Alcohol and drug abuse: removing structural barriers to treatment for historically disadvantaged communities in Cape Town

The article reports on an exploratory study that examined access to alcohol and other drug treatment for historically disadvantaged communities in the Cape Town metropole. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 key informants from various sectors of the alcohol and drug treatment system, including treatment service providers, members of local drug action committees and social workers from district social service offices. Findings highlighted three structural barriers to service delivery: (i) difficulties in developing and implementing a strategic plan relating to alcohol and drug problems due to poor capacity and other infrastructural issues, such as a lack of information, poor intersectoral collaboration and limited consultation with service providers; (ii) limited allocation of resources to alcohol and drug treatment which has restricted the availability of affordable services as well as the capacity of established services to meet increased demand for services in this area; and (iii) fragmented service delivery. The study highlighted the need for further transformation of the South African social welfare system responsible for alcohol and drug treatment service delivery through public–private partnership development and the introduction of a management information system.     

The role of research in drug policy in Hong Kong: highlighting life satisfaction from two longitudinal studies of drug abusers

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the role of research in the development of drug policy in Hong Kong. The upsurge of the prevalence of psychoactive drug abuse in young people since the mid-1990s had brought about a great demand for medical and social science research on psychoactive drugs and users. Among a large number of Beat Drugs Fund-funded projects, two longitudinal studies, conducted between 2000 and 2002 and between 2009 and 2011, respectively, were used to illustrate the possible contributions of research findings to treatment and rehabilitation services. The most salient finding present in both studies was the significant and negative relationship between life satisfaction and continuation of drug use. The finding suggested that subjective well-being should be incorporated into treatment programmes, and there is a need to provide post-treatment services to young rehabilitated psychoactive drug abusers in the form of life planning programmes and organisation of sustainable social activities in the community.     

Seeing people in the computer: The role of information technology in remote employment services

Information technologies have been important in the emergence of new forms of control and surveillance of welfare recipients and of those who administer labour market programmes. These technologies have often appeared at the margins of accounts of welfare reform, for example as means of increasing the efficiency or consistency of services, or as constraining frontline discretion. Henman has argued, however, that information technologies need to be analysed not just as administrative tools, but as “non-human actors,” shaping policy development and implementation in ways beyond the intentions of their human creators (Henman, Governing Electronically: E-government and the Reconfiguration of Public Administration, Policy and Power, Palgrave MacMillan). This paper explores the way that the use of government information systems has shaped employment services in remote Australia where over 80 per cent of those included are Indigenous people. The article describes how the production and use of administrative data within employment services have supported and extended the framing of Indigenous people in remote communities as non-compliant and as needing external direction.     

Counseling the Bereaved

This paper considers many of the theoretical and practical issues underlying the provision of bereavement counseling, and discusses (a) risk factors for bereaved people, (b) therapeutic assessment of bereaved people and planning of care, (c) provision of services aimed at diminishing risk and facilitating grief and mourning, (d) key issues of family and social support in bereavement counseling, and (e) the need for further development and coordination of services for the bereaved.     

Police and Government in the 1990s

This article considers the proposals made for reform of local government and the creation of unitary authorities. It considers the relationship between police forces and local government and the introduction of new management structures for police forces. It argues for coterminous police and district authority boundaries, for district police committees and for closer coordination of police and other local services in the development of crime prevention programmes.     

Providing mental health services to older people living in rural communities

Rural dwelling elders who experience mental health problems often have difficulty finding help since rural communities often lack adequate mental health service providers. This paper reports on the initial phase of a 5-year, interdisciplinary clinical research study that is testing the effectiveness of providing a home delivered, therapeutic psychosocial intervention, aimed at improving the emotional wellbeing and the quality of life of medically frail elders who live in rural communities. In the early phases of this study, the clinical research team encountered a number of interesting and often unanticipated challenges as it attempted to recruit study participants and provide services to them. In this article, we examine these challenges and share what we have learned so far about providing mental health services to elderly persons living in rural environments.     

