NGO Development in Croatia

SUMMARY

This paper reports on the phenomenon of de facto interdisciplinary community practice to promote the growth and development of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Croatia. While there has been dramatic expansion in the role of NGOs in Croatian society, no academic discipline has taken the initiative to provide systematic professional training in community practice theory, methods, and techniques. This study examines the role of intermediate NGO support centers, which partially meet this need by offering consultation, training, technical assistance, mentoring, and coaching. One support center, the Center for Civil Initiatives (CCI), is examined in detail, while additional data is drawn from three similar organizations. Professional staff, outside consultants, and volunteers from these centers usually have expertise in a wide variety of practice areas and academic disciplines. However, they do not operate from an interdisciplinary paradigm or practice model. Core knowledge theories and principles embracing an interdisciplinary approach for work with NGOs should be developed within the Croatian system of higher education. Social work has strong potential to develop the theoretical and methodological knowledge necessary to establish an interdisciplinary practice model for NGO development in Croatia.     

Social Work Faculty Development: An Exploratory Study of Non-Tenure-Track Women Faculty

Administrators of schools of social work are paying more attention to the changing roles and types of faculty in their institutions, particularly given the surge of non-tenure-track faculty in academia. This topic is timely as social work grapples with the divergent roles, structure, and demographic characteristics of non-tenure-track faculty compared to their tenured or tenure-track counterparts. This exploratory study presents data from non-tenure-track women faculty (N = 10) on how they experience professional development. In-depth, qualitative data was collected to answer the research question, What do faculty identify as the barriers, supports, and opportunities for professional development and job satisfaction? Results indicate that organizational climate and mentoring are barriers and facilitators of faculty development, and the subjective definition of faculty development varies.     

Part-Time MSW Distance Education

SUMMARY

An evaluation of a part-time master's of social work program including 18 hours of interactive video instruction examined student academic performance, instructors' ability to achieve instructional objectives, interactions among students and between students and faculty, and quality of instructional environment. The evaluation was conducted following 12 hours of interactive video, “distance” coursework. Results of grade comparisons and surveys of students, faculty and staff suggest that distance education courses are comparable to the main campus courses in instructional quality. Students and faculty voice concerns, however, about limitations on interaction and spontaneity imposed by the interactive video environment.     

Faculty mentoring: Applying ecological theory to practice at historically Black colleges or universities

ABSTRACT

This article examines student mentoring at historically Black colleges or universities (HBCUs) through the lens of ecological theory. By examining the person’s human behavior on a micro level and the HBCU on a macro level, the researchers will examine faculty mentoring as a positive influence that assists students in advancing their educational pursuits. Specifically, this article examines how the faculty mentor assists students with navigating the various outer and inner forces that may impede more functional behaviors as they transition to graduate school. This information is important in helping to codify and promote the unique role that HBCU faculty and administrators play in the lives of their students from a student perspective. This article will help to demonstrate why the HBCU experience is not only valued, but necessary in higher education.     

Women in Social Work Education: Progress or Promise?

Abstract

The literature on the status of female social work educators has addressed the problems these educators face in the areas of salaries, academic rank and tenure, publication rates, and level of decision making. Given this attention to the status of these educators, one might expect positive resolutions to these problems. This article, which is based on a review of both the current literature and statistics on US social work faculty, evaluates the status of women faculty in social work academia to determine if progress has been made. Findings reveal that female educators are seeing slow improvment in some areas; however, inequalities continue. The authors suggest strategies for supporting the development and retention of women faculty.     

Transforming academic work: Communities of practice in Australian universities

Abstract

This article explores the model of communities of practice as an alternative to the competitive, corporatised model of universities prescribed in current Australian federal government policies and described in the document Universities: Backing Australia's Future (2003) and associated papers. The article argues that the federal government's policies, which include the proposal to create niche Australian universities, with specific purposes such as teaching-only, will reduce intra-institutional plurality and interdisciplinary activities. This represents a significant shift for most Australian tertiary institutions which have, over the past two decades, invested significant resources addressing disparate agendas of an increasing range of stakeholders. The current policies, with their emphasis on individualism and competition, have been criticised as demonstrating a poor understanding of academic work (Murray and Dollery 2005). The authors concur with this criticism and suggest that intra-institutional plurality, which may be reduced by the proposed changes, is more conducive to creative academic work. We argue that a government-regulated environment will limit the opportunity for collaborative and scholarly ways of doing academic work, such as the natural formation of communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991). The article suggests that the communities of practice model can offer a transformative approach to the organisation of academic work, by recognising and building on diversity, promoting collaboration and encouraging interdisciplinary research.     

