The Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 makes provision for social assistance in the form of older person’s grant, disability grant, child support grant, foster care grant, war veteran grant, care dependency grant and social relief of distress. The provision of a disability grant is prescribed in Section 9 of the afore-mentioned Act which sets out the qualifying criteria for a disability grant which stipulates that the applicant for a disability grant should have attained the prescribed age at the time of application. The Act further prescribes that, owing to the applicant’s physical or mental disability, which is unable to secure employment or profession to enable him/her to provide for his/her maintenance, may also submit an application. The purpose of the study was to “Evaluate the policy regulating access to South African Social Security Agency’s disability grant in Umlazi Township”. The focus is on the Umlazi Township in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Province. The data collection techniques used in the collection of data was qualitative in nature. A semi-structured questionnaire with a mixture of a five-point Likert scale and open-ended questions was administered. The major findings of the study included the lack of policy for the disability grant, the lack of relevant training for staff and medical practitioners, the lack of community engagement and awareness, medical practitioners who use their discretion to make recommendations to the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) administrators, the risk of inclusion and exclusion errors caused by poor gate-keeping, the impact of poverty, unemployment and the chronic illnesses resulting to demand for disability grants. / MA (Public Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The Social Assistance Act 13 of 2004 makes provision for social assistance in the form of older person’s grant, disability grant, child support grant, foster care grant, war veteran grant, care dependency grant and social relief of distress. The provision of a disability grant is prescribed in Section 9 of the afore-mentioned Act which sets out the qualifying criteria for a disability grant which stipulates that the applicant for a disability grant should have attained the prescribed age at the time of application. The Act further prescribes that, owing to the applicant’s physical or mental disability, which is unable to secure employment or profession to enable him/her to provide for his/her maintenance, may also submit an application. The purpose of the study was to “Evaluate the policy regulating access to South African Social Security Agency’s disability grant in Umlazi Township”. The focus is on the Umlazi Township in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Province. The data collection techniques used in the collection of data was qualitative in nature. A semi-structured questionnaire with a mixture of a five-point Likert scale and open-ended questions was administered. The major findings of the study included the lack of policy for the disability grant, the lack of relevant training for staff and medical practitioners, the lack of community engagement and awareness, medical practitioners who use their discretion to make recommendations to the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) administrators, the risk of inclusion and exclusion errors caused by poor gate-keeping, the impact of poverty, unemployment and the chronic illnesses resulting to demand for disability grants. / MA (Public Administration), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Children and youth in state or statutory care (children-in-care) are at a higher risk of not having their health needs met than the general pediatric population. A literature review found a paucity of evidence on the health information needed for initial assessments of children-in-care in health record information systems in Canada, particularly when compared with information collected in the comparator countries the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. This qualitative research reviewed six forms currently used in British Columbia (BC) for assessing the health needs of children-in-care, and for planning future health care delivery for these children. The forms were reviewed with social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers to understand how the forms met their needs for health information for initial assessments when a child first enters care. One researcher conducted 31 interviews with 37 participants —a mixture of social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers allowed for source triangulation— in urban and rural communities using a 19-question, nonvalidated interview tool. NVivo-10 was used to inductively encode participant interviews relying on Pava’s 9-step, nonlinear sociotechnical systems approach to identify themes and concepts raised by the interviews. The researcher conducted an informal review of relevant Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) organization documents and method triangulated the results to the interview findings to identify similarities, differences, and gaps. Findings from these two analyses were compared with the literature review findings. The six forms were found to document most of the required information for typical children-in-care provided the forms were available to the care team and completed in full prior to the initial assessment. Additional forms were used for children-in-care with complex health needs. Key health information included parents’ relevant health and social information, prenatal and birth records, medical and social history of the child, immunization record, whether the child had experienced adverse childhood events, and anything that might remind the child of a stressful situation and cause the child an adverse mental or physical outcome. Complexity in acquiring the needed health information comes from a variety of circumstances. For example, the child may transition in and out of care, parents may be unavailable, and social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers may each change while the child is in care. To overcome information-sharing challenges and barriers, research participants recommended several improvements including funding changes to support medical care provider participation, an information-sharing framework, and electronic options such as a centralized child-in-care record with secure email capability. Introducing some practices from other jurisdictions, notably a senior medical advisor role and a medical assessment model, might help address process challenges when health information is missing during the initial medical assessment. These resources would help round out MCFD’s existing conceptual child-in-care health-care framework. Together these changes may support social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers to provide care to and plan for children-in-care. / Graduate / 0723 (Information Science), 0769 (Health Care Management), 0452 (Social Work) / cdthomps@uvic.ca

