more readily supported the education of psychologists than that of social workers, perhaps because psychology offered positivist answers to problems, in a manner that did not threaten the reputation of New Zealand’s status as a world leader in successful welfare provision (K. van Heugten, 1999, p. 99).

Gary Hermansson, who was involved in the early period of development of both social work and counselling in New Zealand, drew strong connections between the influence of the welfare state philosophy and the development of social work:

I think within New Zealand there was a philosophy that went with that of long historical significance, way back to… the suffragette …and the voting rights of women historically and also the thirties social welfare policy, the whole social security type notion. …and also our historical traditions were based on the fact that there is a welfare state thinking, that whole socialist type thought, without having to move into the communistic type elements of it …so I think to that extent, this nation had a kind of a slow emergence of helping services (Personal correspondence, 12/02/06).

McClure (1998) described how this view began to shift in the 1950s with the “psychologising” of poverty and the introduction of permanent welfare workers within the social security system (seen to be the first prototypes of social work within the social security setting). These workers were employed to work with “problem” families within the special assistance scheme. Their jobs included attempting to get men or women into work and “repairing” broken marriages.

Labrum (2000, 2004) also described that both child welfare and welfare workers involved in the provision of discretionary benefits were often involved in the provision of support and advice. Both McClure (1998) and Labrum (2000, 2004) also discussed the primacy of long term supervision of these families that often occurred and the casework relationship that developed with the welfare or child welfare worker within each of those systems. While

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these workers were certainly not charged with therapeutic work, the roots of counselling or in the skills needed for developing relationships was evident in these schemes. too. While both welfare and child welfare workers referred out to child guidance clinics, Labrum (2004) states that as social work's professionalism increased, so did its response to requests for non-material forms of aid.

The “welfare state” provision of education, social services and income maintenance continued in New Zealand into the 1970s. The country would soon be hit by a world-wide energy crisis which saw the price of importing fuel skyrocket and trade conditions with the UK change as a result of loss of guaranteed markets for exports (Rudd, 2003). Economic growth slowed considerably at the same time as budget deficits grew. The National government, under the direction of Prime Minister Robert Muldoon borrowed and taxed heavily to support the ongoing maintenance of its welfare state. This brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy in 1984.

New Zealand elected its Fourth Labour government in 1984. The government set upon a series of neo-liberal economic reforms which saw the deregulation of the country’s economy. This included the removal of the exchange controls, trade protections and domestic subsidies which had been in place under previous National governments. The Reserve Bank Act 1989 shifted policy away from economic and social welfare, and focused on the goal of inflation control (Cheyne, O’Brien & Belgrave, 2004). Many government services were either sold off or privatised. A totally new climate of social welfare provision (or lack thereof) had emerged. These changes were seen by many to have strongly influenced the provision of counselling and social work services within this country.

Barretta-Herman has written extensively about the impact of these changes on social welfare provision. “Attacks on the welfare bureaucracy and the profession of social work in New Zealand were so strong and pervasive that neither were able to defend the existing form and structure of the welfare state” (Barretta-Herman, 1994,p. xv).

Hermansson reflected on the shift of socio-economic policy and its impact on social work and counselling in relation to people paying for service:

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Then we had that quite major political shift in the 80s… and then it became services needing to be paid for, provided for, developed and available… and there were a few years where people were … in the social work thing and the counselling thing… were beginning to… go into private practice and they struggled for a while because there wasn’t a mentality that said this is what’s available to be done. And then gradually people got used to the idea and at times I think, we’ve made a major paradigm shift into the way in which we are as a nation now (Personal correspondence, 12/02/06).

Van Heugten described some of the findings within her doctoral thesis on social workers and private practice which supported the view expressed by Hermansson above:

I suppose in my thesis I explored restructuring and privatisation in the late ‘80’s and in the ‘90’s providing some of the impetus for people to move into a private practice, which then encouraged more of a counselling, psychotherapeutic focus and individualization... ACC and its payment for sexual abuse counselling may have also added to that. Perhaps also social work was late in professionalising in New Zealand and along with professionalisation perhaps comes somewhat of a move away from communitarian approaches toward pseudo-scientific kind of approaches, which may be somewhat more individualistic (Personal correspondence, 01/02/06).

