Barriers to employment: voices of physically disabled rural women in Thailand

Employment is an essential activity that can generate income for people with disabilities, but very little is known about the interplay between disabled women, family and paid jobs. This article, therefore, sets forth a qualitative method for examining barriers that affect the employment opportunities of physically disabled women. Findings drawn from face-to-face interviews with 20 physically disabled women who live in rural poverty in Thailand clearly indicate that physical barriers from built environment, personal limitations; attitudinal barriers from the non-disabled community, especially employers; and over-protection from families limit their employment opportunities. Despite showing their interests in the labour market, these women are still left behind and trapped in rural poverty. The author argues that this situation is due to the non-disabled community ignoring the potential of these women. The author also recommends that the government of Thailand, NGOs and disability organisations should introduce strong tailored interventions and a multifaceted approach to address the medical, social and legal aspects of restricted participation in the labour market in order to improve the employment prospects of women with physical disabilities.     

Community Integration of Older People with Developmental Disabilities in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

To understand the community integration of adults with developmental disabilities in Hong Kong, a comprehensive measure includes four dimensions, pertaining to social activity, social services, interpersonal behavior, and people involved in social interaction. Applying this measure to 692 adults (aged 15–62), the territory-wide study finds that these adults lack company for out-of-home activities and community activities despite their higher knowledge, assertiveness, social interaction, and feeling accepted in the community. With the strengthening of many conditions (including knowledge and community support) for community integration, the adults tend to have greater need for empowerment to enhance their active participation in community activities.     

Community orientation of services for persons with a psychiatric disability. Comparison between Estonia,Hungary and the Netherlands

This article explores the way mental health services and social services are orientated on assisting people with a psychiatric disability to participate in different areas of community life. A large research project about community participation in three different countries (Estonia, Hungary and the Netherlands) confirms the findings of other studies that – regardless of geographical location – people with a psychiatric disability have difficulty fulfilling social roles in the community. They are often faced with fewer opportunities than other citizens, due to their health problems, stigma, discrimination and poverty [World Health Organisation. (2011). World report on disability. Geneva: WHO]. An important objective of social work is to help people find their way in society. Surprisingly enough, in all three countries, most social workers are mainly focused on solving individual problems, and not on community participation. Shifting the focus starts by having a clear awareness of the notion of community participation. Social workers have to work both on supporting individuals to find their way in the community (individual support), and on supporting social networks in the community to accommodate persons with a disability on the basis of equal and valued citizenship (community support).     

Schizophrenia,Community Integration,and Recovery

Abstract

Rooted in deinstitutionalization policy, the community inclusion required by the Olmstead case, and the grass roots recovery movement, community integration for those who have diagnoses of serious mental illnesses has become an increasingly important policy goal. The purpose of this project was to examine empirical evidence describing experiences with social or community integration for people with psychiatric disabilities, with a particular interest in the schizophrenias. Studies chosen for review all involved direct survey or interview data from people with psychiatric disabilities and examined subjective experiences with social relationships or linked social participation with clinical, functional, or quality of life outcomes. Experiences involving the dynamics of social stigma, the achievement of personal agency, and innovative pathways to satisfying social inclusion are core themes found that are highly relevant for practitioners. Social work, with its ecological perspective, is well suited to address the complexities of conflicting interests and objectives that have arisen in mental health care in the pursuit of community integration. Suggestions for fruitful responses are presented.     

The Relevance of Self-Determination for Corporate Volunteering Intentions

Corporate volunteering programs are increasingly used to bolster community involvement, address social issues and improve the reputation of organisations. Despite this growing trend, our understanding of what motivates corporate volunteers is scant. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates motivational differences among employees engaging in different corporate volunteering types and in independent volunteering, and examines the relationships between these volunteering types and employees’ intent to volunteer in the future. Findings obtained from a survey of 318 employees suggest that higher levels of motivation to volunteer for reasons of ego enhancement or guilt prevention (introjection) were associated with a higher likelihood of participation in employer-organised, large-scale volunteering. Lastly, compared to the other types of volunteers, corporate volunteers had the highest intentions to volunteer through their company in the future, while independent volunteers had the highest intentions to continue volunteering in their own time without employer support. These results highlight the importance of offering various types of corporate volunteering opportunities to employees, as people engaging in corporate volunteering do not make up a homogeneous group, and that different corporate volunteering activities fulfil different motivational needs.