The Paradoxes of Recovery Policy: Exploring the Impact of Austerity and Responsibilisation for the Citizenship Claims of People with Drug Problems

This article critically examines the implications accompanying the introduction and implementation of recovery‐based policy. The article draws upon research conducted in Lancashire, England, where commissioners have been at the forefront of recent developments in ‘whole system’ models of commissioning. Empirical data are drawn on to make a series of new arguments about the tensions and practice implications of the new recovery agenda. The article has three main objectives. First, it explores current shifts in England, in which drug service commissioning has moved from being centrally funded and directed, to locally determined. Second, it references the rise of the well‐informed user in the reconfigured landscape of recovery and the ways in which commissioning models may enhance or negate the contribution of user activists to local cultures of recovery. Third, it references the changing political context, in which austerity is being used to increase the pressure on provider services to demonstrate social value, utility and effectiveness. The article argues that there is a palpable need to re‐politicize drug debates and recognize the structural and demographic factors which frame problem drug use, as well as the social and cultural factors which support or negate their opportunities for recovery.     

Providing Mental Health Services to Older People Living in Rural Communities

Summary

Rural dwelling elders who experience mental health problems often have difficulty finding help since rural communities often lack adequate mental health service providers. This paper reports on the initial phase of a 5-year, interdisciplinary clinical research study that is testing the effectiveness of providing a home delivered, therapeutic psychosocial intervention, aimed at improving the emotional well-being and the quality of life of medically frail elders who live in rural communities. In the early phases of this study, the clinical research team encountered a number of interesting and often unanticipated challenges as it attempted to recruit study participants and provide services to them. In this article, we examine these challenges and share what we have learned so far about providing mental health services to elderly persons living in rural environments.     

Treatment Utilization Among Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Participants of Corrections-Based Substance Abuse Programs Reentering the Community

ABSTRACT

This study examines differences in drug use and recidivism outcomes at 12 months postrelease from jail or prison as a function of geographic location and treatment utilization. Participants (N= 700) were previously enrolled in drug treatment during the last 6 to 9 months of their incarceration and were released to the community on either parole or serve-out. Findings from this study indicated that offenders returning to metropolitan areas reported more use of community treatment services following release than offenders in nonmetropolitan areas. Although offenders in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas who reported community treatment following release were less likely to be reincarcerated, community treatment utilization was not a significant correlate of relapse. Findings are discussed, and future directions include favorable outcomes when community treatment is utilized.     

Looking for best practice in caring for disabled children: a case of socialized foster care in China

This study focuses on the problems associated with caring for children with cerebral palsy (CWCP) in Chinese State Children's Welfare Institutions (SCWIs). It considers how to place these children with foster families and also provide them with the best rehabilitation services. In a pilot project, one SCWI trained foster parents as rehabilitators and provided services to CWCPs living with foster families in selected rural communities. The practice was very successful over the last decade, and more than 600 CWCPs in these communities are growing up happily. Hence, specialized foster care projects could be a solution for all SCWIs in China, where most of the institutionalized children are disabled.     

“Working with COW”: Social Work Supporting Older Women Living in the Community

ABSTRACT

Australia, like all developed Western countries, is experiencing a demographic shift resulting in an increasing proportion of the population being over the age of 65 years. Contrary to stereotypes, the vast majority of older people live independently in communities. This article explores the potential of social work practice informed by community development principles to enable socially disadvantaged older women to live in vibrant and supportive communities, in which they feel safe and are able to access the support services they need. It argues that participation in social action not only builds older women’s well-being but also enables them to become (or continue to be) agents for social change in local communities. Adopting a community-based research methodology, this article draws on a decade of community development practice with the Concerned Older Women’s (COW) Group. This data suggests that community development practice based on participation, empowerment, and social action founded on respectful relationships may accrue significant benefits to individuals and the broader community. This social work practice creates the social conditions to facilitate older women’s capacity to work collectively to achieve social change, challenging ageist stereotypes.     

Women and men – same problems, different treatment

The focus on difference between men and women has been important in the development of gender-specific treatment for alcohol and drug problems. The aim of this article is to examine the views of alcohol and drug treatment staff on differences between men and women in treatment and compare men and women in treatment on issues related to staff attitudes. One data set consists of questionnaires sent to staff working with alcohol and drug problems in Stockholm County (n = 918). Another data set consists of interviews with women and men in treatment for alcohol and drug problems in Stockholm (n = 1865). The results show that staff experience differences between men and women both in their problems and in how they should be treated. Some of these differences are supported by the comparison of women and men in the client-data, but mostly the differences are relatively small or even non-existent.     

