Workplace friendships among social work,counseling, and human service educators: Exploring the impact of sexual orientation and friendships in workplace empowerment

Workplace friendships are deliberate bonds between people in the workplace in which various degrees of confidence, care, emotional support, solidarity, honesty, and trust are shared. For lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) academics in higher education, such friendships may be particularly important as sources of social and institutional support. In this study, the authors examine the relationship between workplace friendships and workplace empowerment among a sample (N?=?204) of LGB and non-LGB educators in social work, counseling, and human services. The findings, taken from this sample of university educators, indicate that sexual orientation and workplace friendship opportunities can predict workplace empowerment. Implications of the study are that workplace behavioral health practice and research that supports LGB and non-LGB workers in developing meaningful relationships at work can positively impact the higher education workplace.     

The prevailing cultures and staff dynamics in children's homes: implications for training

This paper is about training, and the learning needs of residential child care staff that training should address. It takes as its starting point research that focused on what happens in children's homes, as described by residential staff themselves. It depicts the tasks which staff carry out in relation to their overall goal of benefiting the children and young people in their care, and considers the ways in which staff work to develop and maintain viable and effective teams. Distinctive cultures emerge when working in staff teams, and the paper shows how these are related to the kinds of practice that can be achieved in residential settings. The knowledge base, practice skills, and personal qualities required to work within residential child care are detailed. The paper closes by addressing the implications which this research has for training residential staff to work effectively in group settings. It argues that fundamental to training competent residential staff is a commitment to developing an ongoing culture of learning in workplace settings.     

Child Welfare Workers’ Perspectives on Contributing Factors to Retention and Turnover: Recommendations for Improvement

Rates of turnover are high in child welfare settings, impacting the organization, remaining workers and the children and families under their care. A number of demographic, psychological, social and organizational features have been associated with increased staff turnover, although we have limited understanding about how and why these factors are important; differences in influence at varying levels of seniority and career duration; and workers’ perspectives on how to address workplace issues. This qualitative study assessed how factors impact employee retention and turnover in focus groups with 25 employees at different stages of employment: resigned case managers, case managers employed for less than one year and more than three years, and supervisors. Results suggested few differences in themes identified by groups. Two broad themes emerged for retention: supportive environment (including themes relating to children/parents, co-workers, and the organization) and opportunities within the agency (including new positions, experience and knowledge and job security). Two broad themes emerged for turnover: organizational issues (including themes about low compensation, challenging work demands, and system issues) and stress. Workers’ perspectives and recommendations on how to address workplace problems were reported. Results are consistent with the existing literature, although a number of unique issues were identified, including workers’ desire for clear communication flow through hierarchies, increased collaboration, and revisions to the way data is used/integrated. Workers expressed a strong desire to be heard by management, and this study reflects an important effort to provide feedback. These findings are relevant for informing organizational policy in child welfare agencies.     

Record keeping practices: Consequences of accounting demands in a public clinic

This observational study explores the tensions and negative consequences of record construction for patients and front-line staff in a public clinic providing services to poor women and children. For emphasis, it is possible to say that the routine of the clinic is record driven, not service driven. More is accomplished in clinic work than producing records; patients certainly do receive needed health care. However, tight regulations filtered through heavy paperwork requirements stifle the effective delivery of comprehensive, flexible services especially needed by disadvantaged families. Clinic staff may be motivated to attend to individual patient concerns, but accounting demands generally circumscribe their work and create barriers for patients. The record has a life of its own as a socially constructed artifact in the process of caregiving in bureaucratic settings, where actual services often respond not to the client, but to the countable, accountable mandates of management.     

Exploring the Potential of a Collaborative Web-based E-portfolio in Social Work Field Education

ABSTRACT

In most Australian workplaces that provide placement opportunities, social workers are unlikely to receive reductions in their workload for supervising students and completing the administrative requirements of field education subjects. Associated time costs lead to reluctance to supervise social work students. This article investigates the potential for a web-based e-portfolio tool to support and streamline social work field education and assessment processes. Social work students, field educators, and university-appointed liaison staff (N = 110) from a large Australian university completed an online survey administered at the end of placement. The majority of participants reported that the e-portfolio provided a useful framework for recording evidence of student learning; was simple to use; saved time; and had the capacity to enhance the quality and immediacy of communication between parties. We argue that e-portfolios can efficiently capture evidence of student learning and provide a robust mode of supporting social work students on placement.     

