Concept
Social services
Overview
Social services are a range of public services intended to provide support and assistance towards particular groups, which commonly include the disadvantaged. They may be provided by individuals, private and independent organizations, or administered by a government agency. Social services are connected with the concept of welfare and the welfare state, as countries with large welfare programs often provide a wide range of social services. Social services are employed to address the wide range of needs of a society. Prior to industrialisation, the provision of social services was largely confined to private organisations and charities, with the extent of its coverage also limited. Social services are now generally regarded globally as a 'necessary function' of society and a mechanism through which governments may address societal issues.
The provision of social services by governments is linked to the belief of universal human rights, democratic principles, as well as religious and cultural values. The availability and coverage of social services varies significantly within societies. The main groups which social services is catered toward are: families, children, youths, elders, women, the sick, and disabled people. Social services consists of facilities and services such as: public education, welfare, infrastructure, mail, libraries, social work, food banks, universal health care, police, fire services, public transport and public housing.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Social services is.
On the other hand, as no society is ever in complete equilibrium, this harmony will never be perfect and may often be widely departed from. In what is called a single community, if it reach a considerable bulk, there are (in other words) often a number of minor societies, more or less thwarting and modifying each other; and different observers, who belong in the main to one or other of these subordinate groups, may…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind
States what Social services is.
2. There is also, at present, a conflict of individual happiness with social welfare. In the first place, as long as there exist antagonistic societies, the individual is called upon to sacrifice his own happiness to that of others, but "such moralities are, by their definition, shown to belong to incomplete conduct; not to conduct that is fully evolved" (See pp. 133-137). Furthermore, there will be conflict of…
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
States what Social services is.
Related ideas
- Kuomintang
- Mediterranean Sea
- Culture
- Welfare state
- Pandemic
- Protestantism
- Universalism
- World War II
- Universal health care
- Democracy
- Education
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Liberalism.