The impact of globalization on social work in the UK

Since the late 1980s social work in the UK has undergone a period of unremitting change affecting its organizational structure, value-base, and service users. There has been a regrettable narrowness of scope in the social work literature on such changes, as analysis has been limited to policy and service delivery issues, which treat such changes as if they were simply new technical responses to the problems of reorganizing social services. We argue that such analyses do not engage sufficiently with the complex dynamics driving these changes and that there is a need to contextualize change in social work against the wider political and economic context. The transformative nature of the contemporary period is posited with reference to the impact of global macro-level forces and the ways that these interact with national and political variables on micro-level forms of social work practice. This paper reviews selective literature on globalization and draws linkages with changes in social services at the agency and practitioner level in the UK.     

Building a culture of learning through organizational development: the experiences of the Marin County Health and Human Services Department

After determining a need for organizational change informed by changes in workforce demographics, community demographics, the socio-political and economic environment, and constraints on resources, one agency sought to transform its organizational culture into that of a learning organization. An external organizational development consultant was hired to work with agency leadership to identify ways that would help move the agency's culture towards one that was conducive to learning. Specifically, the agency director sought to create a culture where communication is encouraged both vertically and horizontally, frontline level workers are engaged and their voices heard, cross-departmental problem solving is practiced, innovative ideas are supported, and evidence-informed practice regularly implemented. This case study describes the experiences of this agency and the process taken toward engaging an external consultant and moving towards the development of a culture of learning.     

A Multi-Method Evaluation of the Teen Pregnancy Hotline in Taiwan

The present study examines the outputs and qualities of the thirteen teen pregnancy service hotlines in Taiwan that were funded by the Children’s Bureau in 2004 and 2005. The evaluation was made through agency visits, focus groups, document reviews, call-in tests and the use of a management information system. The results show that the average number of calls was low, and one agency did not receive any calls during the time period examined. The quality of services varied, and the advice provided by the hotline staff was influenced by the value orientation of the agencies. Most callers were adult women, and the major services they received were information and emotional support. The service characteristics were heavily affected by the goals and routine tasks of the agencies as certain agencies applied their existing services to the program without assessing their fitness to the needs of the potential clients. Suggestions for service improvement are provided, including an islandwide hotline to be set up and operated by a single agency with high accountability. Implications for program monitoring and documentation, staff training and knowledge-sharing, and service advertisement and promotion are also discussed.     

Using Social Network Analysis to Enhance Nonprofit Organizational Research Capacity: A Case Study

As donor agencies become more specific in funding requirements, research that can demonstrate the collaborative efforts of a nonprofit agency with its organizational neighbors and how those efforts pay off in terms of capacity and provision of services is highly useful. Recognizing these benefits, a local funding agency in Virginia commissioned a study to look at the ways in which social network analysis (SNA) can enhance the data resources available to nonprofits for funding and grant requests. In this article, we present a case study of a network of 52 nonprofit organizations to illustrate the viability of SNA in terms of funding and research needs specific to nonprofit organizations. We discuss the outcomes of the case study in terms of how the visual and metric outputs of SNA can be used by nonprofits to enhance the accomplishment of their organizational missions and strengthen their grant requests.     

"WE DON'T PAY FOR BUS TICKETS, BUT WE CAN HELP YOU FIND WORK":

Guided by the concept of social problems work and the micropolitics of trouble perspective, we examine the discursive strategies used by social workers to conduct intake interviews with homeless clients. Trouble was a pervasive feature of these encounters: clients often requested services that diverged from the service preferences expressed by social workers. Social workers used elicitation strategies to solicit information about clients' biographies and their service needs and seminarrative raps to construct service plans with clients. Conceptualized as rhetorical devices, these strategies appear to have managed trouble in ways that articulated closely with material and nonmaterial aspects of the organizational context. We illustrate how these strategies articulated with an agency preference for consensus-style service planning and a focus on clients' recent biographies and immediate problems. Further, we show how these strategies managed the provision of scarce resources in ways that focused on remedies that could be tied to long-term client stability. We conclude by offering the outlines of a general model of the micropolitics of trouble in human service encounters.     

Organizational culture influence on service delivery: A mixed methods design in a child welfare setting

Despite the growing acknowledgement that mixed methods can be useful to better understand complex organizational cultures, there are few examples of studies, which demonstrate how organizational culture studies combine quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study within the child welfare setting. The purpose of the article is to illustrate how a concurrent triangulation was accomplished in a single organizational culture study in a child welfare agency. A sample of 92 employees was selected from a Midwestern private, non-profit, faith-based child welfare agency. Four distinct methods were used to measure organizational culture and its influence on service delivery which allowed for greater validity by collecting different data bearing on the same organizational culture phenomena. Strengths and implications are discussed.     

