The Autonomous Local Community

Abstract

Only in the autonomous local community can individual rehabilitation goals be addressed; can necessary exceptions be made with specific clients without creating national precedents; can welfare services be arranged providing for local conditions without, at the same time, affecting the rules by which other clients are served in other locations; can a welfare programme be carried out according to the cultural and value patterns of the community — the same cultural and value patterns which the client will have to adhere to after he has attained self-sufficiency. Only in the autonomous local community can a welfare programme be designed which can provide for a prompt appeal mechanism without bureaucratic impediments to resolution of disagreements; can voluntary welfare programmes be integrated with public welfare programmes for rehabilitation; can the total information and resources of the client and community be quickly known and used effectively for rehabilitation; can help be rendered to a citizen by his concerned peers, rather than by some impersonal agency.