I like the idea but I'm not sure the Web can ever really be the second social welfare system. There is nothing that will ever allow social service delivery to scale easily (although I have a plan to try it) in the same way as we've seen say, Google. Social service delivery is a lot more involved than a loose network like the Internet can really accomodate right now. There's too much bandwidth involved because people want and deserve a "human" touch when it comes to social service delivery. That usually means a "real life" presence on the part of the social worker.
Of course, my criticism stems from two premises that could change in the future:
1. That every person in need can be served the best by a real life presence.
2. That every issue can only be served by a singular case management method that relies primarily on one case manager (with other professionals assisting) to each client.
Could there ever be a way to use the wisdom of the Internet masses to solve a client's one on one problem? We see isolated instances but there has never been an attempt to foster and educate the would-be Internet helper for a particular client's case. Usually, it's something unusual like the recent case of the homeless man who found $21,000 in bonds, returned them, got only a $100 reward and who was publicized in the media and Internet and ended up with $3-4k of rewards. The problem of course, is that the money is handed over without a psych eval and case interview. Usually, the social service agency I work for tries to limit large disbursements of money like that because they tend to be even more damaging than the original state of poverty especially if the person has a substance dependency issue.
-----original message-----
>>;I just have to put in a plug for a pair of blog articles that John
McNutt and I wrote:
>><;http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/1/1271793.html>
>><http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/12/1294788.html>
.
