Social work in Greece in the time of austerity: challenges and prospects

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to critically assess the impact of austerity on social work in Greece and the main challenges that professionals face today. Within this context, this article argues that scarce resources and staff shortages have put social workers under extreme pressure and have limited their ability to respond to increased social needs. At a time when the individualized model that has prevailed in social work practices for decades seems to have reached its limits, a dialogue concerning the adoption of more progressive approaches such as radical social work and collective practices drawn from community work has already emerged in Greece and in other countries where professionals and society are facing similar challenges and problems incurred by neo-liberalism. The paper aims to participate in this dialogue by critically assessing the progress thus far. Although this dialogue remains weak and occurs mostly on an academic level at this time, adjusting a radical model of social work to the particularities of the Greek context and providing an effective guide for everyday practice may enhance its development.

Περίληψη

Στόχος του άρθρου είναι να αποτιμήσει μέσα από ένα κριτικό πρίσμα τις συνέπειες της λιτότητας στην κοινωνική εργασία στην Ελλάδα και τις κύριες προκλήσεις που αντιμετωπίζουν σήμερα οι επαγγελματίες. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό υποστηρίζεται ότι οι εξαιρετικά περιορισμένοι διαθέσιμοι πόροι και οι ελλείψεις προσωπικού έχουν οδηγήσει τους κοινωνικούς λειτουργούς σε μια συνθήκη ασϕυχτικής πίεσης, περιορίζοντας τη δυνατότητα τους να αποκριθούν στις αυξημένες κοινωνικές ανάγκες. Σε μια εποχή όπου το εξατομικευμένο μοντέλο άσκησης της κοινωνικής εργασίας, που κυριάρχησε επί δεκαετίες, ϕαίνεται να έχει ϕτάσει στα όρια του, ένας διάλογος σχετικά με την αξιοποίηση περισσότερο προοδευτικών προσεγγίσεων, όπως η ριζοσπαστική κοινωνική εργασία και συλλογικών πρακτικών, οι οποίες αντλούν από την κοινοτική εργασία, έχει ήδη ξεκινήσει στην Ελλάδα, όπως και σε άλλες χώρες, όπου τόσο οι επαγγελματίες όσο και η ευρύτερη κοινωνία, αντιμετωπίζουν παρόμοιες προκλήσεις και προβλήματα εξαιτίας των ασκούμενων νέο-ϕιλελεύθερων πολιτικών. Το άρθρο αποσκοπεί στο να συμβάλει στο διάλογο αυτό αποτιμώντας κριτικά την πρόοδο που έχει γίνει έως τώρα. Υποστηρίζεται ότι, μολονότι ο διάλογος αυτός για την ώρα παραμένει αδύναμος και περιορίζεται κυρίως σε ακαδημαϊκό επίπεδο, η διαμόρϕωση ενός μοντέλου ριζοσπαστικής κοινωνικής εργασίας περισσότερο συμβατού με τις κοινωνικές και πολιτισμικές ιδιαιτερότητες του συγκεκριμένου πλαισίου καθώς και ενός αποτελεσματικού οδηγού για την καθημερινή πρακτική της κοινωνικής εργασίας, δύνανται να συμβάλουν στην περαιτέρω ανάπτυξη του.

KEYWORDS:

• Greece
• austerity
• radical social work

Λέξεις-κλειδιά:

• Ελλάδα
• λιτότητα
• ριζοσπαστική κοινωνική εργασία

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Vassilis Karagkounis is Assistant Professor of Community Social Work at Dept of Social Administration and Political Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. He studied Social Work at the TEI of Crete and holds a graduate degree (MSc) in Community Health from the University of Portsmouth, UK; he completed his doctoral studies at the Department of Social Administration of the Democritus University of Thrace. He has more than 11 years of practical experience working as a social worker in University General Hospital of Thessaloniki AXEPA. His research, primarily in the area of community work and health, with special focus on issues related to planning, implementing and evaluating interventions in deprived areas, vulnerable groups and minorities, has been published in Greek and English-language periodicals and books.

