Recognizing Social Work

There has been little interest until recently in the questionof whether social work has the characteristics of an academicdiscipline. This article offers a synopsis of issues arisingfrom a review of social work and social care research fundedthrough the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Followinga brief scene setting, the first main section of the articlegives a synopsis of the social work and social care community’sexperience and judgements regarding their engagement with theresearch council. In the second part of the article, we reviewrelevant policies, structures and trends from an ESRC and socialscience perspective. We focus on the development of researchprogrammes, followed by an outline of the delivery and implementationof programmes. In the final section, we review the issues, themesand directions that emerged from the project. These includejudgements of research relevance, research users, research utilization,the social work contribution to the development of researchmethods, inter-disciplinary research, the question of whetherthere are distinctive attributes of social work research, researchcapacity, career building, priority setting, and the outcomesof social work funding bids. We also reflect on the developmentand delivery of research programmes, and the implications ofthe invisibility of social work research within the ESRC. Disciplineswithin universities are not fixed and abiding realities. ‘Recognizing’social work is a dynamic, socially negotiated process, shapedby the construction and ordering of knowledge claims withinsocial work and social science communities, and reflecting powerdifferentials that are mediated through structural mechanismsthat tend to exclude new ‘claimants’ such as socialwork. We include a number of recommendations, and suggest waysin which the issues may have relevance beyond the UK.     

To Coordinate Information in Practice: Dilemmas and Strategies in Care Management for Citizens with Dementia

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study, based on 19 interviews with care managers, explores the experiences of care-managers involved in assessing the need for social services for people with dementia. The study shows that social workers, as care managers, face several dilemmas in their practice concerning people with dementia, in relation to the exchange of information and in regards to conflicting interests between different actors involved in the assessment of the need for support for people with dementia. Strategies used to handle problematic situations that arise in their work are using other sources for information (e.g., relatives and actors from other professions), persuading, and pursuing creative forms of consent. However, the study shows that dilemmas and strategies used generate other, prominently moral, dilemmas for care managers in their practice, which relate to participation and self-determination by the person with dementia. The study shed light on the problematic situation for care managers in their work to coordinate information and further the new “realities“ that they encounter as well as on how to handle these new situations. This study suggests possible ways to improve the everyday work of care managers, as well as how policies concerning social work and people with dementia can be improved.     

Flipping the Equation: The Need for Context-Focused Group Work Education

For many students of social work, traditional group work curriculum promotes the development of mutual aid as the criterion for success in a group. However, a dichotomy exists between a reduction in agency-sanctioned mutual aid–focused groups and the expanded use of groups to deliver services. The contrast between MSW students' expectations and the practice realities they face is particularly challenging for classroom instruction. This article proposes a context-focused approach to teaching an elective in social group work, which links theories and skills to organizationally specific practice contexts. This approach encourages students to engage in critical reflection of practice through consistent interaction between foundational concepts and practice realities.     

Dual Relationships: Personal and Professional Boundaries in Rural Social Work

Social workers in rural areas often live and work in the communitiesthat they serve. Consequently, they may have, or later develop,dual relationships with service users. These ‘out of hours’connections raise some complex issues about how social workersconduct their practice and comport themselves socially withinthe wider community. This paper reviews the notion of dual relationshipsand assesses the schema proposed for assessing their ethicalprobity. Its conclusion is that the practical realities of ruralpractice challenge absolutist conceptions of confidentialityand undermine assumptions of objectivity and neutrality in professionalstance.     

Global standards: promise and pitfalls for re‐inscribing social work into civil society1

This article critiques the modernist logical‐positivist ideology that has underscored social work, and interrogates the promise of the development of global standards to re‐inscribe social work into civil society at the global level. The potential pitfalls and dangers of such an initiative are also examined. The development of global standards was born out of an assumption that there is a common core to social work on a global level and on an essential affirmation of humanity and human dignity of all peoples across the world. Global standards might be construed to constitute a hegemonic Western discourse and a denial of context‐specific realities. However, a judicious, sensitive, post‐modernist and critical approach may enhance sensitivity towards difference and a greater appreciation of locally specific realities, within the global sphere.     

Coming Together: Factors that Connect Social Workers to Group Work Practice

Group work is an effective method to intervene with various populations in multiple settings. However, research has demonstrated that social workers are often not prepared for the realities of group work practice. In this study, the lens is turned on professional social workers that identify as group workers about the motivations and factors that contributed to their practice of group work. The goal of this research is to provide data and related insights that will enhance the preparation of social workers for the realities of contemporary group work practice. The study also identified factors that would enhance group work education in both the classroom and field education settings.     