Orphanage caregivers' perceptions: The impact of organizational factors on the provision of services to orphans in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

Adding to the growing body of literature on outcomes for children living in orphanages and children's homes, this qualitative study explored the perceptions of institutional personnel – caregivers, staff members, supervisors, and administrators – about organizational factors affecting their ability to care for orphaned and vulnerable children living in institutions in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. The participants in this study consisted of 59 caregivers, 7 supervisors, 10 administrators, 4 cooks, 4 teachers, 1 social worker, 1 security guard/driver, and 6 women classified as house helpers. Individual interviews were conducted using an English-written and stated semistructured interview guide the researchers had created. The data from the 92 interviews were transcribed and coded using inductive methodologies. The results revealed concerns from the personnel about their institutions' lack of adequate funding for essential items, including food and medicine for the children. The personnel were also concerned about the lack of appropriate workplace standards to ensure the sustainability of a viable workplace environment, including inadequate training, supervision, communication procedures, and staffing patterns, and collaborative partnerships and associations with other public or private community-based institutions. The findings from this study have considerable policy, practice, and research implications for social workers.     

Belonging to the library: humanising the space for social work education

Abstract

This article describes the running of four Living Libraries on a UK postgraduate social work course. A Living Library is a metaphoric remodelling of a conventional library where people, as authors of their experiences, provide specialist knowledge based on authorial areas of expertise. In the Living Libraries discussed here, ‘Living Books’ carried stories of social work—their narratives were of lived experiences as people using social care services; as carers in personal relationships with others who use social care services; or, as social work practitioners. The focus of this article is on those Living Libraries involving the participation of the first two of these groups. Drawing on social psychology, phenomenology and human geography, we propose that a Living Library can act as a connective space within social work education by engendering a discursive forum where all participants—people with experiences of services, students, practitioners and social work educators—are given both the freedom and obligation to talk openly about their differential experiences, fears and hopes for social work. Through this process, opportunities are created to consider how improvements that meet all stakeholders’ interests may be achieved.     

Intention to leave in social workers and educators employed in voluntary child welfare agencies

Introduction

Individuals employed in child welfare settings can have a profound impact on children in care. Research shows that direct care staff can have an effect on emotional and physical outcomes for children with whom they work. This paper seeks to expand knowledge of the child welfare workforce by studying educators employed in child welfare settings and comparing their job satisfaction and intent to leave with that of prevention workers employed in similar settings.

Materials and methods

Data for prevention workers (n = 538) were obtained from workers employed at all preventive service programs under contract with a large municipality. Data for educators were obtained from voluntary agencies located elsewhere in the state (n = 139). The instrument was a modified version of a survey developed to examine job satisfaction and potential turnover among public child welfare workers. Domains measured included various aspects of job satisfaction, intention to leave, and whether workers regretted taking their jobs. Data were analyzed using bivariate analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results

While both educators and prevention workers varied on different domains of job satisfaction, their overall satisfaction did not differ nor did their intention to leave their jobs. Satisfaction with contingent rewards, the nature of the work and opportunities for promotion along with not regretting taking one's job were predictive of thinking about leaving one's job. Thinking about leaving was predictive of taking concrete steps towards actual leaving.

Discussion

While people both prevention workers and educators report different levels of job satisfaction and work conditions in their agencies, job title itself has less to do with a worker's intention to leave, as measured by both thinking about leaving and taking steps towards actively looking for a new job, than other factors. Larger contextual factors may be at play in workers' decisions to stay employed. Suggestions are made for reducing turnover intentions along with suggestions for further study to clarify the role of organizational factors in workers' intention to leave.     

Developing practice learning and teaching in residential child care

The Residential Child Care Initiative was created in order to increase the numbers of qualified staff in residential children's homes in England. This paper explores some of the issues affecting practice placements for residential staff who undertook qualifying training between 1992 and 1997. Themes and issues arising from these experiences, with examples from practice, are considered in terms of their relevance to practice learning in group care situations for all social work students, highlighting the reciprocal benefits for students and residential services for children.     

