Building a better mental health workforce: 8 core elements

The field of behavioral health is facing a national crisis surrounding its workforce. Critical issues include problems in recruitment and retention and a serious lack of relevant preparation for work in mental health settings. This article identifies the challenges inherent in providing effective education and training to mental health staff who hold a bachelor's degree or less formal education. Key theories, concepts, and general principles of critical importance to all staff expected to work in a redesigned or transformed mental health system are described. Best and promising practices are contrasted with current practices, and specific recommendations including core concepts and competencies are listed, leading to the development of a training curricula targeted to meet these needs.     

To work or not to work: Variables affecting non‐financial employment commitment over time

The most common indicator of non‐financial employment commitment (NFEC) is the “lottery question” – whether a person would continue working if they won a lottery. This cross‐sectional research seeks to identify the demographic variables and the “meaning of work” dimensions that could predict individual NFEC, presenting the main international findings over time, with particular reference to data collected in Israel in 1981, 1994 and 2006. The authors' findings point to a marked decrease in NFEC in the new millennium and a change in its predictors over time. The findings and their implications for work and employment are examined in the light of social and economic changes in Israel.     

International Circumstances as Factors in Building a Welfare State: Welfare Regimes in Europe, Japan and Korea

The East Asian experiences of welfare-state building have universal implications for the sociology of the welfare state because they clearly indicate the relevance of international circumstances to welfare-state building. The convergence theory of the welfare state lays emphasis on the economic development, demographic structure, and age of the social security system. The path dependency theory regards a country's social structure and history as important. However, both these theories clearly state the importance of the domestic factors as well. On the contrary, the East Asian experiences show that the dates of the takeoff of the welfare state and the international context at that time were decisive for the subsequent development of the welfare state. The European welfare states are considered to be a by-product of "embedded liberalism." The Japanese welfare state, on the other hand, was established in the context of the worldwide stagflation of the 1970s; therefore, Japan experienced the formation and crisis of the welfare state at the same time and this is what characterized its present welfare system. The Korean welfare state emerged in the age of global capitalism and was consequently shaped by the co-occurrence of welfare and workfare. Given the above, it can be said that the international circumstances faced by each welfare state characterized the three worlds of welfare capitalism: Europe, Japan, and Korea.     

The road to functional flexibility: white collar work and employment relations in a privatised public utility

This paper is concerned with the changing nature of office work in one region of a privatised public utility, which will be referred to as National Utility (NU). It describes how clerical work at NU, traditionally characterised by a detailed division of labour and functional specialism, is being transformed by the introduction of on-line processing and multi-functional team-working. At the same time, NU management is seeking to change the nature and pattern of clerical employment. The intention is to increase the ratio of part time to full time staff, to increase the ‘personal accountability’ of staff, and to move towards a performance-based, rather than a seniority-based, pay and promotion structure. These changes are of some broader theoretical significance. As Batstone et al. (1987) note, much industrial sociology literature has focused on job content as the primary determinant of a number of features of work and employment, including worker autonomy, supervisory styles, and management control strategies. Indeed, much recent industrial sociology, management and institutional economics literature has tended to link employment patterns and conditions, as a whole, with job content, in a direct and unproblematic fashion. In particular, it is often assumed that in order to secure multiple skills, high quality work and the innovative capacities of labour, employers will have to offer not only better pay, but also a better package of conditions, job security, fringe benefits and training and promotion opportunities. Developments at National Utility suggest that the link between job content and employment relations may be weaker than has sometimes been implied, and cast doubt on the theoretical basis for ‘post-Fordist’ confidence in the emergence of a new deal for labour as a result of flexible methods of work organisation.     

The employment situation of people with disabilities in Lebanon: challenges and opportunities

This article presents the findings of a study on the employment situation of people with disabilities in a rural region in Lebanon. The study was conducted as one of the activities of a community development project that saw the establishment of a job centre for people with disabilities. The majority of the study's 200 paricipants were unemployed, and many had never been employed. Other participants were mostly self-employed, with many of them working from home. The article discusses obstacles to finding and keeping a job and ends with recommendations for change at the level of community intervention, policy and research.     