Historical development and characteristics of social work in today's China

Social work education has experienced three stages since its introduction to China in the 1920s: introduction, abolishment and reinstatement. Theoretically, there are four types of social work in China: official–educational, official–practical, voluntary–educational and voluntary–practical. In practice, all four types of social work have not necessarily been embodied in each developmental stage, and the order of their historical development is not the same as the order of their logical development; i.e. some types are lacking in some of the stages. Each type of social work has its own characteristics, which are integrated into each development stage. Today, Chinese social work faces two major interrelated tasks: the professionalisation and the institutionalisation of social work. The former refers to the development of standardisation in Chinese social work; the latter has to do with the development of the social welfare institution in general and the development of institutional welfare in particular. In general, the dramatic development in Chinese social work largely depends on the accomplishment of the two tasks.     

农村进城务工女性的社会支持研究——以北京地区家政服务员社会网络构建为例

在改革开放的大潮中,农村进城务工的女性越来越多,但城乡"二元结构"带给她们的种种现实问题仍然难以解决。因此,她们需要依靠自身力量和乡土关系重新构建城市社会网络,以获得必要的社会支持。本文在关注家政服务员乡土社会网络与城市社会网络的同时,着重对其社会网络特征进行解析。     

Social Workers' Perceptions of Training Preparedness and Social Justice Norms on Workplace Empowerment

This study examined the relationship between (a) social workers' perceptions of preparedness to perform in their professional roles and perceived social justice behaviors at work and (b) workers' sense of workplace empowerment. A sample of 152 currently licensed social workers responded to web or mailed surveys. Respondents were more likely to perceive having workplace empowerment related to meaning in their work if they reported their social work program training prepared them for their professional roles. Perceived social justice behaviors at work were associated with workers' experiencing empowerment related to the impact they had at work. Social workers' sense of training preparedness and experiencing social justice at work can positively influence workers' perceived empowerment. Enforcing the importance of engaging in social justice with clients in social work education, both in class and in field placements, has the potential for long-lasting effects on empowerment in students' future workplaces. Agency-level management should ensure continuity in social justice activities to enhance feelings of workplace empowerment, which may help social workers connect with clients. Future research should examine elements of social work programs that promote feelings of empowerment in order to understand how the same approach can be used in models of continuing education and organizational management.     

Social protection assessment‐based national dialogue exercises: Cambodia,Indonesia, Thailand,Viet Nam

Between 2011 and 2013, the International Labour Organization, in collaboration with governments and several United Nations agencies working as part of the Social Protection Floor Initiative, conducted social protection assessment‐based national dialogue (ABND) exercises in Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam. The exercises were carried out in order to take stock of existing social protection realities in the respective countries, including social insurance, social assistance and anti‐poverty programmes. These inventories present a comprehensive picture of what elements of national social protection floors (SPFs) are in place, where “holes” in national floors exist, and provide a framework within which to propose recommendations for the further design and implementation of social protection provisions that guarantee at least the SPF to the entire population. This article describes the methodology for conducting ABND exercises, the situational analysis of the SPF in four countries, and the policy recommendations that were formulated for achieving basic health care and income security for children, the working‐age population and the elderly. The results of preliminary calculations of the cost of implementing proposed policy options are also outlined.     

Mapping social work education in the West Africa region: Movements toward indigenization in 12 countries’ training programs

This article presents the results of a systematic mapping of social work training programs in countries throughout West Africa, a region historically under‐represented in global discussions of the social welfare workforce. The research illuminates how social workers and related professionals are trained to engage in social work practice in a number of West African countries. The research was conducted in two phases. In the initial phase, the research team collected documents from 12 West African countries and conducted phone interviews with relevant individuals. The second phase included field research in five West African countries ? Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal ? where the research team conducted semi‐structured interviews and group discussions with 253 individuals. Framed by indigenization theory, this study describes social service training institutes in West Africa and highlights the varying degrees to which programs have been adapted to indigenous and endogenous realities in the postcolonial era.     

On hope,loss, anger,and the spaces in between: Reflections on living with/in adoption and the role of the social worker

This article explores the findings of a study on the role of the social worker in adoption with a focus on ethics, concentrating on the perspectives of adopted people, birth parents, and adoptive parents. Their reflections challenge policy attempts that are framed around “new beginnings” for children. The focus on hope in such policy projects fails to understand that hope inevitably coexists with anger and loss. The concept of ethical trespass, with its recognition of the inevitability of harm, is explored in terms of its possibilities for recognizing the lived realities for multiple stakeholders. The mitigation of ethical trespass requires social work practices that are characterized by humility, honesty, and reflexivity.     

