Social Workers' Perceptions of Training Preparedness and Social Justice Norms on Workplace Empowerment

This study examined the relationship between (a) social workers' perceptions of preparedness to perform in their professional roles and perceived social justice behaviors at work and (b) workers' sense of workplace empowerment. A sample of 152 currently licensed social workers responded to web or mailed surveys. Respondents were more likely to perceive having workplace empowerment related to meaning in their work if they reported their social work program training prepared them for their professional roles. Perceived social justice behaviors at work were associated with workers' experiencing empowerment related to the impact they had at work. Social workers' sense of training preparedness and experiencing social justice at work can positively influence workers' perceived empowerment. Enforcing the importance of engaging in social justice with clients in social work education, both in class and in field placements, has the potential for long-lasting effects on empowerment in students' future workplaces. Agency-level management should ensure continuity in social justice activities to enhance feelings of workplace empowerment, which may help social workers connect with clients. Future research should examine elements of social work programs that promote feelings of empowerment in order to understand how the same approach can be used in models of continuing education and organizational management.     

Utilizing a Required Documentation Course to Improve the Recording Skills of Undergraduate Social Work Students

ABSTRACT

Baccalaureate social workers respond to documentation and record-keeping demands of regulatory organizations that oversee or fund social service agencies. Learning to accurately document client needs, progress, and service delivery outcomes is important in ensuring that clients are receiving effective services. Despite the importance of documentation skills, many undergraduate social work programs do not provide sufficient curriculum content on client record keeping. The authors report the results of a study that examined changes in baccalaureate social work students’ perceptions of their documentation skills after completing a required documentation course. The sample size included 101 students at pretest and 97 students completing the post-test. Statistically significant findings show students perceived an increase in knowledge in three areas of documentation: 1) formats, 2) content, and 3) writing skills. The authors discuss implications for social work education and practice.     

Community Organizing for Social Justice: Grassroots Groups for Power

Social justice, community organizing, and task-oriented groups are inextricably connected. Collective action through community organizing can generate the requisite power to overcome unjust social relations and achieve changes that further human rights, participatory democracy, and distributive justice. Most community-organizing work is conducted through task-oriented groups that enable organizational activists to engage directly in collective action for social change. This article presents examples of the use of task groups by a variety of constituencies, in multiple arenas, employing citizen participation, community development, and social action community-organizing approaches and strategies.     

The Moral Arc as a Pretzel: Social Justice in the Trenches

This article explores how social justice has been defined in social work practice and contests the claim of some in our profession that direct practice and social welfare programs are incompatible with social justice, drawing on Foucault’s work on the inextricable link between power and knowledge. This article proposes that social justice “in the trenches” needs further theorizing. Literature supporting a view that direct practice is congruent with a social justice perspective is reviewed. Theory of recognition is introduced as a possible overarching theory to ground direct practice within a social justice framework.     

Build the social justice bridge: participatory photography with the international group work community

ABSTRACT

“Build the Social Justice Bridge” was a participatory photography project that engaged international group workers in an assessment of group work as a social justice profession. Inspired by principles of photovoice research, the project invited social work students, educators, and practitioners from around the world to contribute photographs and brief narratives that represented the relationship between group work and social justice. The photographs were exhibited during the opening session of the 2018 Symposium of the International Association for Social Work with Groups (IASWG) in South Africa, where more than 200 participants from ten countries reflected on the meaning of the photos for the group work community. In viewing the photos, symposium participants identified a common vision of social justice as well as culturally-specific approaches to group work. Implications are drawn for the internationalization of professional knowledge.     

Embedding Social Justice within Micro Social Work Curricula

Social work struggles with the dichotomy between social and economic justice and micro practice. A large percentage of United States social workers (65%) practice in micro practice settings, yet the profession is challenged to commit to its social justice roots. This article reviews the history of social and economic justice within the social work profession, examines the role of distributive justice, and outlines strategies to integrate social and economic justice into micro social work courses. The article details implications for strengthening a social and economic justice perspective in micro curricula.     

