The Effects of Neighborhood Variables on Needs of Social Care: A Hierarchical Multiple Regression of Senior Residents in China

Community-based elder care has become a dominant model in the world. However, the role of community-level factors in helping or hindering the individuals concerned in obtaining the needed care has not received much attention. This research aims to investigate how community-level factors, including neighborhood disadvantage, residential instability, and social service environment affect the need for instrumental, medical, and emotional services of Chinese senior residents. Employing the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the results show that instrumental activities of daily living impairment contributed significantly to the need for instrumental, medical and emotional services. Living alone was found to be associated with the need for medical and emotional services. Objective socioeconomic status was only significantly related to the need for medical care. The type of urban community was positively associated with the need for instrumental services and was negatively related to the need for medical care. Residential instability was positively associated with of the need for instrumental services and medical care. Social service environments had heterogeneous effects on the need for social services. However, neighborhood disadvantage had no significant impact on the need for social services. Implications for future research and policy reform were also discussed.     

Assessing families and other client systems in community-based programmes: development of the CALF

Programmes providing services to children and families often face the challenge of assessing not only the child referred, but also the child’s family system and its individual members. Recognizing that household/family members can cause, contribute to or affect a child’s problems requires that human service agencies utilize assessment tools capable of assessing family members across the lifespan. The literature references many assessment tools used by clinical programmes in mental‐health settings that are not well suited to use in social service agencies with multidisciplinary staff at different skill levels. As a response to this dilemma, the authors have developed the Collaborative Assessment of Life Functioning (CALF), a user‐friendly tool that assesses various areas of life functioning. Based on Maslow’s motivation theory, person‐in‐environment and systems theories, the CALF can be used with various client systems. This paper describes the development of the tool, its purpose and use, the importance of assessment tools in the helping process and considerations for agencies wishing to use an assessment tool like the CALF. The authors also discuss the applicability of the CALF in human services and social service agency settings and with diverse client populations.     

Social protection as a mechanism for family protection in sub‐Saharan Africa1

Mokomane Z. Social protection as a mechanism for family protection in sub‐Saharan Africa In sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), the extended family has for generations been the basis for the sustenance of society, offering material, social, emotional and care‐giving support for its members in times of need and crisis. Over the years, however, this institution has been affected by demographic and socio‐economic transformations that have continued to take place in the region. This article illustrates how these changes have contributed to family circumstances that are characterised by economic fragility, debilitating poverty and weakened family support for household chores and care‐giving responsibilities. The article argues that the development and provision of more comprehensive social protection policies and programmes in SSA can help mitigate the impact of the changes on families and their members.     

Australia's Individualised Disability Funding Packages: When Do They Provide Greater Choice and Opportunity?

Australia's new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) uses individualised funding packages instead of traditional block‐funded disability services to support people with disability. The NDIS works with the person and their family to assess the person's needs and develop a plan that determines their funding allocation. Funding can be used to purchase support from a disability service or from the open market. People can purchase support that suits their cultural and personal preferences. This paper examined whether individual funding packages met their aims in Western Australia, where they had been the primary mechanism of disability support for over 25 years. An exploratory case study was conducted consisting of face‐to‐face, in‐depth interviews with 11 key participants: people with disability, senior government administrators, service provider managers, and a support worker. Complex systems theory was used to review the data and findings showed that individualised funding packages did not automatically result in more choice and greater opportunities. People needed information to make informed decisions; supportive and creative support from social workers and other professionals; and welcoming communities. The findings can inform policies and assist social workers facilitate maximum choice and opportunities for people with disability and their families.     

Family‐centered kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong: A pilot project

Social work services at schools in Hong Kong will begin a new chapter in kindergartens in 2018–2019 school year. Early childhood professionals have long considered family‐centered service delivery best practice. This paper reports a pioneer project on a family‐centered approach in kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong. The project was illustrated according to the following family‐centered principles: (a) The family as the unit of attention, (b) Linking families with community resources, (c) Flexible and individualized service provision, and (d) Creating partnerships and supportive relationships. The value and contributions of family‐centered social work services in kindergartens and implications for social work training in Hong Kong are discussed.     