The Journey to Inclusion

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effectiveness of a standing committee on diversity in addressing issues of diversity in a predominately white school of social work in the Midwest. The work of this committee is viewed through the lens of a transformational model of diversity. A transformational model of diversity refers to moving organizations from an ethnocentric paradigm to the infusion of diversity at every level of the organization. This moves beyond an affirmative action approach, in which success is measured by representation alone, to one of full incorporation, in which the roots of the organization are grounded in liberatory worldviews. This is the second study in a series on “The Illusion of Inclusion”(Roberts & Smith, 2002). This qualitative study is based, in part, on a survey of faculty and staff perceptions of the mission, vision, and actions of the committee on diversity over its 30-year history. It was discovered that while diversity committee did have a role to play in the journey toward inclusion, its work and to some extent, its leadership were marginalized. Participation in the committee was alternately a source of fulfillment and great stress for its members. Themes associated with membership and leadership, ownership, operationalizing the mission, and the demise of the committee are highlighted. The authors offer suggestions for moving academic organizations beyond illusion toward infusion and full incorporation from African-centered, alternative, and liberatory paradigms.     

Chapter 8: Responding to Deaths of Faculty,Staff and Students at UC,Berkeley

SUMMARY

This article describes an important initiative designed to address the deaths of faculty, staff, and students at the University of California at Berkeley. Work-life and EAP practitioners can play a significant role in reducing the distress and lost work time associated with workplace deaths by helping employers to plan a response to employee and client deaths, and by participating in implementing that response. A model framework is presented to demonstrate the vital need for coordination and integration among many of the employers' programs, services, and activities in order to address deaths.     

We're All Number One: Academic Productivity among Schools of Social Work

Abstract

This paper updates, extends and refines a study published in this Journal a decade ago on the academic affiliation of social work authors. The study reported in this article looked at different types of journals and examined how a school's productivity rank varied by type of journal, faculty size and over time.     

Response to Student Participation and Student Involvement

Abstract

Government contracting out of responsibilities for the delivery of social services is an increasingly common phenomenon in these times of economic restraint. This paper argues that this practice, with its inherent technical and philosophical problems, negatively affects social service systems and social work practitioners. The resultant changes are described as having serious implications for social work educators, The argument is made that if educators are to remain relevant to the needs of service consumers, social work students, and welfare agencies, they must carefully reconsider aspects of curriculum planning and student placements as well as faculty involvement in research and advocacy.     

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.     

Interculturalising the curriculum: faculty professional development

Abstract

This paper describes faculty perceptions of the impacts of a professional development (PD) programme for faculty called Interculturalising the curriculum. Over 70 faculty members have participated since 2008. Participants in the study represented four cohorts from 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, from a broad range of academic disciplines. We begin with a review of the literature relevant to the rationale for, and challenges of, intercultural faculty development. We describe the theoretical frameworks and design of the programme. Next we present the results of a survey and one-on-one interviews with 20 past participants. The findings of the study combined with real changes in pedagogy and curriculum provide evidence that well-planned, theoretically grounded, intercultural PD for faculty can promote long-lasting impacts for both the educators and their students.     

An Evaluation of the Scholarly Productivity of Doctoral Graduates

Scholarly publication is becoming increasingly important in social work. Not only does publication reflect the knowledge development effort of the profession, but it apparently positively affects the careers of the authors. In the current study, the authors evaluated the scholarly productivity of 284 randomly selected doctoral graduates from 30 social work programs. The authors accumulated and aggregated for each program counts of publications appearing in the Source Index of the Social Sciences Citation Index.Findings indicated that the level of article productivity among doctoral graduates was normative. In addition, the productivity of doctoral program faculty was found to be related to the productivity of the program’s doctoral graduates. The authors suggest that perhaps productive faculty provide positive role models to their students; this mentoring relationship contributes to graduate productivity outcomes.     

