A Teacher's Life

The fate of works of art does not always depend upon their genuine value. It may happen that a film, a novel, a painting, elicits passionate debate when it appears, and only later does it occur to the participants and witnesses of the discussions that there had been nothing much to argue about, after all; that the passions that moved them had little relation to the subject of the polemics itself. The flattering reputation of being "controversial" helps even a work lacking inner substance to maintain itself in people's memories long after they have forgotten everything about it except the title.     

Agency Function and Social Work Principles

Summary The concept of agency function is examined in relation to thenature of the social work task. It is often the case that agencyfunction is seen more as a problem for social work and not asone of its characteristics. It is argued in this paper thatthe agency itself is not responsible for the apparently delicatestate of present day social work, but that on the contrary,the failure to appreciate social work's relationship to societyand social processes in part accounts for its uncertain condition.     

Mixing Up the Goulash: Essential Ingredients in the “Art” of Social Group Work

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the connection between social group work and creativity. Parallels are drawn between the techniques and discipline of the creative artist and those of the social group worker. Four prominent themes of group work are discussed in relation to the work of the artist: empathy, accessibility to a range of emotions, maintaining a sense of humor, and full use of self within the group environment. Examples from a range of group populations are used to highlight the four identified “ingredients” in the art of social group work practice.     

Social Workers and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Dr Gunvor Andersson, Lund University, School of Social Work, Box 23, 22100 Lund, Sweden. Summary What problems do social workers at social services offices haveto face in their child welfare work? How do they handle theproblems, and how important is the relation between the socialworker and the child's parents? The research project includes189 child welfare cases with 0–3-year-old children inten local communities in Sweden. The article shows that thesocial work can be categorized into four different types ofwork, where the work done, as well as the relation between thesocial worker and the child's parents, differ. (1) The socialworker is mediating help and support and has a positive contactwith the child's parents. (2) The social worker is exercisingcontrol and authority and has a negative contact with the child'sparents. (3) The social worker is doing treatment-oriented workand has a personal involvement and a relation to the parentsthat is important for the family and not exchangeable. (4) Thesocial worker is solely engaged in investigatory work with norelation to the child's parents, rather a neutral contact. Inthe categorization the concepts contact and relation are differentiated.Only in the treatment-oriented category, encompassing aboutone-fifth of the children, can one speak of a relation. In allcategories there are elements of both help and control, butdifferent ways of handling this doubleness.     

Disciplinary research agendas and institutional arrangements for evaluation research

An evaluation agenda for social work to strengthen the research foundations for practice requires more replication, an extension of the range of outcomes it is possible to study and a narrowing of the gap between research, policy and practice. Enlarging understanding of social work's political functions and its relationship to welfare entails research programmes, strongly rooted in the social sciences, which include analysis of community interventions, social work's regulating and mediating functions, and exploration of the personal and social circumstances of those who achieve success and well-being despite their vulnerabilities and limited life chances.Universities, independent research institutions and social work agencies are the necessary locations for this substantial and diverse agenda.     

社会工作对社区矫正的推动作用研究

目前社区矫正在许多西方国家已得到普遍认可,并广为推行。而事实表明,社会工作应用于社区矫正实践中具有其他学科所没有的优越性。然而,在我国无论是社区矫正还是社会工作都刚刚起步,社会工作在运用于社区矫正实践中还存在一定的限制因素。本文从阐述社会矫正中引用社会工作的必要性入手,分析了社会工作对社区矫正的作用,同时指出了社会工作在社区矫正运用中所面临的限制因素,并对其完善措施提出了建议。     

Performativity and helping professions: social theory, power and practice

Drawing on Judith Butler's conception of 'performativity', we would argue that the notion has important implications for contemporary debates in international social welfare over agency, subjection and 'resistance'. Professional social workers embedded in discursive institutions function according to particular expectations around performativity. In addition, this organisational context is complex with multiple demands. In light of technologies of surveillance and control in contemporary social work, performativity offers a response to the pressing need to expand notions of worker opposition beyond traditional forms of organised dissent towards the production of subjective space.     

Social Work, the State and the University

Summary Some aspects of the triangular relationship between the state,the university and social work are explored. Is it appropriatefor social work to be taught in a university? What are the implicationsof the fact that well over 90% of social workers are employedby the state? And what above all, is the nature of the relationshipbetween critical analysis as the corner-stone of scholarshipand the need to prepare the social work student to functioneffectively in the real world? It is argued that the respectiveattitudes of higher education and government towards socialwork are influenced by the nature of social work's relationshipwith sociology, but that this in turn has not been fruitfulfor practice development.     

赋权：企业女性员工协助方案的核心

富士康自杀事件使人们更加关注企业员工的生存状态,增强了人们对陷于困境的企业员工给予援助的必要性的理解。陷入困境的企业女性员工是企业员工中的弱势群体,需要援助,需要针对女性员工实施特别的协助方案。为更好地实施女性员工协助方案,需要以赋权为视角。因为个人赋权有利于女性员工提升自身潜能,社会赋权则有利于女性员工充分利用社会资源实现目标。实施员工协助方案对女性员工赋权,可以从女性员工促进自我认识与提高解决问题的意愿、构建社会支持网络及其它社会资源、提高女性员工的能力等方面着手。     

社会福利机构中社会工作介入老人发展性需求探究——以上海市第一社会福利院为例

本文在调查上海市第一社会福利院老人需求状况基础上,发现了老人各项发展性需求,机构中的社会工作部在老人各项发展性需求上,做出针对性的工作。调查结果发现,社会工作介入老人发展性需求有一定的成效,上海市第一社会福利院老人的需求获得较好的满足,最后提出机构社会工作在老人需求满足方面的若干建议。     

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

In this article we examine the emergence of social worker training in the Nordic countries and discuss the possible effects that the social democratic welfare regime has had on such training. We also discuss the development in recent decades of the academisation of the training and the establishment of social work as a subject of research and teaching. The early history of social worker education is based on archival material, national inquiries and secondary sources. Our presentation of the recent history of social work education is based on the responses to a questionnaire sent to teachers of social work in 33 Nordic social work programmes, and on a survey of course syllabi and prospectuses. It is also based on the reading lists for the social work courses in these programmes.     

