Understanding media constructions of volunteering: an Australian perspective

This paper explores the Australian public's understanding of volunteering from a media perspective. A content analysis of 137 news articles published in The Australian newspaper revealed that volunteering in Australia is framed in terms of eight perspectives by nine claim makers. Since media-led images of volunteering tend to influence peoples' decision to volunteer, the findings have several implications for organizers of social development projects involving volunteers.     

Accounting for Everyday Incivility: an Australian study

The question of how we live among strangers in daily life is an established concern in contemporary social analysis. A key topic has been the achievements of the individual in rendering daily life among unknown others possible. Yet, questions of residual failure await full development. The study aims to describe the results of an Australian study that examined the significance and meaning of interactional breakdown with strangers in everyday life for the contemporary individual. Focus group methodology is used to describe common threads of understanding that ordinary people have developed around such events in terms of prevalence, reasons and remedies. Noteworthy findings are (i) the use of period and generational kinds of historical thinking in lay reflections on the state of everyday incivility (ii) the materialization of excessive individualism, runaway capitalist values and diminished community as key ideas within lay talk about the generators of everyday incivility, and (iii) the articulation of communitarianism as a preferred panacea to everyday incivility for lay actors.     

Religious diversity and social policy: an Australian dilemma

The increase in religious diversity produced by the global movement of people and cultures and the proliferation of internal difference within religious communities raises social policy issues. Consideration of these issues is facilitated by understanding that religious groups intersect with social policy in four basic ways: as objects, sources, critics and implementers of policy. A major issue is the challenge societies face in respecting freedoms of religion and belief on the one hand and providing services to all citizens on the other. Resolving these issues requires an awareness of the religious profile of a society and sensitivity to its religious diversity and to the ways services are delivered. Research into the current status of freedom of religion and belief in Australia is used as a case study to identify issues and potential ways to address them. This research reveals that there is a lack of mechanisms for considering and resolving these issues.     

Euthanasia and the medical profession: an Australian study

Advances in medical knowledge and technology are enabling more people to live longer in modern societies. This situation has also created dilemmas for medical practitioners in treating severely or chronically ill patients where the harm caused to them by treatment appears to outweigh the benefits. After reviewing some of the major legal and ethical issues confronting medical practitioners in Australia, this paper reports findings of a survey of Australian doctors' attitudes towards euthanasia. The findings show that a significant number of doctors receive requests from either the patients or their families to hasten death through active or passive euthanasia. A large majority of them also regard some form of passive euthanasia as an acceptable medical decision concerning the end of life. Twenty per cent of general practitioners and 17 per cent of specialists surveyed have taken active steps in the past to hasten the death of a patient. This paper explores the circumstances in which doctors are prepared to perform euthanasia and concludes with a discussion of the legal, ethical and professional issues raised by the survey's findings.     

Factors Impacting Market Occupancy of Non‐profit Human Service Organizations in the Public Social Service Market: Focused on an Individual Level

This study aims to experientially verify which factors of non‐profit human service organizations affect market sharing activities in the public social service market. Due to market‐oriented government policies, non‐profit human service organizations, which used to enjoy stable financial resources, are now placed in a competitive position to provide their services. It is necessary to find out which organizational factors give a competitive advantage to various service providers in competition, including profit organizations, and apply them to the management and operation of non‐profit human service organizations. This is how this study started. Independent variables were organizational characteristics (organization age, total budget, number of employees), externally oriented culture (development culture, rational culture), and organizational structure (centralization, formalization), while dependent variables were the number of vouchers and total profits. Data was collected from 35 community welfare centers, rehabilitation centers, and senior centers (163 respondents) in Busan, Korea. Multiple regression analysis was conducted for data analysis. As a result of the analysis, the number of vouchers was found to be affected by development culture (+) and formalization (?), and total profit from voucher business was determined by organization age (?), total budget (+), and number of employees (+). Based on the results, this study suggests that non‐profit human service organizations should have an externally oriented culture and a flexible organization system to hold more market share in the public social service market.     

Human Service Organizations: Useful Category or Useless Jargon?

In recent years a growing body of literature has examined the peculiar features of human service organizations and the difficulties which these pose for their administrators. This paper begins by reviewing recent writings on this subject, noting the differing emphases emerging from social welfare and public administration backgrounds respectively. The definition of human service organizations is then reconsidered, suggesting that it is useful to examine their characteristics in terms of two clusters of features: one related to their public source of mandate and resources, and the other related to the nature of the services they provide. A proposed definition based on these two clusters of features makes explicit two characteristics generally assumed in previous definitions of human service organizations; their purpose of meeting socially recognized needs, and the relatively powerless position of their clients. The definition proposed, rather than setting categorical boundaries, provides a model against which the features of a variety of organizations which wholly or partly fit it may be examined. The implications of the identified features of human service organizations for their administration are considered briefly, with particular reference to such problematic issues as the clarification of goals, the rights of consumers and the evaluation of services. It is suggested that the training and development of administrators for human service organizations must be based on an understanding of the particular difficulties and challenges arising from the nature of these organizations.     