Achieving Permanence in Foster Care for Young Children: A Comparison of Kinship and Non-Kinship Placements

ABSTRACT

A number of child welfare policies have reinforced the use of kinship care as the most preferred placement for foster children, reflecting the philosophy that maintaining children within their own extended family system contributes to their stability and well-being. Given the growing utilization and legislative emphasis on kinship care along with the push for an immediate implementation of permanency plans for children in foster care, this study examines how the permanency goal under the 1997 Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) is being implemented and achieved. The reunification and permanency placement (adoption or legal guardianship) outcomes of children in relative and non-relative care are analyzed, focusing on the experiences of young children. Based on public child welfare agency data from 2000 to 2003, child, case, and placement variables are explored to identify which set of factors best explains case outcomes. The present study identifies the total length of foster placement (kinship and non-kinship), the length of family maintenance services, and the number of placement changes as the most important variables in determining family reunification and permanent placement (legal guardianship and adoption) outcomes for young children.     

Child welfare in the United Kingdom

This paper sets the context for the subsequent papers by giving an overview of recent changes in legislation and social policy with respect to child welfare in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England, services for children have been radically affected by the implementation of the Children Act 1989, which has introduced a unifying service to promote the welfare of children at risk, although it leaves a significant gap in supportive provision by excluding child offenders. By contrast, Scotland incorporates juvenile justice within its social work services and has developed a service unique in Europe. As in England and Wales, Scottish services for children are substantially concerned with child protection and the paper gives an exposition of recent developments and proposals for legislative change in this area. The emphasis in Northern Ireland is contained within the context of the ongoing violence which is a day-to-day occurrence within the province. The Irish experience is differently organised from that in other parts of the UK, giving a unique emphasis on voluntary services and a more pronounced use of residential child care. Moves are afoot to introduce amendments to the law which will emphasise working in partnership with parents and separate the disposal of juvenile offenders from other children. The paper ends with a resume of the following papers, linking them to the recent changes in policy and law.     

Non-formal educator use of evaluation results

Increasing demands for accountability in educational programming have resulted in increasing calls for program evaluation in educational organizations. Many organizations include conducting program evaluations as part of the job responsibilities of program staff. Cooperative Extension is a complex organization offering non-formal educational programs through land grant universities. Many Extension services require non-formal educational program evaluations be conducted by field-based Extension educators. Evaluation research has focused primarily on the efforts of professional, external evaluators. The work of program staff with many responsibilities including program evaluation has received little attention. This study examined how field based Extension educators (i.e. program staff) in four Extension services use the results of evaluations of programs that they have conducted themselves. Four types of evaluation use are measured and explored; instrumental use, conceptual use, persuasive use and process use.Results indicate that there are few programmatic changes as a result of evaluation findings among the non-formal educators surveyed in this study. Extension educators tend to use evaluation results to persuade others about the value of their programs and learn from the evaluation process. Evaluation use is driven by accountability measures with very little program improvement use as measured in this study.Practical implications include delineating accountability and program improvement tasks within complex organizations in order to align evaluation efforts and to improve the results of both. There is some evidence that evaluation capacity building efforts may be increasing instrumental use by educators evaluating their own programs.     

Searching for a Just Community

SUMMARY

The American university community, the context within which social work education is conducted, has a clear goal of education. It is also the workplace for a diverse group of students, faculty and staff. The community is defined and the author suggests that social work educators have unique contributions to offer in the development of a “just” university community.     

Workplace Policy and Environment,Family Role Quality,and Positive Family-to-Work Spillover

We used role theory to direct our analysis of the association between family-friendly policies, workplace environment, family role quality, and positive spillover from family to work. Taking data from 104 dual-earner couples with children living in Utah, we examined the influence of both partners’ access to family-friendly policies, both partners’ workplace environments, and the family role quality reported by the couple. We found that family role quality was significantly associated with positive family-to-work spillover for men and women. In addition, women’s own workplace culture and the ability of women’s partners to leave work to care for children were associated with women’s positive family-to-work spillover. These findings were viewed through the lens of gender theory and traditionally structured institutions and roles.     

Collaborating to Focus on Children in Australian Social Work Education

Social work educators across the world are engaged in developing a curriculum that prepares students to be effective practitioners in a range of settings that involve working with children. This paper reflects on collaborative strategies and research that have influenced the child wellbeing content of social work courses in Australia. It presents a critical analysis of the tensions and challenges that can occur in (this) collaborative work. It then discusses an outcome of this advocacy to influence the child wellbeing content of social work education, an undergraduate module aimed at increasing students' knowledge and skills in communicating with children. This paper argues that Indigenous children (such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children) are over-represented in child protection systems and out-of-home care services, and that this needs to be acknowledged and given increased attention in the education of social work students internationally.     

