Human rights at the heart of the social work curriculum

ABSTRACT

Social work policy and practice all over the world continue to face the impact of the neoliberal agenda. Similarly, social work education has been subject to the economic and political changes, with an increasing emphasis on a discourse of ‘evidence-based practice’. However, it is the core of social work programs in higher education to initiate students in the fundamental values of social work, as they are recognized in the global definition of social work. In order to prepare future social workers for their assignment, human rights should be given an explicit place in the social work curricula at Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

For human rights to gain more attention in social work programs in higher education, a Manifesto was written by lecturers’ social work in the Netherlands and Flanders, with a 5-point program to include human rights in the social work curricula. In this article, we elaborate on the five objectives that are presented in the Manifesto. Throughout the paper, we introduce small ‘case examples’ of how human rights can be integrated in education. These experiences show the importance of developing a particular social work perspective on human rights that is found in the idea of ‘human rights from below.’     

Social work guanxi: a reflexive account of the social work relationship in the Chinese context

ABSTRACT

In a guanxi-driven acquaintanceship, the worker, the client, and the community are tied together more closely than they are in mutually agreed-upon service contracts. This paper re-examines the contemporary boundaries in the social work relationship, especially in Asian nations such as China, where ‘relationships’ are generally translated and perceived as ‘guanxi’. The indigenisation of social work must be managed with care when translating from West to East. Drawing from the experiences of community development projects in rural Hong Kong, this paper discusses how guanxi among social workers, clients and other stakeholders in Chinese communities might challenge the professionalism of social work and breach the boundaries of social work relationships.     

‘Only Connect’: Unifying the social in social work and social media

‘Only Connect…live in fragments no longer’

(E.M. Forster, Howards End).

This paper utilises ‘Only Connect’, the epigraph from Forster’s novel ‘Howards End’ as the starting point for exploring the challenges and opportunities of integrating social networking with relationship based social work practice. The paper discusses the more deleterious implications of social networking, whilst assuming a deliberately optimistic stance to uncover ways in which the opportunities afforded by online space can be utilised effectively within social work education and practice. Whilst recognising that social networking platforms are transforming constantly, the paper adopts Kaplan’s definition of social media as a ‘group of internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0’. Whilst much of the discussion within the paper relates to Twitter and Facebook, two of the most endemic international social networking platforms, it is also applicable to myriad forms of social networking. The paper begins with a discussion of UK professional conduct cases and explores these both within Klein’s concept of splitting and historical attitudes to new technologies. Drawing from emerging research data and other examples, the positive relational practices educed by social media within social work education and practice are emphasised and discussed. The paper concludes by highlighting Forster’s plea for connection and recommending that social work embraces the renewed opportunities provided by online networking.     

Respect for persons

Abstract

The notion of ‘respect for persons’ is a key notion in moral philosophy as well as in social work ethics. The Kantian notion of a person has, together with individualism, liberalism and positivism, given rise to a strange ideological mixture which ‘guided’ social work theory and practice for some time. Gaita's concept of respect for human beings, examined in this paper, contrasts with the poverty of this ideological mixture. Concepts such as ‘goodness’, ‘remorse' and 'sensibility’ explain why Gaita sees the ethical as something that is both sui generis and of the utmost practical importance. They clarify the irreplaceability of human beings, emphasise the need for moral agents to have ‘historical integrity’, and in general show that a moral agent is much more substantial than a res cogitans. This paper attempts to indicate the relevance of these considerations for social work.     

Social work education in Europe: towards 2025

ABSTRACT

Responses to profound contemporary transformation processes are characterised by ‘situationalism’ as the expression of resignation in the face of overwhelming complexity. An overemphasis on personal autonomy accompanied by a withdrawal to the seeming security of ‘given boundaries’ undermines programmes of social solidarity, which had been a means of creating stability and social integration at national and European levels. Social work’s origins as an academic discipline and as a profession reach back to the crisis phenomena that accompanied the early ‘project of modernity’, and reflection on that history can help to identify a critical role of social work education in view of what could be described as the current crisis of modernity. A future vision of social work education centres on the conventional mandate of this profession to ‘make a critical difference’ with regard to the deepening of social divisions through rampant individualism as well as concerning trends to impose uniformity as a substitute for equality.     

