E

Early Period (1840 to 1890) - One of the characteristics of the Early Period (1840 to 1890) is that social welfare was local and private. It was not considered a national responsibility. Provisions of the Early Period included relief, care of the insane, handicapped, neglected children, prisons (used for more than just those who had committed crime), and the Toronto House of Industry (a poorhouse), and the Apprentices and Minors Act of.

Economic Cycle - one of the regular increases in economic activity, with rising output and employment, followed by a decrease, with falling output and rising unemployment.]

Economic determinism - the belief that the economic organization of a society determines the nature of all other aspects of its life.

Egalitarian - The position that there should be structurally a degree of equality in reference to access to control, influence, and direction over events that affect one's life. There should also be a degree of similarity of rights, duties, responsibilities, treatment, protection, and rewards for all members of a group, category, and society. Equality does not mean sameness.

Ego - In psychoanalytic theory, the rational part of the personality that mediates between the demands of instinctual urges, conscience, and reality.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - A therapy, used primarily to treat severe depression, in which an electrical current is passed through the brain for a brief period.

Electronic advocacy - the process of using communication and information technologies to disseminate information and mobilize support from a large constituency to help influence decision-making processes.

Eligibility requirements The conditions that must be met before people qualify to receive benefits from a social welfare program.

Elizabeth Neufeld - the head worker in the Central Neighbourhood House in Toronto and was the first social work graduate in Canada.

Elizabethan Poor Laws - An official policy, created under the rule of Henry VIII of England in 1601, that established a system of shelter and care for the poor. Created the first system of national standards of social welfare which was administered at the local (parish) level.

Emotional Abuse - Emotional attacks or omissions that cause, or could cause, serious emotional injury. This could include behaviour of parents or guardians who persistently do not take an interest in their child. For example, not talking to or hugging their child, and being chronically emotionally unavailable to their child. This could also include repeated threats, confinement, repeated exposure to violence, ongoing humiliation and ridicule, and fundamental attacks on a child=s sense of self.

Empathy - The ability to see things from another's point of view.

Employment Insurance (EI) - helps unemployed Canadians between jobs by providing temporary financial assistance while they look for work or upgrade their skills, or while they are pregnant, caring for a newborn or adopted child, or sick.

Empowerment - the sense that people can create and take action on their own behalf to meet their physical, spiritual and psychological needs.

Entitlements A right to a social welfare service.

Entry - like intake, a community usually consults a community worker about its problem, and the social worker acknowledges and responds to the community's need, or is hired by someone to help.

Established Program Funding - legislation which linked grants to provinces for post-secondary education with grants for hospital care and personal medical care.

Esteem needs - The desire to be a respected, competent, or even superior person.

Ethical behavior - Behavior prescribed by a value.

Ethnic group - A social group that has a common cultural tradition, common history, and common sense of identity and exists as a subgroup in a larger society. The members of an ethnic group differ with regard to certain cultural characteristics from the other members of their society.

Ethnocentrism -An attitude that one's own culture, society, or group is inherently superior to all others. Ethnocentrism means an inability to appreciate others whose culture may include a different racial group, ethnic group, religion, morality, language, political system, economic system, etc. It also means an inability to see a common humanity and human condition facing all women and men in all cultures and societies beneath the surface variations in social and cultural traditions.

Eugenics - A doctrine which holds that the human race can be "improved" by selective control of breeding to eradicate less "desirable" traits in society. The supporters of eugenics argue that social problems are caused by inherited genetic traits in people which can be bred out to resolve the problem for future generations. The logical conclusion of this theory is deeply racist and reactionary based on dubious research and prejudice.

Evaluation/termination - final step in the social work process, in which the client and the social worker have worked together to assist the client to achieve a resolution to the original problem.

Existential guilt - The result of, or the consciousness of, evading the commitment to choosing for ourselves.

Existential neurosis - Feelings of despair and anxiety that result from inauthentic living, a failure to make choices, and an avoidance of responsibility.

Existential Therapy - The significance of the approach is that it reacts against the tendency to view therapy as a system of well-defined techniques; it affirms looking at those unique characteristics that make us human and building therapy on them. It emphasizes choice, freedom, responsibility, and self-determination. In essence, we are the authors of our life.

Existentialism - A philosophical movement stressing individual responsibility for creating one's ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Expectations of social welfare - minimum level or quality of life, certain opportunities through education and training.

Experimental methods - Research designed to test cause-effect relationships between variables.

Extended family - A family including not only parents and children, but also grandparents and other relations.

External validity - The extent to which a study's findings can be generalized to people beyond those in the study itself.

Extra billing - the patient pays extra fees up front, and then applies to the province for a rebate.