Interventions: Strengthening Personal and Social Resources

Abstract

In this final chapter, I want to examine the question of how the “welfare state” can

• 1. Organize conditions in the areas of work, home, education, human development, and recreation so that excessive strains on the social, psychological, and physical well-being of its citizens can be avoided as far as possible

• 2. At the same time reduce to a minimum the amount of delinquency, social disintegration, psychological disturbance, and physical illness

As a rule, the powers of interfering held by the state, the authoritative and administrative bodies, and other public organizations are subsumed under the collective term “intervention.”The term describes activities of a helping, supportive, controlling, and corrective nature, whose aim is to intervene before deviance, disorders, and disease can develop fully. In other words, the goal is to avoid impending disorders (“preventive intervention”), to moderate existing disorders, and, if possible, to eliminate them (“correctional intervention”).