The diploma thesis called The comparison of medical assessment service (MAS) aim and activities within the health insurance system in the Czech and Slovak Republic and it is focused on the pieces of information related to the system of social security aiming its attention to the health insurance during both the time of Czechoslovakia and its current arrangement of the Czech and Slovak Republics in its theoretical part. Related to that there is also elaborated the issue of the medical assessment service. There is a conclusion of the most important services of the MAS and particular competences of bodies involved into the health insurance. There is also a mention of the body adjusting the public health insurance including the related area of the review medicine to get a more comprehensive view. The diploma thesis main aim is to compare the tasks and activities of the MAS in the Czech and Slovak Republics. There are determined partial aims to get a more comprehensive elaboration. One of them is focused on the benefits that are awarded based on a health condition within the health insurance in these two countries and the other one is the comparison of Czech and Slovak health condition of citizens based on the statistics of temporary sick leaves taking into consideration the conditions while awarding them. The document analysing method is used to reach the aims mentioned above. This method follows Mayring´s proposed plan and the sources where the information was taken from were firstly evaluated from a criteria relevance viewpoint. After that the gained data was compared within a comparative method in a synchronous way. The empiric diploma thesis part contains data organized in well-arranged tables with comments and in the following Chapter 5 Discussion there is data compared according to the methodology mentioned above. The basic system comparison of social security and health insurance in the Czech and Slovak Republics belongs among the topics of the final discussion. The possibility of consolidation of health and social insurances in both countries also taking into consideration the opinions of the involved experts is largely covered here. The most significant discussion focus is the comparison of the aim and activity of the MAS in the Czech and Slovak Republics. The results show that the aim and activity of the MAS are very similar in both countries; which is logical regarding the common historical base. Czech and Slovak main MAS activity within the health insurance is the auditing activity; i.e. the audit of evaluation of the health condition by the involved medical doctor as well as the inspection if the treatment mode of people on sick leave is being followed. It is also possible to notice some nuances in the elaboration in both MAS systems; which are separated today. Regarding the legislation it is possible to say that the Slovak medical assessment service work in a more consistent way that is also supported by the statistic data containing more performed audits of the treatment mode following and a more frequent usage of sanction means towards insurers which is the result of the more detailed strategic planning of inspections. The diploma thesis offers a comparison of health insurance systems and tasks and activities of the MAS in the Czech and Slovak Republics. It can be used as a study document for students of social politics and a social security law. It can also be used as an impulse to other explorations in this area and to start thinking of various possibilities how to arrange the social security system of these two countries.

Social Security is the main instrument of social policy that serves to balance social inequalities and helps address adverse social situations. This thesis provides a basic overview of individual retirement and sickness insurance allowances, state social support benefits, social care, poverty relief allowances and the offer of social services. The thesis also deals with the Medical Assessment Service and the health assessment of persons for purposes of individual social security systems. The main attention is paid to the care allowance, the benefit addressed to persons who are, mainly due to poor health status, dependent on the assistance of another person in regular daily self-care and self-sufficiency. The research is focused on care allowance recipients who live in homes for the elderly, in nursing homes and in their own households with their families or separately. The objective of this thesis is to survey the provision of social security allowances, activities of the Medical Assessment Service and the issues of the health assessment process for the purposes of the care allowance entitlement. Another objection is to determine the quality of life of people receiving the care allowance. A part of the thesis is a questionnaire by which the course of the care allowance entitlement was assessed, the reasons for applying for the care allowance and the manner of the care allowance use are described, and the health status assessment of respondents and quality of their lives were determined. The information obtained from the questionnaires was evaluated and recorded in graphs. It was found that 93.6% of respondents use the care allowance for payments for care services, personal assistance or to pay the rent and services in senior homes, i.e. payments of services related to the security assistance and support to the allowance receiver. The first hypothesis, assuming that the care allowance is mainly used to cover expenses related to the security assistance and support to the allowance receiver, was confirmed. It was also found that, with the exception of respondents living in nursing homes, the respondents´ quality of life did not change when they were drawing the allowance. The second hypothesis, assuming that the care allowance improved the respondents´ quality of life, was not confirmed. The considered replacing the current 36 self-care and self-sufficiency operations with 10 areas of basic needs of life might be a simplification and an increase in effectiveness of the health condition assessment for the purpose of the care allowance admission.