"A Salary is not Important Here": The Professionalization of Social Work in Contemporary Russia

Helping professions address the growing number of social problems which have emerged, along with contextual changes in Russian society, culture and state social policy. Social work only emerged in Russia in 1991 and it still lacks recognition by public opinion and by other caring professions. This paper addresses the current development of the social work profession in Russia, considers its context and reviews the main issues affecting processes within social work practice and education. Many social work agencies are in search of new forms of organization and are trying to develop new philosophies of service, in order to build positive relations with communities. However, given the 70 years of the Soviet era when social protection was highly centralized and bureaucratized, the organizational cultures of the new social services sometimes reproduce old patterns of bureaucracy, especially where employees lack professional education. The reflective practitioner type of professionalism is here argued to be more appropriate for social workers in today's Russia. The paper includes an analysis of interviews with social workers and administrators in a large Russian city and considers the results of an ethnographic study of social services in the same city.     

Drug abuse, paradigms and social work

Two different treatment practices for the inpatient treatment of drug abusers are described: the pedagogical and the therapeutic. The treatment practices are analyzed from the perspective of sociological theories of human action and from a cultural perspective. The control of the client is of crucial importance but it is exercised in different ways. In the pedagogical treatment practice, the control is manifested in the development of social skills and internalization of conventional roles and norms. In the therapeutic practice, the client's emotions and awareness of ontological facts as freedom and responsibility are objects of control.     

城市社区服务体系：适度“普惠型”社会福利的实现路径

本文在对＂普惠型＂社会福利进行理论分析的基础上,指出中国社会福利模式变迁的必然。提出城市社区服务与适度＂普惠型＂社会福利具有服务目标的一致性,服务内容对象的契合性以及实践途径的融合性特点,进而从操作性层面提出依托城市社区服务体系实现适度普惠社会福利的策略。     

Improving social psychiatric treatment in residential programmes for emerging dependence groups in Europe: cross-border networking, methodological innovations and substantive discoveries

A mini-symposium series of papers presenting the results of the European Commission-supported Biomed II project is introduced. The project accomplished a cross-border scientific networking engaging 31 European residential treatment programmes. The results showed that scientific development is best served by a flexible bureaucratic approach. 'Old' science and the 'new' science ways of working were balanced. 'History' and 'social networks' are the key concepts signalling the project knowledge gains. A treatment sample (N=723) was extracted from a database of 1028 current European cases. Non-drug-specific characteristics are as important as drug-specific characteristics in distinguishing emerging dependence groups. The project networking created a process that increased the level of involvement of science and the service communities. To sustain the gains of the project, a reaching out of existing European treatment services to extended family and friendship networks with a history of dependence-related problems will be required.     

略论社区少年儿童图书馆的服务拓展

本文从少年儿童图书馆在21世纪新的发展方向入手,论述开展社区服务是保护广大未成年人的文化权益、建立健全公共文化服务体系的重要举措,进一步阐述了满足广大未成年人日益增长的精神文化需求的方式,以及加强社区服务发展的动力、实现方式和应注意的问题。     

论中国城市社区建设的发展道路

我国现阶段城市社区建设具有前沿性、综合性和复杂性的特点.这就要求我国城市社区建设应走一条以市场运行为主、政府和社会扶助为辅的具有内生增长机制的滚动发展道路,即以社会化服务为方向,产业化发展为基础,福利化推进为宗旨,建立亲情、友情和人情三位一体的社会主义爱心社区.     

More Nuanced Universal Services for New Parents: Avoiding Assumptions of Homogeneity

Abstract

Universal services focus on prevention and providing the support to parents that will help them meet the challenges of parenthood and deal with problems before they become entrenched. Many countries now have good universal services available for new families, and significant advances have been made in recent years to recognize the importance of the early years in the optimal development of the child. This article is based on a qualitative study of transition to parenthood. The study explored the experience of 25 first-time mothers in socioeconomically diverse circumstances in New Zealand. Eleven partners of these women also participated. Mothers were interviewed three times, first in late pregnancy, then 3 and 12?months after giving birth. Partners were interviewed once, mid-way through the baby’s first year. The article focuses on how participants experienced service support. It illustrates some of the diverse needs of new parents, and explains ways in which prevention services might become more responsive to parents’ expressed needs. The authors offer a case for stronger interplay between universal services and informal systems of support, and the development of a new generation of universal services that act as enablers of natural support hubs for new families within their own communities.