ORCID

Vassilis Karagkounis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3551-4234

Notes

1 Neo-liberalism can be considered an umbrella term that has been variously understood as an ideology, a hegemonic project, a policy framework, a set of initiatives and a government strategy (Penna & O'Brien, 2008, p. 137). However, a well-documented definition is suggested by David Harvey (2005, p. 2), who argued that

neo-liberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.

Its main features include the expansion and liberalization of markets, deregulation, privatization, the reduction of government expenditures and a general belief in the benefits of self-regulating free markets to deliver growth and prosperity (Casey, 2011). At its core, neo-liberalism involves the dominance of individualism and the destruction of collectivism (Bourdieu, 1998), which undermines the basic principles of social solidarity and eliminates concepts such as ‘the public good’ or ‘community’, replacing them with individual responsibility (Martinez & García, 2000).

2 See http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics.

3 Hospital beds have been reduced from 35,000 to 33,000, and specialist units have decreased from 2000 to 1700 (Economou, 2012).

4 These policies include the enforcement of an entrance fee of 3 € for all regular outpatient services, which was introduced in 2010 and then raised to 5 € in January 2011. An increase in co-pays for medicines for specific diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and epilepsy, was also introduced in 2013. From 2014 onwards, an extra €1 has been charged for each prescription (on top of the 25% co-pay) issued by NHS. Some of these policies, such as the entrance fee, which led to the deterioration of many people’s health, were abolished in April 2015 by the new Greek government; according to the Greek Minister of Health, the extra €1 for each prescription is will also be abolished by the second half of 2015.

5 In Greece, access to health care is entitled through one’s employment status. Those without insurance are eligible for some health coverage if their income is low (the annual family income should not be more than 6000 €, increased by 20% for the spouse and every underage or dependent child, provided that this income does not come from employment that provides insurance) and they have permanent and legal residency in Greece. However, given that these criteria have not been updated to take into account the new social reality, thousands of potential beneficiaries have been left with no health coverage at all. This problem has been highlighted by Greek and international media and has been one of the main issues reported by Cephas Lumina, the UN Rapporteur on Debt and Human Rights, who noted that ‘nearly one-third of the Greek population is without public health insurance, mainly due to prolonged unemployment’ (see http://www.ohchr.org/RU/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=13281&LangID=E). Under constant pressure, the government was forced to change the law. Thus, since June 2014, the uninsured and their families have been entitled to primary care, hospital health services and pharmaceutical care.

6 Such initiatives include the establishment of non-monetary exchange networks in several cities around the country, where people exchanging products or services. In addition, the ‘potato movement’, as it was dubbed by the media, started in February 2012 in Katerini; farmers wanted to develop their own network to sell their products against the ruinous and humiliating purchase prices that they were being offered by intermediaries.

7 The mobilizations included social work students’ occupation of the social work department in Patras for almost a month (March 2013) and their occupation of Patras’ city hall (several times during April 2013 alongside other students with similar demands).

8 For instance, the ‘Indignant’ movement (οι Αγανακτισμένοι), the main agent of social resistance to the memorandum signed by the Greek government and its creditors, unlike similar movements (e.g. the Spanish Indignados and the Occupy movements across the USA) did not take the form of a social movement and shared minimal collective identity. Instead, it represented a broad social and inter-generational alliance, which was firmly grounded in material conditions, as austerity measures affected the greater part of Greek society (Simiti, 2014, p. 17).

9 In the referendum, the voters were asked whether they approved of (answering Approved/Yes or Not Approved/No) the new bail out conditions proposed by the ‘troika’. The referendum took place in a confrontational and dramatic atmosphere created by bank closures, the imposition of capital controls and limited cash withdrawals and many European leaders who repeatedly warned that voting ‘No’ was voting against the Euro, an argument that was also supported by most of the Greek media and by the political leaders of ‘Yes’ campaign (Budgen & Kouvelakis, 2015).

10 Given that the European governance model essentially does not permit a country to decide its own policies, it is not enough for one country by itself to resist neo-liberalism if it wants to remain in the Eurozone. In this context some scholars argue that the Syriza led government has been bullied into submission (see Pentaraki & Speake, 2015).