Submitted by Marcia Silva (marcia@latec.uff.br) on 2016-05-31T20:44:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Filomena Maria Bastos Gomes.pdf: 3730181 bytes, checksum: ac30057bf94dc5cb2bfe53f9f108555d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-31T20:44:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissert Filomena Maria Bastos Gomes.pdf: 3730181 bytes, checksum: ac30057bf94dc5cb2bfe53f9f108555d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-02 / A Previdência Social é um direito garantido na Constituição do Brasil. Encontra-se entre os maiores sistemas do mundo, com uma cobertura acima de 53 milhões de trabalhadores. É gerida pelo Instituto Nacional de Seguro Social e, em novembro de 2014, pagou 27,7 milhões de benefícios, sendo que quase 20% desses benefícios corresponderam a benefícios por incapacidade laborativa. Um dos requisitos, para o reconhecimento de direito ao benefício por incapacidade laboral, é a avaliação pela perícia médica do INSS da existência/persistência da incapacidade laboral. O objetivo deste estudo é verificar se as diretrizes de apoio à decisão médico-pericial relativas às principais patologias, elaboradas pela autarquia, colaboraram na uniformização de condutas na área da perícia médica previdenciária no INSS. Foi realizado um levantamento das 20 patologias mais frequentes que geraram benefícios por incapacidade temporários em 2014. Foram selecionadas oito patologias cuja decisão médico-pericial estava bem delimitada, objetiva e com fixação de tempo para a recuperação da capacidade laborativa bem clara nas diretrizes publicadas. O resultado encontrado foi que as decisões médico-periciais não seguem as diretrizes em sua plenitude, e os tempos propostos pelos peritos médicos, na maioria das vezes, é superior ao estipulado nas mesmas. Além disso, se constatou que não houve uma melhora significativa dos tempos estipulados após a publicação das diretrizes nas patologias estudadas, exceto no caso de depressão grave, que atingiu 74% em 2013 e 2014, em consonância com as diretrizes. / Social Security benefits are granted to all citizens by the Brazilian Constitution. The Brazilian Social Security System is among the largest in the world, covering more than 53 million workers, and is under the management of the National Social Security Institute (INSS). Last November 2014, 27,7 million benefits were paid, of which almost 20% were due to incapacity to work. One of the major INSS requirements for the approval of labor incapacity claims is the evaluation of the claimants’ condition by a panel of INSS medical experts, which will assess whether the alleged incapacity condition exists or remains. This work aims to explore on how much the proposed guidelines have helped INSS medical experts to standardize their recommendations in face of similar claimant conditions. Twenty pathologies were investigated which were the most relevant causes for issuance of temporary work incapacity benefits in year 2014. Of those, eight were selected for further evaluation, for all of which medical assessment guidelines had already been issued, which include clear definitions as to the expected recovery time lapse. The study concluded that the medical evaluation panel decisions do not fully comply with the approved INSS parameters and that the expected recovery times were in most cases set longer than those specified in the guidelines. It was also found that the issuing of guidelines did not lead to a significant curtailment in the number of days allowed for recovery, before returning to work, with the exception of the pathology “severe depression” which reached 74% in 2013 and 2014, in line with the respective guideline.