Editorial

Abstract

This comprehensive research study examined how schools of social work in Canada have responded to disability issues. The study focused upon specific policies and practices ofthe Canadian schools of social work which have been developed to create a more inclusive environment for students, staff, and faculty members with disabilities and to prepare students for practice in dealing with individuals who are disabled. A ten page survey consisting of closed and opened-ended questions was sent to the deans and directors of the thirty-five schools of social work in Canada. This study found that although there have been significant changes in these schools over the last ten years, there are many barriers to disability inclusion from recruitment and admissions; accommodations; retention, graduation, and employment; curriculum; hiring faculty and staff with disabilities; and university relations/resources. It concludes with recommendations for schools of social work.     

University-Community Partnership Centers

Abstract

In academic settings, community research, and the service that goes along with it, is often not valued as much as other methods of research. The more qualitative and labor intensive nature of applied research often raises concerns about whether pre-tenured faculty can publish the sufficient quantity and quality of work necessary to achieve tenure. This paper describes successful collaborations through a university-based Community Partnership Center with members of community-based organizations in low-income inner-city neighborhoods, social work students, and faculty. Two case examples illustrate the co-authors' involvement with the Center as pre-tenured faculty. The article outlines the challenges and benefits of involvement with an established center for university-community partnerships. With careful planning and coordination, such centers can be excellent vehicles through which to achieve important mutual benefits for community-based organizations, student learning, and faculty responsibilities in research, teaching and service.     

Reclaiming complexity: beneath the surface in residential child care

ABSTRACT

Residential child care is an inherently distressing and multi-layered endeavour undertaken by staff who are often poorly trained and supported. In addition, the children, and the adults who care for them, can provide a convenient receptacle for the split off negative feelings of professionals, politicians and the public. The complexity and difficulty of this work is often unrecognised and a simplistic response based on a programmatic, behavioural framework, reinforced by performance-based management and an audit culture, is common. This paper argues for the usefulness of a different approach, drawing on psychoanalytic and open systems thinking, to provide a more nuanced understanding of what is happening in these volatile settings that can guide interventions which match the complexity of the work. Alongside advocating the use of key psychoanalytic and systems concepts to improve understanding, it argues for the importance of providing a containing and reflective environment for staff.     

Teaching without being taught how: social work practice faculty voices

ABSTRACT

Social work practice faculty have an important role in socializing MSW students to the field and practice of social work. This study, based on interviews with 15 faculty teaching an advanced clinical practice course in the United States, examines how faculty conceptualize teaching and learning. Faculty were asked about the theories or frameworks that guided their teaching, their own journeys to teaching and the resources that support their teaching. The study found that participants drew largely on their own experiences as student learners and social work practitioners and did not have much formal training in teaching and student learning. Furthermore, while half of the participants were able to identify a learning theory that guided their teaching, the other half were not. Finally, while participants articulated the need for support regarding their own teaching, many of the schools did not have formal faculty development opportunities. The paper ends with recommendations for supporting current and new faculty regarding teaching and student learning.     

Letter to the Editor

In a telephone survey 18 new social work educators responded to questions about their perceptions of mentoring in their first years as faculty members. Results indicate that new social work faculty believe mentoring relationships provide them with multiple benefits, including improved teaching and research performance. Data also suggest that programs must be carefully developed and supported if protégés, mentors, and their organizations are to fully realize these benefits. Factors such as mentor-protégé matching, mentor characteristics, the roles of mentors, organizational support, and the mentoring process must be considered if a successful mentoring program is to be implemented.     

“It’s a whole orchestra”: what are the instrumental elements in quality field education?

ABSTRACT

Field education is widely upheld as an essential component of social work education; however, definitions of ‘quality’ field education are contested. Increasing competition for placements in Aotearoa New Zealand has placed considerable pressure on tertiary providers and organizations to provide placements considered to be ‘of quality’. Current conversations across the social work sector are emphasizing the importance of further examination of placement quality. While the development of national field education guidelines for field educators has assisted in clarifying their particular contribution to successful placements, equivalent guidelines for other stakeholders do not currently exist.

This timely study generated qualitative data through interviews with agency managers, academic staff and students. The findings present their perspectives on elements that contribute to ‘quality’ field education. Overall, the participants agreed ‘quality’ field education is underpinned by a focus on student learning alongside a desire from the organization and the field educator to support a student placement. Student readiness and suitability, a match between the student and the placement, adequate preparation and understanding of the responsibilities of each stakeholder role were noted. The development of national guidelines on the responsibilities, skills and knowledge of students, organizations and academic staff engaged in field education is recommended.