'The Universal and the particular in social models for health and social care - the response to difference, suffering and social injustice in international social iinclusion policy and its emancipatory alternatives'. Association of the Schools of Social Work (IASSW).July 20-24 2008. Durban, South Africa.(Peer Reviewed

Social models are influential in international social policy, treating social inclusion as a central remedy to health and social care concerns. This promises great potential for social work to promote its international social justice and individual empowerment value-base, linked to social understandings of service users' concerns (International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers 2001), However, social theory encompasses different perspectives, carrying radically different policy and practice implications. International social inclusion policy assumes social theory that treats social inclusion itself, accessed through individual capacity, participation, and self management of health as the best route to positive outcomes. Significantly, however, these understandings are linked to the historical European Enlightenment concept of the normal human being as completely in control of self and environment, seeing vulnerability to the impact of social and biological forces as marginal in human society. The paper will therefore trace the socio-historical assumptions involved in these policies, together with their implications for the exclusion of service users facing immense damage, suffering and social injustice through inequalities, those who cannot aspire to self-sufficiency, and individuals, cultures and social groups with different values. The paper will then explore alternative social theories which both recognise human beings as authors of their lives but also heavily impacted upon by social exclusion and inequalities, and will trace the implications of these perspectives for emancipatory policy and practice, which recognises the universality of vulnerability to suffering and social injustice, and the particularity of human difference, across the globe.