‘Reasonable and necessary’ care: the challenge of operationalising the NDIS policy principle in allocating disability care in Australia

Disability reform in Australia centres on a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which aims to provide lifelong, individualised support based on the principle of ‘reasonable and necessary’ care. As a universal rights‐based scheme it represents a historical shift in allocation principles in Australia's disability policy. Nonetheless, attention will be on determining who receives what care given the diversity of personal and family contexts. The aim of this paper is to discuss the operational complexities of a principle of reasonable and necessary care with reference to the findings of a three‐year study on the experiences and perspectives of disability care of 25 adults with acquired disability, their 22 nominated family members and 18 service providers. Evidence from this study suggests enacting the principle of reasonable and necessary care and support will be problematic, in particular as it relates to personalising the level and scope of services, balancing formal and informal care, and principles of equity. The paper contributes to the literature about allocation principles in social policy and the challenges of implementation. Further, it provides an empirically informed discussion of some of the specific policy implementation challenges concerning the NDIS.     

Hidden champions: Exploring supportive family relationships of youth experiencing homelessness

The relationships that youth experiencing homelessness (YEH) have with supportive family members (i.e. those who provide them with social support) may be protective against risk behaviours and buffer adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about the nature of YEH's supportive family relationships and the type of social support that these family relationships offer them. Thus, we conducted in-depth interviews with 30 YEH to examine the type of social support received from family relationships and to explore the social dynamics of these relationships. We found that many YEH not only continued to maintain relationships with family members after becoming homeless but also received emotional and/or instrumental support from these family members. Beyond providing this type of social support, family members served as a source of motivation for these youth. Additionally, YEH contributed to their family relationships and gained a sense of connectedness in return. Lastly, we found that YEH's family support was influenced by their family circumstances and their need for autonomy. Collectively, our findings suggest there may be a need for interventions designed to strengthen relationships with supportive family members among YEH, who may derive multiple positive benefits from relating with the ‘hidden champions’ in their lives.     

Proportionate universalism in child and family social work

Integrated services in preventive health care and child and family social work increasingly embrace the concept of proportionate universalism (PU) as a means of overcoming the dichotomy between universal and targeted services in contexts of diversity. The implementation of the concept of PU raises several theoretical and empirical questions that form the basis of this article. This study aims to provide more insight in how the concept of PU is operationalized in child and family social work. Qualitative research was performed in three specific cases of child and family social work, the so‐called “Huizen van het Kind” or Children's Houses in Flanders (Belgium). The study triangulates three perspectives: policy, organizational level, and street level. The findings generate three meta‐themes: perseverant structuring of populations or predefinitions, image and conceptualization of the Children's House, and organizational challenges. These results reveal a difference between the theoretical assumption of PU and the practical implementation in child and family social work.     

Social workers' emotional labour with families in poverty: Neoliberal fatigue?

This study examines the emotional labour of social workers serving families living in poverty. Based on in‐depth interviews and focus groups, the study concentrates on frontline social workers' emotions when faced with increasing levels of poverty, growing caseloads, and neoliberal social policies in Israel. Findings highlight 3 interrelated aspects of the emotional labour of social workers involved with impoverished families: (a) the emotional flooding social workers experience in their professional routines, (b) the various practices of emotional labour they use to cope with the emotional backlash of their encounters with these families including emotional numbness, emotional Othering, and emotional splitting, and (c) confirmation of the harmful influence of institutional policies on their emotional well‐being and ability to respond effectively to the increasing demands of their clients. Based on Hochschild's theory of emotional labour, we maintain that social workers' emotions should be studied in the context of a specific social, institutional, and political background.     

Older family-carers' views on the future accommodation needs of relatives who have an intellectual disability

Over the past 20 years, research across the developed world has identified trends towards ageing of the population with learning/intellectual disability. Alongside is the recognition that family-carers are also ageing. Recently, the UK government has sought to identify the future housing needs of dependents with intellectual disability residing with older carers. Consequentially, a city council commissioned this qualitative study involving 28 older carers. The findings indicate a need for information about housing options, a lack of practical support and feelings of marginalisation. The conclusions suggest key roles for social services in providing proactive support and advice to family-carers, and a greater degree of joint working between social services departments and housing agencies. These resonate with similar international studies and provide the opportunity to focus on the perspectives of family-carers. Their experiences are real, and if welfare professionals are to work with people with intellectual disability and their family-carers, acknowledging their views is essential.     