Engaging families through observation and reflection: a collaborative approach to making learning visible

Early childhood education is based on the assertion that young children are better prepared for school and life when educators and parents work together on their behalf. Family engagement is a central force in the education of young children, yet research suggests that parents and teachers often do not collaborate, and this can have an adverse impact on young children’s learning outcomes. This brief explores a new observation approach, referred to as Journey of Discoveries, to examine its influence on family engagement and its potential use as a collaborative tool for educators and parents to gauge children’s learning and development. Journey of Discoveries was tested with volunteer families and teachers in three select Early Head Start programs in California in 2014–2015. Responses from participants illustrated seven themes or potential pathways emerging from the approach that support family engagement, including: (a) teachers’ and parents’ celebration of children’s learning, (b) emotional responses to children’s learning, (c) importance of sharing learning as stories, (d) process of reflection, (e) holistic viewing of children’s learning, (f) the honoring of diverse voices, and (g) parents’ roles as leaders. The practical and policy implications of the Journey of Discoveries approach are also discussed.     

Relationship Separation and Help-seeking: Reporting on an Agency Study

Relationship separation affects many Australians with around 20,000 divorces involving children formalised per year. For profit, government and nongovernment organisations all offer services for separated couples and families. Despite promotion of specialist services such as mediation and child-centred services, which seek to assist families to navigate what is a complex interaction between public and legislative structures, there is little known about the potentially broader array of supports and information people use following separation. Better understanding of help-seeking behaviours for separating couples enables more effective targeted policy and service delivery. Individuals with children accessing a nongovernment-funded program for support during separation (n?=?134) were asked to complete a survey that was designed to track their help-seeking behaviour. We found that help-seeking for legal services was more common than seeking help for self-care, but that both were important for many people in the sample. Friendship networks, and medical and health professionals were the most common sources of information and support. We argue that social work has a role in promoting and supporting parents who are separating to access a broader range of informal support networks and professional services.     

Cultural sensitivity in the delivery of disability services to children: A case study of Japanese education and socialization

This ethnographic study examined beliefs about disability and related socialization and educational practices at a Japanese elementary school. Disability is a universal issue affecting child welfare and educational systems around the world. Yet, relatively little sociocultural research has focused on non-Western children with disabilities. This limitation restricts our understanding of the extent to which and how cultures vary in their responses to disability, and the impact of these variations on children's development. Public schools in Japan recently implemented formal special education services for children with “developmental disabilities,” a new category used by educators to refer to “milder” difficulties in children's acquisition of social and academic skills, for example, learning disabilities, ADHD and Asperger's syndrome. This transition created a dilemma for educators: blending new requirements of providing individualized support with traditional Japanese socialization and educational practices of raising and educating children within peer groups. Participant observation, in-depth interviews, and longitudinal case studies of children with developmental disabilities addressed culturally- and developmentally-sensitive practices employed by educators. Educators were sensitive to stigma, involved peers in supporting one another, created home-like classrooms, guided children towards voluntary cooperation, and provided support and guidance to parents. Broad implications for the design of culturally-sensitive disability services are discussed.     

Caring at a distance: Learning and practice issues

Emphasis on support for informal carers focuses on those who provide, in the words of the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995, 'substantial' and 'regular' care. Following research and policy, professional education has also developed interest in those who live with the people they support, such as co-resident spouses and children of all ages. This article considers those who probably do not define themselves as carers and are usually referred to as 'relatives' or 'family', living at a distance from an older relative. It explores their possible need for support as well as the form and level of their involvement in relation to care managed services. It describes key areas or events to draw out practice issues and concludes with a discussion of the extent to which care management can work with such relatives. In many ways caring at a distance forces an examination of what is meant by 'care' and who can legitimately claim this as an emotion or status. The rationale for such interest is therefore three-fold. If social workers and social work educators restrict the meaning and their definitions of carers to those who provide 'hands on' services, as part of the care package, they risk alienating relatives from the learning experience of students. In doing so they may neglect these highly valued supports of older people and may leave relatives distressed and disempowered by anxiety over their contract with social work agencies.