Portraits of work: mapping emerging coworking dynamics

ABSTRACT

Today’s patterns of work are very much defined by the ‘lean enterprise’ practice, taking form in organizations that are more competitive, customer-driven and agile on the one hand (Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (2007). Lean Solutions. New York: Simon & Schuster), and the separation of work from time and space on the other (Hochschild, A. (1997). The time bind. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books). Concepts like work and workspace are subject to an evolving nature and get a new meaning (Kirsh, D. (2000). A few thoughts on cognitive overload. Intellectia, 1(30), 19–51). This triggered the rise of new working spaces, fuelled by the aftermath of the global economic crisis that transformed the practices and meanings of work. Nevertheless, this applies only to particular sectors. This paper builds on the case of Genk, an important economic pole in the Limburg Region of Belgium. The development in the region has always been related to labour-intensive industrial activities. In light of these working shifts targeting mainly big companies/employers, Genk has turned a blind eye on the local proprietors. What about the small entrepreneurs/community economies addressing mainly the local clientele? What evolution do we see in their working pattern? By using a specific visualization tool, a series of interviews were conducted in order to explore in a playful way, existing social and economic networks. The interviews reveal networks that shape a coworking model. The paper will further present the scale of this ‘coworking’ phenomenon experienced in Genk, perceived to be the ‘new model of coworking’ in the context of the collaborative and sharing economy.     

The ‘Sociology’ and ‘Anthropology’ of Berthold von Regensburg*

Abstract This article deciphers the views of the German thirteenth century preacher Berthold von Regensburg about ‘social nature’ as they are demonstrated in his sermon ‘Of the five talents’. Berthold von Regensburg interprets the Gospel parable (Matthew, 25: 14–30) quite freely, in accordance with the social realities of his own time. The ‘talents’ given by God to the human being are their personalities, social vocations, or offices, life-time, wealth, and love to their neighbours. Such an interpretation of the sacral text in the sermon read in a big South German town seems to be a kind of reflection of the burghers’ mentality. The hypothesis finds its further confirmation in other sermons in which he enumerates the professional groups of that society; this analysis is clearly town-oriented. A fuller context for this text is provided in the author's own work especially ‘Questions of Philosophy’Voprosi Philosophii (Moskva, 1990)     

An Evaluation of Caller Satisfaction with Solution-Focused Telephone Counselling

Abstract

‘Practice Forum’ is intended to provide a forum for social work practitioners to share their practice with others; to describe what they are doing and assess its effectiveness.

We extend an invitation to all social work practitioners to submit articles for ‘Practice Forum’ and we look forward to receiving your contribution.

The telephone is a potentially valuable intervention tool in family counselling. The Child, Adolescent & Family Health Service has been experimenting with a response which combines the traditional advantages of telephone counselling with aspects of Steve deShazer's solution-focused approach (deShazer 1985). In 1990 a study was conducted to evaluate caller satisfaction with this approach. Results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the counselling. At a time of increasing funding cuts and lengthening waiting lists, it is important that as many options as possible remain available to our clients. An expansion in effective telephone counselling services may well be one way of achieving this.     

Recognizing experiential knowledge in the process of qualification of peer helpers: an analysis of an educational program for service users in France

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes an innovative training program enabling the qualification of peer carers, working within the sector of ‘social inclusion’. Since the French national debate on social work conducted within the ‘Estates General’ of 2015, peer workers have become key players in training programs in virtue of their experiential knowledge and their understanding of issues related to the process of social exclusion. This article addresses the role of peer helpers’ experiential knowledge in the training process. Because of their ‘experiential’ and ‘empirical’ knowledge about questions linked to the process of exclusion, peer helpers have become key players in social work teams and within social institutions, thus contributing to new methods of socio-educational intervention. What impact will this recognition of peer helpers’ and service users’ experiential knowledge have on education in social work? This article gives an account of an 8-month training program for peer helpers examined on the methodological level through a process of Participant observation, and based on data from comprehensive interviews carried out with a panel of peer helpers.     