     

A Youth Perspective on Life with a Disability

Abstract

A momentous piece of legislation, the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 provided for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities and more significantly is aimed toward improving their employment opportunities. There is, however, evidence that the ADA implementation has not moved fast enough in increasing employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. This article reviews the literature on disability and employment barriers, federal statutes, societal attitudes and biases, and human relations misconceptions associated with disabilities. It discusses social work roles, advocacy for social justice, implications for rehabilitation counselors, and issues related to disabilities and employment.     

城市青年志愿活动参与动机研究

综合国际上对志愿者参与动机研究与我国本土经验研究,有利于深入分析城市青年参与志愿活动原因与动机。目前,青年参与志愿服务活动动机呈多元化特征：青年参与志愿者服务活动体现出较明显的政府动员特征,而宗教价值驱动不明显;青年参与志愿服务活动时,更多是基于一种社会公益的奉献精神与互助精神,在参与活动过程中也获得社会资本的积累。     

Toward a Holistic View of Health and Health Promotion in Social Work with People with Disabilities

Abstract

The individual medically oriented model of disability suggests that people with disabilities seldom achieve health and wellness because of their impairments and disabilities. This paper provides an alternative to the tendency in social work to focus on the medicalization of disability without a due consideration of the social context. It draws insights from the social model that asserts disability is a form of social restriction encountered by people with disabilities and that social barriers of disability must be removed through collective action. Also, this model posits that people with disabilities can be healthy if the barriers preventing good health are removed. However, medical aspects of a person with a disability should not be forsaken entirely. Therefore, this article proposes a holistic view that converges insights of the individual and social models toward a better understanding of health issues for people with disabilities. It shows the implications for social work that follow from the convergence.     

Volunteerism and Social Work Educators: Findings from a National Survey

Abstract

This study reports the results of a national survey designed to identify the nature and levels of volunteer work that social work educators contribute to the social welfare sector. Findings reveal that nearly all social work educators engage in formal volunteer work and perform a variety of roles in human service agencies. The most common volunteer activities are advocacy, administration and consultation. The least common volunteer activities are evaluation, data management and emergency services. Study results also indicate that tenure status and primary teaching area are positively associated with the amount and type of volunteer work performed.     

Experimentation and Planning in Community Care

The dominant ideology in services for people with learning disabilities is clearly normalisation, or social role valorisation, as it has recently been termed. The emphasis is on the role that a person has within society. However, in Western society, what seems to be valued is power, individualism, enterprise, wealth, beauty and so on. It is not yet clear how we will be able to help people with learning disabilities to achieve such valued social roles. An alternative may be to consider whether we can design communities which value co-operation, affection and interdependence (rather than independence) and I shall describe first a fictional community which has such ideals, and then a real (albeit small) community, in Mexico, where conditions are arranged such that these ideals may be realised. I will then go on to outline some aspects of the philosophy which underpins these communities and which might be relevant to designing co-operative communities. These include the importance of setting objectives; the valuing of human diversity; the importance of viewing a person as a function of her or his social relations; acknowledging the complexity of human behaviour; and the distinction between rule-governed and contingency-shaped behaviour.     