The New Social Policy in Britain

This paper starts from the proposition that approaches to crime and penal policy in contemporary Britain are of a piece with approaches to social policy across a number of fronts. "The New Social Policy" is examined in terms of "the stakeholder idea", its implications for how people are meant to behave, and the distance between this and socio-economic realities. The paper then explores various sectors of stakeholder social policy in their new order of importance—employment and training, education, health care, social care, housing, social security—before commenting on policies in respect of crime and crime prevention, in the light of the foregoing observations and with particular reference to the "lock-'em-up" tendency. The paper concludes that stakeholdership is no recipe for crime prevention.     

Ethics of care and social policy

Care work is to a high degree equivalent with female work and has not, to any great extent, been of interest to traditional social sciences. Women's studies has however changed this, and today there is a broad academic discussion about care work as well as about the concept of care itself. This article reviews this discussion; the concepts of care and ethics are linked and given feminine content. With reference to studies within the authors' research programme: "Care for the elderly: conditions and everyday realities", results are then reviewed that show how organizational, political and ideological relationships affect the content and quality of care. Finally, European social policy trends and the consequences of new systems of paying for care are discussed from a gender perspective. The authors warn against a context-free coupling between women and an ethic of care, and show how neoliberal politics can use feminist "struggle concepts" to put women "back in their place".     

Safe at home? Housing decisions for women leaving family violence

Internationally, domestic violence policy has shifted towards supporting women to stay at home with the perpetrator of violence excluded. However, the practical realities indicate that this is a complex arena in which the rhetoric of rights for “women and children to stay in their own home” needs to be underpinned by additional support to provide safety and protection for those choosing this option. The current study examines decision making about accommodation options and the role of civil protection orders among 138 women accessing domestic violence support services in Victoria Australia. It shines a light on the intersection between justice responses and the housing needs of women and their children leaving a violent relationship. Our findings reveal that for this sample of women, staying in their own home left them more open to breaches of intervention orders than those who re‐located. In spite of the frequency of breaching, a majority of women believed that they were safer with the protective order in place. We conclude that supporting women to “stay at home” with the perpetrator removed may be a pathway to safety for only a minority of women particularly if support from police and courts is not proactive and reliable.     

县域社会工作委员会职能的行使路径——以“专业社会工作者的工作模式”为发展方向

当前中国社会工作的发展之重点不在于盲目的扩大专业社会工作者人才队伍的规模,而更在于立足于现在已经存在的社会工作者岗位如何发挥出应有的作用,并随之提高社会工作者的职业声望。从而,基层社会工作委员会的工作内容和工作方式的明确化问题的解决已经迫在眉睫。本文提出县级社会工作委员会应采用专业社会工作者的工作模式,走出一条符合中国实际的社会工作专业化、职业化的道路。     

县域社会工作委员会职能的行使路径——以“专业社会工作者的工作模式”为发展方向

当前中国社会工作的发展之重点不在于盲目的扩大专业社会工作者人才队伍的规模,而更在于立足于现在已经存在的社会工作者岗位如何发挥出应有的作用,并随之提高社会工作者的职业声望。从而,基层社会工作委员会的工作内容和工作方式的明确化问题的解决已经迫在眉睫。本文提出县级社会工作委员会应采用专业社会工作者的工作模式,走出一条符合中国实际的社会工作专业化、职业化的道路。     

Has Social Security Become Irrelevant?

In recent years, it has often been asserted that social security has become irrelevant to contemporary economic and social realities. This claim has been accompanied by proposals for the abolition of social security and its replacement with commercial provision. In some countries, social security has already been extensively privatized. Instead of dismissing the claim that social security has become irrelevant, this article examines the views of social security's critics. It suggests that steps need to be taken to address their challenge and ensure social security's long-term survival.     

Fuzzy epistemology: Decolonizing the social sciences

This article first argues that the social sciences need to be decolonized, as the current epistemologies and research methodologies are too narrowly based on the European and North American experiences and hence unable to adequately capture non-European experiences and realities. I then argue that decolonizing dominant social science epistemology means freeing it from its Aristotelian foundation. The next step undertaken is to discuss five non-Western epistemologies from West Africa, China, Melanesia, India, and South America. Building on the work of Jimi Adesina (2002), I find that all five share a fuzzy perception of reality, allowing for statements that are non-exclusive, non-discrete, and hence fuzzy. I propose an operationalization of these fuzzy epistemologies by applying Charles Ragin's Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fscqa).