The crux in every progressive civilization, in my opinion, is not only the wealth that it generates, but its ability as a community to put the money where its mouth is and social policy is the way to serve as an indicator in this regard.

Locally we have been extremely luck with the ‘family’ and with the ‘Church’ as our emergent form of social policy.

However if truth be told, the traditional support attributed to the family and the involvement of religious orders in care-giving is decreasing at a very fast rate.  (It’s enough to have a look at the Church schools where in most cases all the religious order is left with in terms of representation is a couple of elderly nuns or priests walking with an unsteady gait in the long covenant corridors). 

Keeping in mind that the Catholic Church in Malta was at the forefront and has led social welfare provisions for so many years, in particular, services for children, the elderly and persons with disability, an alarm bell should start to sound for policy makers and social planners correspondingly.

Now the situation is further compounded by the fact that the previously held support of the traditional and extended family will before long be positioned completely in the responsibility of the State (there is evidence in this for example in child care services) and we need to make sure we are cognizant of this fact.

But whilst we have known that this was going to happen, no mitigation measures have been put into place and we kept denying that these two resources, ‘family’ and ‘Church’, would never dry up.

What are the solutions?

We need to start by supporting the Church to rationalise its services and align them to the national priorities.  This may present the Church with an increased activity, better reach at community level and cost-effectiveness rather than risk turning into irrelevance and economic meltdown.

We also need to consider developing a social policy that is centered around facilitating partnership among recipients of social services, for them to take on a more active role.  It cannot be a uni-directional social policy anymore but work has to be done to ensure that the effected citizenry and the providers of service are engaged equally thus avoiding benefit entrapment.

In social policy unless we priorities we will never be able to meet the needs.  There are groups that are most at risk and in danger of falling through our social net – those are the ones that need immediate attention without forfeiting the other sectors.  Low income workers, children, elderly, those struggling with mental health and people with disability are a main concern. 

The social indicators that need to govern our social policy should be centered around the reduction of children at risk of poverty, lowering the drop-out rate from schools, reducing the illiteracy toll, augmenting the number of young people going into post/tertiary education, increasing participation of females in the labour market, replenishing the labour market with currently unemployed persons with disability, lowering the prison population, boosting participation of people in NGOs amongst other.

The Government needs to keep working hard on getting regular evaluations of social indicators that measure social and employment mobility, create pointers of effectiveness to each policy and action and ensure a periodic review of the overall strategy for social cohesion. Government ministries, departments and entities need to account for the progress made on these fronts and the regular reporting of ministries, departments and civil structures need to evaluate and report on the situation in terms of the above.

For this reason the thinking of how we do social policy needs to evolve.

We are here not to act in response but to be upbeat and pro-active, to create the systems and procedures that support people who fall by the wayside.

Moreover we ought to look into the future and take action today to avoid difficult situations yet to come. We also need to instill in our communities a feeling of mutual responsibility, respect and regard. 

Enough knee-jerking social policy. 

Each step and decision in social policy needs to be supplemented with the right dose of evidence-based research. Forecast will give us adequate space and time to react to unforeseen circumstances.

Inclusive policy making and implementation need to be debated within a discourse of ‘social dialogue’ and the involvement of multiple stakeholders in policy making. 

Children in vulnerable social conditions, persons with disability, persons with mental health problems, people passing through drug-related problems, young people with serious and severe delinquency issues and criminal career trajectories, families in precarious life-situations, single-parent families, elderly people, especially those who are living alone or who no longer have the support of their family, asylum seekers, low income workers and in particular those with low educational/skills base should all be represented in our social policy – the challenge remains in designing the right prioritizing mechanisms to ensure social justice.