Picking Up the Mantle of “Expert”: Assigned Roles,Assertion of Identity,and Peer Recognition Within a Programming Class

Changing an established role in a classroom is difficult. It involves constructing a new set of relations within a community. In this article we investigate how students with newly developed interest and experience in programming developed outside the classroom pick up and establish their roles as experts in programming within the classroom community. More specifically, we focus on how two 11-year-old software designers shifted their established roles in their classroom to gain status as expert programmers. We use an identity lens to understand how peer expertise was established in the context of a classroom community, adopting a multifaceted perspective of identity by focusing on an individual's narrativization of self, full, or peripheral participation among a group of people, and individuals' social recognition by others. Our findings point to the importance of both positive positioning by authority figures in the classroom and activities and roles that provide opportunities to establish intersubjectivity among peers in facilitating students' identities as experts in the classroom. Students' willingness to take up a new position in the established activity system also played a role. We consider implications of how making roles flexible within classroom stratification may provide opportunities for more students see themselves as experts.     

Sports,Poverty and the Role of the Voluntary Sector. Exploring and Explaining Nonprofit Sports Clubs’ Efforts to Facilitate Participation of Socially Disadvantaged People

Despite several decades of Sport for All policies, opportunities for sports participation are still unequally divided, with certain socially disadvantaged groups having less access to sports. To reduce this gap, structural efforts are needed. A question that arises is what role nonprofit sports clubs can fulfill in this matter. In this study, first, it is explored how nonprofit sports clubs perceive their role and responsibility towards socially disadvantaged groups and how they act on it. Second, it is investigated which factors predict the presence or absence of efforts from nonprofit sports clubs for lowering barriers. For this second question, we focus on people living in poverty. Data are based on a survey among 580 nonprofit sports clubs throughout Flanders (Belgium). The findings indicate that the human resources capacity of the club is not the main barrier. It is argued that local sports authorities and sports federations have an important part to play in supporting and encouraging sports clubs in terms of social inclusionary policies, for example by instilling awareness.     

Exploring gaps in the online economic inclusion of persons with disabilities in Korea

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the difference in the online economic activities of people with and without disabilities in Korea. We conducted a multiple regression analysis to investigate the impact of socioeconomic characteristics, internet access, and internet skills on online economic activities. Our sample, based on a 2016 dataset that included 1554 people with disabilities and 6004 people without disabilities, was developed using quota sampling based on gender, age, and residence. We determined that individuals with disabilities were more likely to engage in online economic activities if they had higher levels of education, lived in urban areas, were employed, or had greater internet skills. Individuals without disabilities were more likely to engage in online economic activities if they were women, had higher levels of education, were employed, lived in a two-generation or more household, or had greater internet skills. For both people with and without disabilities, the level of education, employment status, and internet skills positively contribute to online economic activites. We also determined that education level, participation in economic activity, living in a two-generation or more household, and internet skills had a statistically significant influence on online economic activity for people both with and without disabilities. These results highlight the importance of education and internet training for people with disabilities, as well as social support systems that help them learn to use the internet in diverse ways through both formal and informal networks. The study also underscores the importance of information and communications technology that adequately addresses people’s needs.     

The Mental Health System and Sense of Self Among Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

Development of a sense of self is a lifelong process. One's sense of continuity in the context of the demands of multiple role identities contributes to both psychological well-being and opportunities for acceptance into valued social roles. The onset of a mental illness can rupture an emerging sense of self and require intense and painful restructuring of one's beliefs and expectations. This study was a secondary analysis of qualitative data from interviews with twenty people who self-identified as having serious mental illness to explore how well the mental health system addresses the ingredients that promote, create, or restore a valued and adaptive sense of self.     

The Effect of Social Work Education and Self-Esteem on Students' Social Discrimination of People with Disabilities

Social work education on disability content has become more important due to political changes in the last two decades. The United States protected people with disabilities from discrimination in community and employment settings with the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These changes have empowered people with disabilities to become more independent; however, social workers primarily fulfill roles as case managers, and often make decisions for people with disabilities. This is not consistent with the empowerment perspective embedded in the disability movement. Most social work schools have minimal courses covering disability content. Previous research and the Self-Esteem Hypothesis indicate that social work education, social proximity to people with disabilities, self-esteem and other demographic characteristics are associated with social discrimination, or attitudes, toward people with disabilities. Social work students (n = 73) participated in a survey in the last semester of their program to assess how these characteristics were associated with their attitudes towards people with disabilities. A multiple linear regression revealed that social work education preparedness to work with people with disabilities, an MSW education, self-esteem, and having a friend with a disability were significantly associated with students' social discrimination towards people with disabilities.     