The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies

Muuri A. The impact of the use of the social welfare services or social security benefits on attitudes to social welfare policies
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 182–193 © 2009 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. This article investigates the attitudes of citizens and clients to social welfare services and social security benefits. The data come from a Finnish national survey conducted at the end of 2006. First, the article overviews the previous welfare‐state studies relating especially to the theoretical perspectives of self‐interest and legitimacy. The empirical analysis indicates (i) that a different operation of self‐interest can only weakly explain the differences in attitudes between services and benefits; (ii) that there is general support for Finnish social welfare services and social security benefits, which, however, is mixed with growing criticism among women and pensioners who are supposed to benefit most from the welfare policies; and (iii) that such determinants of attitude as gender, use and, to some extent, lifecycle have become as important as class‐related factors such as income and education.     

What is a family? Constructions of family and parenting after a custody transfer from birth parents to foster parents

The subject of stability for children in long‐term foster care is an emerging field within social work with vulnerable children. In Sweden, the adoption of foster children is not a common occurrence. Instead, when a child has been placed in foster care for 3 years, the local social welfare committee will consider whether the custody of the child should be transferred to the foster parents regardless of the circumstances of the birth parents, in order to secure stability and a sense of family belonging. Consequently, custody transfers raise questions such as “who is family?” and “who is a parent?” This qualitative interview study with custodians and young people who have experienced custody transfer highlights that who counts as family and as a parent is ambiguous. This article draws attention to how negotiations about family and parenthood revolve around biological, emotional, and relational dimensions. Furthermore, we show that stability for children in care has to be understood in terms of processes over time and not as the result of a single decision of custody transfer. Consequently, social workers need to take several aspects into account when they assess family belonging and stability for children in foster care.     

Seeing flowers through the mist: how social workers in disability services retrospectively view their educational experiences related to case management in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This article is principally designed to examine social workers’ retrospective views on their past educational experiences with case management in disability services to supply a deficiency that very little literature attention has been paid to how prior professional education shape their case management practice. Using qualitative methods, 13 social workers selected by purposive sampling were invited to participate in in-depth interviews. The qualitative data were analysed to generate some themes. Three themes found are “from ‘rarely heard of it’ to ‘remember it being referred to’”; “buy a lottery ticket before starting a field placement”; and “Ambiguity”. These themes indicate that social work education related to case management was lagging behind, which may exacerbate social work’s polarisation and lead to social workers’ confusion about their professionality. As a result, an urgent need for greater knowledge of case management in university education and in-service training should be addressed in Hong Kong.     

The role of family centres in reducing social isolation in deprived communities

Social exclusion and isolation are worldwide social and health concerns with negative effects becoming exacerbated in deprived communities. There is limited understanding related to the role of community‐based centres in reducing social exclusion and isolation, so the aim of this research was to explore the role one family centre had in improving social inclusion in a deprived community in Glasgow, Scotland. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was utilized to analyse interviews from 10 parents to explore their lived experiences of creating and developing social networks through family centre attendance. Findings indicate that attending the family centre positively impacted on social inclusion and social support for all parents interviewed. Relationships created in the centre were proposed as being meaningful, non‐judgemental and produced social capital—rooted in reciprocity and trust. Findings can inform services that aim to reduce social isolation in deprived communities.     

Working and caring for a disabled adopted child during a pandemic

Integrating work and family demands can be challenging for families caring for a child with one or more disabilities. The pandemic and its changes to work, schooling and service delivery potentially added to these challenges. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to understand how the pandemic affected adoptive parents' work–life fit and service use. A total of 200 participants responded to survey questions about parenting an adopted child with a disability prior to, and after, the onset of Covid-19. More than half of the parents (59.2%) reported that it was somewhat to very difficult to integrate both work and family demands. Parents with greater access to workplace flexibility and supportive supervisors had significantly less difficulties combining work and family. Families who reported more problems with accessing mental health services, special education and respite care reported significantly more challenges with work–family fit. Parents reported increased stress due to the pandemic changes, but many also shared positive changes such as more time for family. Online services were experienced as effective for some children and reduced time spent driving to appointments. Recommendations for workplace and social service practice and policy supporting adoptive parents of children with disabilities are discussed.     

The emotional labour of caring about looked‐after children

Quality relationships form the backbone of social work with children and their families. They are particularly relevant in the close, intimate work with looked‐after children who have identified how important it is to them that their relationship with their social worker is positive, warm and meaningful. It is accepted that in order to achieve and maintain successful and meaningful relationships, practitioners need to engage at an emotional as well as a professional level. All too often this requires a trade‐off between organizational efficiency and the emotional work of caring for looked‐after children. Therefore, it would appear the role of corporate parent is increasingly difficult, involving complex decisions about how practitioners might best spend their time, where their loyalties lie and the quality and direction of the final output. Using data from a series of interviews with practitioners, this paper explores the difficulties of maintaining active emotional engagement with children using the sociological concept of emotional labour.     