Discourses of Decision Making in Child Protection: Condusting Comprehensive Assessments in Britain

Findings from a qualitative study of comprehensive assessments in child protection social work in the UK are discussed. The accounts of social workers in formal interviews, informal interactions and case files are analysed, examining their explanations and understandings of the process of decision making. Two discourses of decision making are discerned: scientific observation and reflective evaluation. Whilst most social workers understand their work, at different times, through both discourses, it is argued that the discourse of scientific observation becomes the dominant one when communicating with other agencies such as the court. The findings are discussed in relation to wider issues in contemporary social work including the bureaucratisation of social work and the nature of assessment.     

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

In this article we examine the emergence of social worker training in the Nordic countries and discuss the possible effects that the social democratic welfare regime has had on such training. We also discuss the development in recent decades of the academisation of the training and the establishment of social work as a subject of research and teaching. The early history of social worker education is based on archival material, national inquiries and secondary sources. Our presentation of the recent history of social work education is based on the responses to a questionnaire sent to teachers of social work in 33 Nordic social work programmes, and on a survey of course syllabi and prospectuses. It is also based on the reading lists for the social work courses in these programmes.     

Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour: constructions and effects

This article focuses on STOP4-7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend its focus to overt and covert inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that operate through social work. Finally, we argue that, in the case of STOP4-7, social work is embedded in the process of social and political framing of the problems it is supposed to solve. By extending the focus of social work research to the very construction of social problems, we show how social workers may perform their agency as reflective practitioners, rather than being objects of interventions.     

Themes and Continuities in Radical and Traditional Social Work

Summary Traditional and radical social work are amongst the principalcombatants in the paradigm-crisis that is alleged to characterisecontemporary social work. In considering the way in which thesetwo theoretical stances approach one of social work's centralproblems—the relationships between the person and society—itis argued that what is revealed is as much overlap as disagreement.This is in part through the subdued radicalism of a traditionalapproach which struggles to comprehend the effects of societyon clients' lives, and in part because radicalism is incorporatedinto prevailing ways of thinking through having to answer thesame questions as social work orthodoxy. It is because of thisthat Marxist social work is shown to be inevitably compromised,though this is not to deny the important contribution of radicalismin providing more satisfactory answers to crucial social workproblems.     

职业社会工作者的专业标准与考核评价体系研究

我国社会工作职业化进程方兴未艾。实际社会工作从业人员如何转变为专业社工,高校的社会工作专业教育和社会培训机构如何把握专业社会工作者的标准,解决这两大问题的关键在于,尽快制定和建立职业社会工作者的专业标准和考核评价体系。作为整个社会工作者职业制度体系的核心机制,职业社会工作者的专业标准和考核评价体系,为职业社会工作者提供了从业标准和实践规范,从而为打造一支高水平、强素质的社会工作人才队伍提供了科学的制度保障。     

社会工作研究的人文精神——对以实证主义为导向的美国社会工作研究的批判

长期以来,国际社会工作研究常常倾向于以实证主义和经验主义为基础的研究导向,特别是在美国,基于证据的研究方法在社会工作领域十分流行。随着全球化的推进和人们生活方式的现代化,社会工作研究所面临的问题更为复杂,其解决方法单纯依靠各种技术处理的手段来展开是远远不够的,我们在讨论这些问题时,要强化其价值导向。这要求我们在讨论社会工作研究的问题上,把我们的关注点从证据、技术手段和职业标准扩展到价值观、人文精神和对全球化问题的关注等方面,以此来推进国际社会工作的发展。     

Critical commentary on 'Social work as art revisited'

While agreeing with the importance of art as a stimulus for the imagination in social work practice, Healy takes issue with the broader aspirations of the article. Healy questions whether art can or should be used to foster "a collective moment of political truth" for social work, as such an inspiration is likely to gloss over the important differences in context and purpose that profoundly shape the nature of social work in the wide variety of contexts where it is practised. Healy argues for the recognition of art as a possible contributor to knowledge and practice but contends that an ongoing and productive engagement with other forms of knowing is equally if not more critical to the development of social work knowledge and identities.     

社会工作研究的人文精神——对以实证主义为导向的美国社会工作研究的批判

长期以来,国际社会工作研究常常倾向于以实证主义和经验主义为基础的研究导向,特别是在美国,"基于证据"的研究方法在社会工作领域十分流行。随着全球化的推进和人们生活方式的现代化,社会工作研究所面临的问题更为复杂,其解决方法单纯依靠各种技术处理的手段来展开是远远不够的,我们在讨论这些问题时,要强化其价值导向。这要求我们在讨论社会工作研究的问题上,把我们的关注点从证据、技术手段和职业标准扩展到价值观、人文精神和对全球化问题的关注等方面,以此来推进国际社会工作的发展。