Broadening the Array of Services: Integrating Legal and Social Work Services for Youth and Families

ABSTRACT

The Community Justice and Legal Assistance Clinic (CJLA) is a unique community-based legal clinic developed through a partnership between a law school and a child and family service agency embedded within a low-income community. This article describes the development of this clinic through a community assessment process; its unique multidisciplinary features; the services provided to clients in three of the agency's service areas; the benefits of the partnership for clients, the social service agency, the participating law students, and the law school; and lessons learned for replication of this type of clinic in other communities.     

A recent look at the factors influencing workforce retention in public child welfare

Consistency of services to children and their families continues to be an ongoing problem in public child welfare agencies. Worker turnover is high, thus affecting the availability of a well trained, experienced workforce. It is critical that we continue to explore the factors associated with worker turnover and retention in public child welfare agencies. Such knowledge will allow us to determine the needs of workers, administrators, and the agency in general, in an effort to create an environment that will result in worker retention, and a better quality of services. Children and their families will be major benefactors of such knowledge as the consistency and quality of services will be enhanced. Existing research has found that outcomes for families and children are affected by the workload and training of frontline workers, and organizational characteristics (GAO, 2003, NASW, 2004, and Milner, 2003). This study describes personal and organizational factors relative to worker retention for public child welfare workers in the northwest corridor of Georgia.     

‘We are Hungry but We Won’t Eat the Food’: Schoolchildren’s ‘Thin’ agency and its impacts on the implementation of Ghana’s School Feeding Programme

Following the introduction of the concept of agency by the New Sociology of Childhood, the concept has dominated discourses about children's everyday lives. Nevertheless, little is known about schoolchildren's agency in their daily interactions with the service providers of Ghana's school feeding programme. Through this qualitative study, the paper provides empirical evidence to show how children in restrictive contexts exercise ‘thin’ agency in their interactions with frontline service providers, leading to significant improvements in the quality of services delivered to them. Consequently, the article questions Michael Lipsky's assumption that clients have minimal effect on the services delivered to them.     

Service learning from the supply side: Community capacity to engage students

The rapid increase in the use of service learning raises important public policy questions about who is being served and whether partner agencies have the capacity to meet student demand for community‐based experiences. This article uses a large sample of nonprofit organizations and a comparative framework to examine the characteristics of partner agencies and the scope and nature of college student community involvement. Multivariate analysis tests these factors on a community agency's ability to engage more students, particularly service learners. The findings are generally optimistic about agency willingness to involve students, suggesting widespread community benefits from their involvement. While organizational size and capacity predict current student engagement, an agency's past experience with students and its perceptions of student benefits have the greatest impact on its willingness to take on future students.     

Service-user participation in developing social services: applying the experiment-driven approach

ABSTRACT

Participatory approaches are needed in Finland for service users to participate in designing and developing social services. New collaborative methods are the focus of this research, as this pilot case-study analyses the experiment-driven design approach and its consequences on service users’ agency and participation. This practitioner research belongs to the pragmatist research tradition. The data comprises transcribed focus group and individual interviews of service users and social workers in group operations in a Finnish municipal adult social service organisation. The data are evaluated by content analysis. The experiments with service prototypes allowed the service users to observe the consequences of their actions in practice. Instead of only being heard and consulted, the service users found they could influence the practice in concrete ways. The professionals and organisation shaped the service users’ participation and agency by operating as gatekeepers in sharing power. The service users reported that collaboration with professionals and participation in the group gave them a sense of renewed citizenship, improved social skills and helped to manage with personal illnesses or daily struggles. The research concludes that experimentation can provide a way to utilise experiential knowledge in developing social work collaboratively.     

Learning from staff to share knowledge and inform decision-making: the Contra Costa County experience

In an effort to increase staff engagement and opportunities for greater two-way communication between managers and staff, a strategic plan was developed involving administration of an agency-wide staff satisfaction survey. A comprehensive survey was administered to nearly 1700 employees throughout the agency, which encompasses several diverse bureaus ranging from child and family services, aging and adult services, and a workforce investment board. The online survey included 36 questions aimed at gathering staff perspectives on job satisfaction, work expectations, supervision, and information sharing within the agency. 825 employees responded to the survey, and findings were analyzed and shared agency-wide. Results of the survey have been used to inform ongoing agency change and to facilitate continued engagement of staff in organizational goals and initiatives.     

A Glimpse Within: An Exploratory Study of Child Welfare Agencies’ Practices With LGBTQ Youth

This article presents findings from a national survey of agency members of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) with respect to organizational culture and service delivery for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Sixty-seven study participants provided quantitative and qualitative data via an Internet questionnaire. Overall, agencies fall short of fully subscribing to recommendations made by the CWLA. They could improve their support for providing an inclusive environment, creating supportive policies, and selecting childcare providers regardless of sexual orientation/gender identity. In addition, agencies varied with respect to the relative emphasis that services geared specifically for LGBTQ should occur. Although some progress has been made, much work remains for child welfare agencies to fully address the needs of LGBTQ youth.     