Hermansson continued in a similar vein describing the shift from counselling within statutory services into private practice:

So you had a counsellor in the social work system, you had some counselling staff within mental health and whatever, but there were no practitioners beyond that because there was no history or tradition of paying for service. It was all state provided and if the state didn’t provide then you didn’t get it, so you might have had some voluntary help or whatever. But then in the mid-eighties when you suddenly get

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this marked economy shift, you are seeing the development and the emergence much more of private social workers and particularly private counsellors…There were a number of counsellors around who were counselling in the field and would have had either social work training or some in-house…in-service type training, or the odd workshop here and there and…or ministers and pastoral care. That evolved in the mid to late eighties (Personal correspondence, 12/02/06).

June Kendrick summarised the situation which would have made sense, had the “Left” not been responsible for our major fiscal restructuring. “Really it goes into politics, the Left and Right of politics. The Left says it is changes you’ve got to make, the Right says, no, it’s the people themselves that have got to change.” (Personal correspondence, 28/07/06). She went on to describe the Labour government’s ongoing ambivalence regarding the provision of social work services:

…on the one hand they want all the things that social workers would want for people, but they wanted them via a different method you see…when Victoria was…they set money aside. We don’t need social work. (Kendrick described the first social work programme at Victoria University in 1950 which was forced to call itself a department of social sciences sic) They somehow saw it, and possibly still do in many cases, as an indictment on their programme. There is an indictment, this is a government. If we haven’t made things so that everybody can be okay (Personal correspondence, 28/07/06).

The shifts begun by Labour in 1984 were continued by a National-led government elected in 1990. These shifts saw increasing privatisation of state owned services. The state and not-for profit relationship also saw significant shifts during this time as greater amounts of funding were shifted towards the not-for profit sector and contracting out of state run services to the not-for profit sector increased (Tennant, 2004; Tennant, O’Brien & Sanders, 2008). Increased contracting out of services continued under successive Labour governments through the late 1990s and early 2000s. This has been described fully by

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O’Brien (2008), and Tennant, O’Brien and Sanders (2008). The relevance to this thesis has been demonstrated by not-for profit agencies that may once have been able to pursue their mandate of preventative work and counselling; now being forced to take contracts from the state and agencies, that have mandated services, in order to survive. One such agency is Family Works (previously James Family- Presbyterian Support) which has felt increased pressure to accept contracts from Children, Young Person’s and their Families Service to undertake child abuse investigations (J. Heays, personal correspondence, 13/0/06), under the CYFS Differential Response Model (Waldegrave & Coy, 2005). Social workers or counsellors who have chosen to work in the not-for-profit sector due to high caseloads and other variables which limit counselling contact with clients in statutory agencies, may now have to move again towards private practice as their agency time increasingly is consumed with other mandated services.

Social welfare provision and social welfare policies have impacted to a large degree upon the development and provision of social work services in this country. One of the ways that this has occurred is through the impact that the welfare state status had upon the initiation of formal social work education. As has been discussed by some of the interviewees, social work education began much later here than in the USA or the UK. While the therapy versus community change debates had occurred within the USA for close to 75 years, the profession of social work in Aotearoa was just being born. Several variables contributed to this late start.

Education

Education has played a major role in the evolution of social work and counselling in Aotearoa New Zealand. Some of these themes have been touched on previously in terms of the late start of formal social work training. Other areas which are significant include the significance of each of the courses, the modalities taught, the individual personalities of people within the schools and what they brought, the development of the education opportunities and geographic variations.

Social work education in Aotearoa New Zealand had a very late start in comparison to the USA or Great Britain. While John Beck, Superintendent of Child Welfare had begun the

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call for social work education in the 1920s following a trip to the USA to review systems of child welfare (Nash, 1998), it took several years for any progress to be made in this area.