社会工作理论与实务课程设计建议——以某大学社会工作系大四学生的研究为例

本文主要通过定量研究的问卷法和结构式访谈法分析某大学社会工作专业4年级学生关于如何将社会工作理论与社会工作实务联系起来的调查,在其中寻找到存在的一些问题,同时也试图运用整合教学模式为该系的课程设计提出一些自己的见解。     

Social Exclusion, Inequality and Social Work

This paper sets out the environment of inequality in which social work and the poor have recently operated. It explores pragmatic and idealist arguments concerning whether or not the poor need social work. Finally, policy solutions developed in consultation with social service users and carers are suggested in relation to poverty and social exclusion. Social exclusion can be linked to relative poverty as exclusion from economic and social norms. However, there is a wider brief in our own government’s publications and those of Europe, of examining how people are excluded from actions and policies of agencies who are there to support them. This paper will retain the concepts of poverty as lack of material income, and inequality as the gap between the rich and the poor, while being aware of the policy implications for social service users and carers of the more comprehensive process of being shut out partially or fully from social, economic, political and cultural systems. The debates around social work, social exclusion and inequality that follow establish: that some of the poor do need social work; that the poverty of social service users is related to policies that have restructured welfare in Britain; that the reason for individuals approaching or being referred to social services are complex but are likely to include financial deprivation as a key contributory factor; that if the poor do need social work, advocacy is essential rather than social work being seen as concerned only with social control—taking children into care, mentally ill people into hospitals, and advising the DSS on the suitability of claimants for benefits. Finally, the discussion turns to new policy agendas on social exclusion instigated by the Labour government. What positive difference can such policies make for social service users, their carers and social workers?.     

Transforming Social Group Work Learning into Competencies for Interprofessional Teams

This article describes how social work and social group work strategies are used to enhance social work student participation in an interprofessional education program (IPE) that includes social work and five health care disciplines. Concurrently, social work students take part in a small group to assist them in the application of their social group knowledge to their IPE experience. Interprofessional collaborations between social work and health care can work toward alleviating health inequalities and poor access to health services. Social work has a crucial and significant role within these teams because of the profession’s focus on individual well-being, within the context of their social environment and support systems.     

Case work treatment of adult patients of a psychiatric clinic 1

Social work instructors need to understand racism and promote racial justice to help social work students become skillful at addressing racism in practice and policy. Reflective practices, such as journal writing, can help instructors explore the impact of their racial socialization and identity on their teaching and guide their professional development in this area. This article presents a shared journaling project between peers within a social work doctoral program. Participants used this medium to increase their self-awareness and promote racial dialogue within a relational context. Relational-cultural theory is used as a lens for understanding how the relationships between journaling partners deepened over time and facilitated antiracist practice. Implications for social work practice, education, and research are discussed.     

Social Policy for Social Work: A Teaching Agenda

Though social justice is a central goal of the social work profession,the actual involvement of social workers in social change isvery limited. Moreover, training in social policy and policypractice in schools of social work is minimal. As such, practitionerslack the tools needed to analyse existing social problems andpolicies and to enable them to intervene in the policy processin order to better serve the needs of service users. This articleseeks to further social policy teaching within social work educationby engaging in a survey of the existing literature on the subjectand by offering a detailed programme for integrating this subjectinto the social work training system. The literature surveythat serves as a basis for this programme includes a reviewof studies on the dilemmas linked to social policy teaching,on the goals and content of social policy courses in socialwork and on preferred teaching methods in this field.     

“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.     

The Faculty Meeting: Practicing Social Justice-Oriented Group Work

Social group work scholars and practitioners have begun to locate and recognize important sites for thinking about and practicing social group work as increasing evidence demonstrates its diminishing importance. This article identifies faculty meetings as a significant site for integrating social group work more fully into departments and schools of social work and helping to achieve the profession's social justice mission. Challenging the meaning of the faculty meeting and thinking of it as a faculty group is a necessary prerequisite to realize this goal. A set of principles is presented and next steps explored to reclaim and reinsert the value of social group work for the profession today.     

Language and the Shaping of Social Work

This article is concerned with the power of language to shapeand confirm social work’s identity and to control itsessential direction and task. Social work has perennially concerneditself with communication but paid surprisingly little attentionto the more abstract concept of language. The authors tracethe changing language used throughout social work’s UKhistory, placing this into socio-political and socio-economiccontext and analysing the discourses thus created and promoted.We identify three broad periods in the development of socialwork, characterized as the moral enterprise, the therapeuticenterprise and the managerial enterprise. We conclude by connectingthis discussion with some key challenges, issues and dilemmascurrently facing social work in the criminal justice and communitycare arenas, highlighting the language and discourse of punishment,risk management, consumerism and the market economy. The articleconcludes by arguing that social work must reclaim the languageof its activity as it engages with the challenges to its identity.     