Organizational change: The role of climate and job satisfaction in child welfare workers' perception of readiness for change

BackgroundWhen organizations embark on deliberate efforts to increase effectiveness through organizational-level changes, those that demonstrate greater readiness for change tend to have better outcomes. In contrast, when the organization is not ready, a change effort may result in resistance, conflict and, eventually, failure. However, studies addressing how agency climate and job satisfaction influence workers' perception of the organization's readiness for change in child welfare or human service organizations are scarce.MethodsData for this study was obtained from a sample of 356 direct care and clinical child welfare workers employed at eight not-for-profit child welfare agencies under contract to provide a variety of services in a large northeastern state. Workers were surveyed on their agency's readiness for change, organizational climate, and job satisfaction. The Spector Job Satisfaction Survey measured nine subscales and Parker Organizational Climate survey measured four primary domains: role, job, supervision, and organizational dimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on nine questions derived from the Organizational Readiness for Change survey that measured workers' perceptions of organizational readiness for change. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to determine climate and satisfaction influences on voluntary child welfare workers' readiness for change.ResultsThe results of SEM confirmed that the exogenous independent indicators of role ambiguity, supervisor goal emphasis, organizational innovation, satisfaction with communication, and the number of years in current position were predictive of workers' perception of readiness for change with significant positive coefficients.ImplicationsThis study highlights the importance of certain organizational climate and job satisfaction factors that child welfare workers' identify for the success of agency change efforts. Workers perceive that organizations may have a higher level of readiness to implement successful change initiatives when: (1) workers feel their role is clear, supervisors articulate change goals, and job performance is held to a high standard and is measurable; (2) agency leaders establish organizational communication that is explicate, and they encourage workers to develop ideas and try new ways of doing the job; and (3) the greater the number of years workers are in their current position, the more likely change initiatives are perceived to be successful. Most importantly, this study suggests that not all organizational climate or job satisfaction factors are recognized by workers as supporting change equally.     

Chapter 8: AIDS Service Organziations:

AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs) adopted a mission that included advocacy for public policy and private service agency response to the AIDS epidemic, prevention education efforts and provision of personal social services to people with AIDS (PWAs). This mission was shaped by stigmatization and marginalization of PWAs, the inadequate response of governments and health and social service agencies, the developing relationship between ASOs and diverse populations, especially communities of color, and by developments in medical research and treatments for HIV disease. ASOs thus emerged as new contexts of helping and as such had to create organizational structures appropriate for the problems faced, arrange for constructive relationships between helpers and those receiving services, and establish and maintain constructive relationships between the ASO and the larger community. Future challenges facing these new contexts of helping are discussed.     

On Lok: a pioneering long-term care organization for the elderly (1971-2008)

On Lok is a pioneering nonprofit organization that has delivered services to the frail and elderly since its founding in 1971. The agency began as a grassroots effort focused on improving the health care available to older adults living independently in the community. Over its 40-year history, On Lok has evolved into a $70 million nonprofit human service organization with a national reputation for innovation as a leading provider of care to frail elderly. The agency has developed its own model of care that has been replicated in cities around the country. The history of On Lok represents the important impact that donor and community support plays in an organization's long-term success.     

Sacred time: Ensuring the provision of excellent supervision

In this study, the authors explore the beliefs and attitudes regarding what constitutes “excellent supervision” from the perspectives of frontline workers and supervisors employed by one voluntary services organization in Northern Ireland. Several themes emerged from focus group narratives, regardless of participants’ agency position, and a concept map provides an understanding of the relationships of the identified themes. This study reflects the important role of organizational context and culture in relation to staff’s ability to provide excellent supervision, as well as in sustaining organizational change efforts regardless of organizational setting. The potential of peer and/or group supervision to address improving staff support with limited resources is also suggested.     

Data mining in children and family services: the Contra Costa County experience

Despite access to a comprehensive administrative database that would allow for timely data retrieval and utilization, regular use of data to inform service provision remained infrequent at one children and family services agency. To address this issue, a research and evaluation manager was hired to facilitate regular data use and evidence-informed service provision. This led to a shift in agency culture that moved from viewing data collection as a burden and threat, to now valuing data as a powerful tool for improving programs and outcomes for children and families. This case study presents the experiences of this agency, describing the process by which the research and evaluation manager was hired, how data are now used by the agency, significant changes resulting from the agency's new data use practices, and perspectives of the evaluator and staff on data use and changes in agency culture.