社会工作如何创新社区就业服务?——基于公益创业框架的个案研究

How Can Social Work Innovate Community Employment Services?:A Case Study Based on the Framework of Social Entrepreneurship

提供就业援助是社会工作者解决困境人士经济困难的重要服务内容,服务创新是提高就业效率的必要方式之一。本文选取了一项2011年至今仍在持续推进的成功就业服务案例,从公益创业角度来梳理社会工作解决社区残障人士和困境妇女就业的创新经验。本文将社会工作开展的就业服务划分为就业融合—创收—创业—创新四个相继发展阶段,并从商业意识、商业技巧和商业知识三个维度构建了社会工作服务的公益创业框架。具体而言,商业意识方面表现为战略、流程和财务,商业技巧方面分别是双市场拓展、资源获取与整合、风险管理,商业知识为理论和实践知识。其中,公益创业中的商业意识和商业技巧分别融入就业服务的创收、创业和创新过程,社会工作者也在公益创业实践中不断积累商业知识。本案例经验能为试图走公益创业之路和提升就业服务成效的社会工作者提供一定的实践启发。

Providing employment assistance is an important service for social workers to solve the economic difficulties of those in need.Service innovation is one of the necessary ways to improve employment efficiency.This paper selected a successful employment service case that had been continuously promoted since 2011.From the perspective of social entrepreneurship,the innovative experiences of social work in solving the employment of persons with disabilities and women in a dilemma were summarized.Social work organizations had undertaken the project of government purchase social work services and provided professional services to residents within the jurisdiction of the urban subdistrict.The main service’groups were women who had suffered domestic violence,or breast cancer survivors,and people with deaf and mute disabilities,people with intellectual disabilities,or people with physical disabilities and so on.They hoped social workers could solve their financial difficulties.From 2012 to 2021,the employment service of social work experienced four successive development stages,Integration employment-Revenue generation-Entrepreneurship-Innovation.During the period of integrated employment,social workers set up a special service of flexible handicraft workshops.Women in distress led persons with disabilities to package and make simple handicrafts such as folding cartons in order to earn some money.In the handicraft workshop,they had harmonious relations and a high degree of tacit cooperation.However,manual work for a long time might lead to physical strain.The handicraft work which was assigned from the enterprises was random.When there were no assign orders,they had no work to do.Therefore,social workers set up street vending stalls,and employment services entered the period of revenue generation.The women who were cultivated by social workers became leaders.They led employable people with disabilities to sell idle social donations and self-made products.Most of the street vending income was used as personal subsidies for women and the disables,while a small portion was reserved as public funds for street vending.During the entrepreneurial period,social workers established a store to retail daily necessities.The store was a job training camp for the disabled and was operated by them.The delivering services were undertaken by community volunteers.Based on the entrepreneurial experience of the store,a domestic service company with dual marketable and commonweal attributes was established by social workers.The task of social workers was matching the community’s unemployed women to the community elders or ordinary residents.20%of domestic service’profit was assigned to the community public welfare fund.The fund was founded by social work organization.In 2021,the social workers established an online sales and crowdfunding platform.The store goods and home services were integrated into these online shopping malls.Three dimensions of the social entrepreneurship framework on employment service was constructed in the paper.They were business awareness,business skills and business knowledge.Specifically,business awareness were manifested in strategy,process,and finance.The process was run through the whole process of social entrepreneurship.On the strategic dimension,social workers identified business opportunities and developed business thinking.They discovered persons with disabilities had ability to operate a charity shop,and there was no domestic service company in their service area.Social workers had gradually changed their thinking from public welfare to market operation.This transformation not only changed their employment service modes,but also brought them into a broader consciousness related to employable issues.Such as doing service in multiple thinking,making a profit,being independent hematopoiesis,doing sustainable services and so on.In the financial dimension,social workers were aware of business costs and profits.They also possessed ethical financial awareness.The surplus was allocated to a community public welfare fund that promoted the cycle of services.Business skills included dual-market expansion,resource acquisition and integration,and risk management.In terms of dual-market expansion,the store developed the conventional market by establishing public welfare brands and focusing on low price concessions.The sub district offices and neighborhood committees were expanded as a new market.The domestic service company explored the market by the methods of providing free or low compensation services and conventional charging services.The fund of government and the community’s public welfare supported the elder in economic difficulties to enjoy the domestic service.The regular customer market was mainly operated by its partner of a business housekeeping company,which was responsible for business docking,domestic staff training and equipment storage.In the dimension of resource acquisition and integration,social workers acquire and integrate various resources within and outside the community.Such as fund-raising,goods collection,venue selection,personnel training,access to government brands,cooperation with commercial companies,online sales and so on.In terms of risk management,in order to reduce legal and management risks on business operations,social workers transferred areas of expertise to professionals,or collaborated with professional commercial companies.Blockchain technology was also introduced to make donations transparent and reduce credit risks.Business knowledge includes two dimensions of theoretical and practical knowledge.Social workers accumulated business knowledge in the practice of social entrepreneurship.Such as learning business processes from cooperative enterprises,turning services into commercial entities,copying entity models across regions and so on.But the theoretical dimension of business knowledge needed to be expanded.The knowledge of social entrepreneurship is rarely involved in the current social work curriculum courses.Social work organizations also seldom trained their employees in this area.The lack of theoretical knowledge of social business might be improved if courses of social entrepreneurship were offered in future social work education.The case belonged to the“re-interpreted”type of social entrepreneurship defined by Fowler.The social entrepreneurship of the case organization diversified the sources of funds,expanded the service groups,and promoted the sustainable development of employment services.The experience of this case not only improve the effectiveness of employment services,but also provide some practical inspiration for social workers who would try to take the road of social entrepreneurship.