Promoting Individual and Social Changes: A Hybrid Model of Social Work with Groups

Taking as a starting point two influential, yet different approaches in group work, that is, the self-directed group work and mutual aid models, this article examines a possible alternative for conducting social work with groups. Drawing from structuration theory, which makes a strong dialectical relation between agency and structure possible, this article highlights how our alternative model could lead to a greater integration of the micro- and macrodimensions in group-work practice. The Discussion section proposes three key principles for group work, namely, a belief in people’s strengths and capacities, a focus on critical thinking, and a concern for the development of a democratic culture in groups. These principles are conveyed through the group worker’s roles as consciousness raiser and process facilitator and provide a flexible and participatory process that can be used with a broad range of service-user groups. The article concludes with a discussion on the strengths and limitations of the model.     

Attention to Rural Populations in Social Work's Scholarly Journals

ABSTRACT

Rural populations should be considered a vulnerable group within social work's social justice framework. However, the degree to which social work research and scholarship engage with questions of significance to underserved rural populations remains unknown. This study sought to determine how many articles in highly ranked social work journals give prominent attention to rural populations and issues. A search of the highly ranked social work journals selected from the Journal Citation Reports for the Social Sciences found only 71 articles that explicitly focus on rural populations among a total of 3,004 peer-reviewed articles in 14 top social work journals during the years 2004 through 2008. Possible reasons for the paucity of rural-focused articles within social work journals are posited. We discuss the relative contributions of these journals to development of a comprehensive and useful knowledge base within social work for addressing the needs of rural issues. Future recommendations are made for expanding attention to scholarship in this area.     

Mobilizing Women's Strengths for Social Change

Group work aims both at helping individuals cope with personal difficulties and at eliminating social problems through collective action. Women's groups have made a unique contribution to linking personal and social change through their explicit dual focus. This paper deals with the different ways women use groups to mobilize their strengths towards social change. It begins by explaining why women chose all-female groups as the primary tool for building both individual strengths and a social movement. Key features of different group types are presented, including those focused primarily on social change and those in which social action is a secondary goal. The paper ends with a discussion of obstacles to social change and some ways women's groups can overcome them.     

The Role of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work Practice: Views and Experiences of Social Workers and Students

Findings from surveys of qualified social work practitionersand students indicate a need for social work education and practiceto focus attention both on the importance of religious and spiritualbeliefs in the lives of many service users and on the potentialusefulness of religious and spiritual interventions. In thisBritish study, undertaken in 2003 and 2004, students were lesslikely than their qualified colleagues to consider religiousor spiritually sensitive interventions as appropriate. Attitudesvaried little between those students who held religious beliefsand those who did not, but Muslim students and qualified socialworkers were more likely to view these types of interventionsas appropriate. The authors conclude that there is a clear needfor all social work practitioners and educators to give greaterpriority to exploring the potential significance of religiousand spiritual beliefs in their training, in their professionalpractice and in the lives and perspectives of service usersand colleagues. Social workers need to be able to respond appropriatelyto the needs of all service users, including those for whomreligious and spiritual beliefs are crucial. ‘Culturallycompetent’ practice depends, amongst other things, onan understanding and appreciation of the impact of faith andbelief.     

Social work is beautiful On the characteristics of social work

Social work is frequently described as a problem-solving activity. Social workers are expected to identify social problems, thoroughly investigate them and take proper measures to solve them. Superficially, this kind of definition is unassailable and harmless (and, of course, partly valid), but in a deeper sense it denies us access to important concepts, perspectives and, hence, possibilities of interpretation, regarding the activity we call social work. Following this line of thought, there is a blind spot in the self-understanding of social work. This article outlines an alternative perspective on social work emphasizing making visible new possibilities of interpretation and action rather than solving problems. In connection with a recently reported research project, Organization and Human Change in Social Work, specific features of social work are suggested and discussed. The aim is to contribute to the development of a theoretical identity of social work, based on its own specific characteristics.     

浅析高校社会工作实验室利用问题

我国高等院校社会工作专业实验室建设的步伐在日益加快,社会工作专业的教师和学生对实验室在教学过程中扮演的重要角色认识的也愈来愈清楚。由于目前实验室的利用仍然处在一个摸索前进的阶段,仍然普遍存在着一些亟待解决的问题.如何充分发挥社会工作实验室的作用,科学合理利用实验室的资源业已成为每一个社会工作专业工作者关心的主要问题。本文针对目前国内高校中社会工作实验室的现状,结合作者本身工作经验,提出了一些改进措施。