Building research capacity for social work practitioners: a regional perspective

This article explores the research experiences, interests and capacity of social work professionals working as frontline workers and managers in human service organizations in regional South Australia. It also draws attention to social work practice issues requiring further investigation as identified by these professionals. The research data for this paper were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data provided evidence to show the extent of research interests among social work practitioners in the region. Qualitative data added depth to the findings by identifying social work practice issues as described by research participants. The study revealed that few participants had any research experience; however, the majority felt the need to undertake research, expressed interest in research training and a desire to be involved in research projects. These findings have implications for higher education providers in the social work discipline. They draw attention to the importance of better preparing students for research in practice, and also for schools of social work to actively engage in building research capacity and output in regional Australia.

Abbreviations: Frontline social work professionals (FLSWP); The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)     

Women and work in rural Taiwan: building a contextual model linking employment and health

This paper is based on ethnographic research in a rural Taiwanese village in which married women with children are a major source of labor for local industry. Responsibility for job and home exposes these women to repeated stressors that can increase their susceptibility to illness. Existing explanatory models linking employment and women's health, however, do not explain adequately the women's response to their wage labor and the consequences of the social aspects of their work on their health. This paper describes women's work and its meaning, and discusses the way in which micro phenomena such as meanings and health states are linked to macro phenomena such as national political-economic processes and the world capitalist system.     

Flexible employment: Positive work strategies for the 21st century

V. Conclusion The United States has thus far wisely rejected the European path of low jobs growth and high unemployment and has instead embraced flexibility. Moreover, attention is starting to be paid to the need for change in the laws affecting the workplace to accommodate and promote this new flexibility. The “jobs clearinghouse” role of temporary help and staffing firms is one of the most salutary developments in the labor market in this century and should be encouraged. Not only is there no need for laws to regulate or limit temporary work, consideration should be given to providingincentives to firms that provide those services, such as tax credits based on the skills training provided and the job placements made. This would help promote a vigorous and efficient private sector job service that has become increasingly essential to American workers’ ability to find the right job at the right time in an increasingly complex and mobile work force.     

Building a better workplace for teen volunteers through inclusive behaviors

Facing a decline in the number of hours donated to nonprofit organizations, volunteer coordinators must strive to determine the most effective strategies for retaining volunteers. Relationship management theory provides a framework to gauge the well‐being of an organization's relationship with its stakeholders. Through surveys administered to 317 teenage volunteers at three library systems, this study found that of four factors—trust, commitment, satisfaction, and control mutuality—trust had the strongest ability to predict intent to continue volunteering. Further analysis revealed that trust could be enhanced by including teenagers in work groups throughout the organization, seeking their input on organizational decisions, and ensuring they receive formal and informal organizational communications.     

Clinical social work practice in the private sector: A survey

Although a great deal is known about mental health services provided by the public sector, few systematic data exist on service provision in the private sector. Despite this, the relative roles and merits of private-versus public-sector practice are issues of considerable contention within the social work profession. This survey, based on the responses of 253 social workers providing clinical services in the private sector in Colorado, sheds new light on this debate. Information reported includes the personal characteristics of providers, characteristics of clients seen, and other characteristics of practice.     

Creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities in healthcare: the Bristol Employment Collaborative

Unemployment is a significant problem among working-age adults with disabilities. The Bristol Employment Collaborative (BEC), one of five Regional Employment Collaboratives in Massachusetts, brings together State agencies, community employment service providers, educational institutions, local businesses, economic development organizations, and people with disabilities to design and implement regional strategies to enhance employment opportunities and outcomes for people with disabilities. Launched in 2009, BEC has developed an innovative model to train people with disabilities to become personal assistance services workers, a healthcare occupation with high demand. The case study describes the strategic planning process undertaken by BEC partners to develop a certificate program to be offered by the local community college. The first class enrolled in September 2010 and graduated ten weeks later. Innovative approaches such as the one being pursued and developed by the BEC could help address both unemployment for people with disabilities and the labor shortages in the healthcare sector.