Being involved in the country: Productive ageing in different types of rural communities

Productive ageing recognises the contribution of older people to economic, social and cultural growth and helps build a sustainable community. Being involved in community life is good for individuals and good for society. However, we know very little about the participation of and contribution by people aged 50 and over in rural communities. This research aimed to develop a better understanding of productive ageing in different types of communities in rural Victoria, Australia. An anonymous self-complete postal questionnaire was distributed to a sample of households in twenty rural communities using the Australia Post Unaddressed Select Service. Those householders 50 years of age and older were invited to complete the survey. Data collected allowed examination of social and civic engagement, familiarity with community, the value placed on social relations by people aged 50 years and over, and how community involvement was linked to community sustainability. In particular it attempts to address the question ‘Does social and civic engagement differ across declining, stable and growing rural communities?’ Despite differences among rural communities, this study showed that older people develop and maintain strong community connections and well-functioning social capital and that participation in social activities was associated with feelings of being connected with community. It also identified health issues and lack of options as the main constraints on participation. A key message for policy makers is that older people play an important role in the sustainability of rural communities. There is much to be gained from actively supporting their participation in activities that are connected to ageing well.     

Correlates of Voting Participation of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) vote less frequently than nondisabled people and people with other disabilities. This study explores what factors facilitate and hinder people with IDD’s voting participation. To do so, 1,341 people with IDD were surveyed using the Personal Outcome Measures®. Binary logistic regressions revealed significant relationships between voting participation, and support needs, residence types, guardianship statuses, and organizational supports. Along with the right supports, attention to barriers that might exist can ensure people with IDD are able to make use of their civil rights and participate in this crucial form of civic engagement.     

Older disabled workers' perceptions of volunteering

The activity of volunteering is readily available to, and undertaken by, able-bodied people in Australia and is recognized as a valuable social pursuit, particularly among citizens of retirement age. Despite the known benefits of volunteering, however, there are few reports of disabled people participating as volunteers and little is understood of their experiences or perceptions of volunteering. The aim of this study was to explore how older workers within supported employment settings perceived the opportunities for and barriers to volunteering. Fourteen people with long-standing impairments participated in this small qualitative study. Overall the participants were positive about volunteering, but noted they might require support to volunteer successfully. Drawing upon the participants' views, recommendations are made for developing training. Disabled workers facing retirement need to be supported to have opportunities for active participation in the community as volunteers if so desired.     

Megachurch involvement at the local level: Examining conditions for church action in economic development

The roles of small congregations and their social impacts are well known, but few theoretical studies investigate megachurch congregations. These mammoth organizations have the potential for advancing social good, but minimal research specifically focuses on the activities of these congregations in economic development (ED). This study addresses this dearth of information by answering the following research questions: (a) In what ways are megachurches involved in ED activities? (b) Who benefits from these programs and how are the programs offered? and (c) What factors influence megachurches to offer ED activities? We frame our investigation using both demand‐ and supply‐side arguments from Frumkin's (2002) model of nonprofit and voluntary action. Online survey data and follow‐up interviews with 42 megachurch leaders in the Dallas/Fort Worth and greater Houston areas show that megachurches are implementing ED activities in alignment with demand‐side explanations, especially when advancing opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed. However, supply‐side arguments provide more explanatory power, indicating that volunteer engagement with ED activities plays a significant role in the provision of ED services through megachurches. Our study offers a better understanding of why megachurches carry out ED activities with considerable attention devoted to how megachurches partner with other congregations, nonprofits, and government entities to encourage economic growth and improve the economic well‐being of community members.