Manpower Utilization in Human Service Settings

This paper presents findings on a direct test of a scale of worker functions as this relates to the percentage of time respondents perceive thenrselves performing certain social service activities on their present job. A total of 132 employees in 12 human service organizations completed questionnaires which form the basis of the present study. Strong negative correlations between MSW related level four scale functions and previous scale levels are found; further, positive correlations between the percentage of time currently spent and interest in increasing time spent on that scale level which dominates respondents' current assignment is evidenced. Finally, MSW and BA degree respondents perceive themselves performing essentially different social service functions.     

AIDS Policy and Public Health Models: an Australian Analysis

The development and outcomes of Australia's AIDS Policy is examined in the context of the debate between the traditional medical public health model and the community ‘peer support’ model of public health. The latter, consistent with the ‘new’ public health enshrined in the Ottawa Charter, is argued to be the basis for Australia's relative successful approach in containing HIV infection. The response of particular sections of the medical profession are critically analysed in terms of medical dominance and ethical theory.     

Development strategy in Korea reexamined: an interventionist perspective

This article reexamines the controversial issue of development strategy in Korea. Two conflicting views on the Korean development experience are introduced. The key questions discussed herein include the following: Which perspective outperforms the other in its explanatory power? If government did play a pivotal role in Korea’s development, what exactly are the essential features of that role? This article confirms the interventionist notion that the successful economic development of Korea was mainly rooted in the aggressive role of government. Korean policy has strategically changed in direction but not in degree. Carefully sequenced “target shifting” and “constant upgrading” by government were the ultimate sources of Korea’s outstanding economic performance in the early stages of development.     

Assessing Organizational Effectiveness in Human Service Organizations

Abstract

This article reviews 24 empirical studies that examined the relationship between intraorganizational factors and effectiveness in human service organizations. Special attention has been paid to identify organizational variables critical to effectiveness, clarify levels of effectiveness, and demonstrate diverse criteria of effectiveness. The review suggests that nonmaterial factors such as goal congruence, participation in decision-making, culture, climate and management strategy predict effectiveness. However, generalization seems hasty due to different operationalization of organizational characteristics, different samples and diverse criteria of effectiveness. Replication from diverse samples will corroborate these findings. Several implications and future directions are also discussed.     

Human uniqueness explored from the uniquely human perspective: Epistemological and methodological challenges

Exploring human uniqueness encounters fundamental challenges because we can approach this endeavour only from within our uniquely human perspective. The intrinsic presumptions that this involves may entail two types of anthropocentric, ethnocentric, and egocentric biases, which can influence research on both epistemological and methodological levels. Their impact may be particularly pronounced if quests for the origins of human sociality are based only on our knowledge about humans. Tomasello's (2019) research demonstrates that the comparative study of humans and nonhuman species offers unique opportunities to explore forms of social cooperation, underlying cognitive and meta-cognitive abilities as well as pathways in their ontological and (possible) phylogenetic development. It also shows that comparative approaches are essential to unravel the ways in which humans are indeed unique. But species comparisons are challenged by the need to consider inherent trade-offs between achieving operational comparability in empirical studies and establishing ecological validity for the species compared—challenges, which analogously occur in comparisons across human cultures as well. This shows that comparative research can also contribute meaningfully to methodology development in psychology.     

Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective

Doron I, Karpel M, Or‐Chen K. Social workers' attitudes to the law: an Israeli perspective
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 95–103 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. In recent years, there has been a general shift towards integration and cooperation between lawyers and social workers, both professionally and ideologically. The goal of this study was to explore the general attitudes of social workers toward the law. The hypothesis was that, due to the recent legal and professional changes in Israel, social workers would express positive attitudes towards the law. For the purpose of this study, a closed questionnaire containing 25 statements regarding the law and its relationship to social work was used. The research population consisted of 202 social workers from Haifa and the Northern region of Israel. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that there is indeed a tendency to closer ideological and professional proximity between social work and the law in Israel. However, especially regarding courts and the litigation process, their attitudes in response to the statements were relatively less favourable.     

Developing an aging prepared community: collaboration among counties, consumers, professionals and organizations

This paper reports on a collaborative process to create an "aging prepared community" in a four county region. The process benefited from a generous grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation that supported an 18 month planning period which included input from service providers and a vast array of aging persons and their families, including particular efforts to reach underserved populations from multicultural, inner- city and rural communities. Under the umbrella of the Elder Network of the Capital Region, the process is now beginning its implementation period with foci on the following: linking health, social service and faith communities; developing accessible health education and wellness programs; creating and implementing a regional system of information and assistance; and mounting a media campaign.     

Reception Centres: an Index of Social Service Inadequacy

Summary This article examines reception centres, evaluates the adversecriticism there has been of them and suggests that it has divertedattention from the more important issue that the continued existenceand changed role of reception centres indicates the inadequacyof other health and social services