Social workers' perspectives on parental engagement when children are at risk in Romanian society

This paper presents the findings of a study that looked at social workers' perspectives on parental engagement in making the difficult choice of either taking the child into care or keeping the family together. The paper first explores the specific context of children at risk in Romanian society and explains that in this middle‐income nation there is an absence of evidence‐based risk assessment tools, which prompts social workers to use their own ‘common sense’ risk assessment indicators. The findings of this small‐scale, non‐representative study on several public non‐voluntary child protection services in Romania suggest that social workers' perceptions of specific dimensions of parental engagement in non‐voluntary child protection may influence service delivery decisions and outcomes.     

Access to social services as a rite of integration: Power,rights, and identity

Access to social services is a multifaceted and multifactorial process, involving social policy lines, services organization, and professional front line practices. It appears to have a crucial role in how personal social services work: depending on the way the process is handled, access to social services could provide a bridge to an inclusive and solidarizing community or worsen discrimination and marginalization. Many underline how studying the actual encounters between citizens and practitioners can provide a privileged site to highlight the interconnections between the abovementioned factors. This is the focus of our research that explored access in a specific Italian region using a case study strategy. After a pilot study, the main points of access to social services were identified, and three units were selected as best examples of different approaches. The three units were explored using mainly qualitative methods inspired by ethnography. We were able to gain in depth understanding of three cultural approaches to access, defined as the “ethical duty,” the “good organization,” and the “professional approach” and reach an in‐depth understanding of their impact on access. There is a vast literature on the power of street‐level bureaucrats, seen as similar to gatekeepers. However, our research suggests that specific organizational cultures also play an important part: different organizational cultures may impact the implementation of local social policy, the organizational procedures, and social workers' practices.     

Do public services influence patterns of informal care? Informal networks and public home care in three Swedish municipalities

Whether an individual receives home care services depends on two factors: the functional disability of the care recipient and the caregiver's gender, when the living arrangements of the care recipient are controlled. Data from this longitudinal study of social networks and home care organization in 3 municipalities in Sweden show that care recipients with a severe disability received more home care services than others. In cases where the main caregiver lives together with the care recipient, the public services are adjusted to the family situation and are independent of the functional disability of the care recipient. Care recipients who live with the primary caregiver receive less formal help than do care recipients who live alone. When the primary caregiver does not live together with the care recipient, the public services are adjusted to the functional disability of the care recipient and are independent of the primary caregiver's gender. Care recipients supported by a male helper received more formal help than care recipients supported by a female helper. Those supported by a female helper received more informal help. Various models of relationships, supplementation and complementation between informal care and public services are discussed. The dependence on public home services is high. Assistance with basic activities of daily living is the first area requiring complementary contributions from the public services. A special type of kin independene was found, related to the function of public services in a modern and gender-equal society. The results provoke a discussion on research design as well as comments on welfare policy and gender equality in the transformation of the welfare state.     

A qualitative exploration of reentry service needs: The case of fathers returning from prison

The challenge of community and family reentry after a parent's release from prison remains an under‐addressed area of collateral damage stemming from high rates of U.S. incarceration. Many fathers released from prison return to living with family, and later attribute family connections and parent–child contact as key factors in their postrelease success. However, reentry planning is hampered by a dearth of research on family‐focused reentry services, and consequently, often omits attention to resuming family and parenting roles. To address this gap, we conducted 38 semi‐structured interviews with 19 previously incarcerated fathers, 9 co‐parenting mothers, and 10 relatives to explore service needs of fathers during reentry. Findings suggest programs not only should be multimodal, emphasizing family connections complemented by socioeconomic, self‐care, and social support services, but also should be accessible and relatable, offered within the community, and engaging for fathers and family members. Findings reinforce the importance of self‐determination and human agency while underscoring the multiple challenges fathers face upon reentry. By including the voices of those most affected by incarceration, this study advances knowledge to shape reentry programs and policies, contributes to efforts addressing criminal justice inequities, and promotes well‐being among formerly incarcerated parents and their families.