The knowledge,skills and qualities needed for social work in a major paediatric teaching hospital

Abstract

The place of aged care in social work has long been ambiguous, if not marginal. Social work (as do other comparable professions) often displays a reluctance to place practice in this field within the core of the profession that embodies aspects of ageism in contemporary society. Working with older people is frequently characterised as ‘mundane’, ‘routine’ and even ‘not “real” social work’. This paper examines the practice implications of the current policy context. Forms of ‘indirect’ practice are identified as central to social work in aged care, and the implications of this for the standing of aged care social work in the wider profession are discussed. It is argued that ‘indirect’ practices are core to the development of the profession and so should be seen as ‘real’ social work. In conclusion, it is suggested that unless social work affirms practice with older people and their families we will fail to be congruent with our own values.     

Rereading David Morley’s The ‘Nationwide’ Audience

This article intends to revisit David Morley’s work, The ‘Nationwide’ Audience: Structure and Decoding, by reanalysing his findings in a way of revealing some distinct decoding patterns. While The ‘Nationwide’ Audience has been acclaimed as one of the most influential empirical works in audience studies, it has been often misunderstood as if the work failed to find out systemic and consistent influences of viewers’ social conditions on decoding practices. On the contrary, by using a statistical method, this paper demonstrates that the audiences’ decodings of the programme presented by Morley are in fact clearly patterned by their social positions. The findings reveal the over-determined effects of various social conditions such as class, gender, race and age. Particularly, the results seem to restore the importance of social class on the interpretive process, which has been displaced and ignored in many current media studies. Highlighting audiences’ structural social positions, the reading patterns rediscovered here allow us to rebut not only the traditional Marxist view of class determinism but also any relativist accounts of cultural activity.     

The systems' approach and social work methods

Many social work courses are now using ‘system theory’, or as I prefer to call it, ‘a systems' approach’, in teaching social work method on a unitary basis. Most social work techers recognise that the systems' approach is not enough on its own and that traditional methods have a place in practice. What is not clear is how these methods relate to the systems' approach.

In this article the relationship between the systems' approach and various methods and theories of intervention is explored in a number of different ways. Firstly, there is an examination of the relationship of various client, target and action systems. Secondly. Lippitt's analysis of the ‘diagnostic orientations’ of change agents is discussed and related to strategies aimed at changing the goals and the power structures of target systems. Then certain counselling and casework methods are considered in relation to Lippitt's analysis, leading on to a brief comment on methods of intervention based on systems' theory. Finally, an educational strategy for presenting this approach is discussed.     

Social work and a love of humanity

Abstract

The idea of a ‘love of humanity’, though largely absent from social work literature, is a potent concept for challenging the dominant discourses of individual material wealth, greed and power. It can be associated with the postmodern agenda of emancipation from oppressive discourses of professional ‘expertise’. Love, or a ‘love of humanity’, has the same intent as formulations of social work grounded in postmodern critical theory, but it uses a different language. It uses a language of lived experience and personal commitment - a language that appeals to our hearts -a language passionate about, and incorporating, human rights and social justice.     

How do you solve a problem like Maria? Family complexity and institutional complications in UK social work

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on UK data from an international, comparative project involving eight countries. The study examined how social workers’ conceptions and definitions of family impact on the way they engage with complex families, and how social policies that frame social work context impact on the way social workers engage with families. Focus groups were held in which social workers from four service areas (child welfare, addictions, mental health and migration) were asked to discuss a case vignette. Several factors were embedded in the vignette to represent a realistic situation a social worker may come across in their day-to-day work. Social workers clearly identified the complexity of the family’s situation in terms of the range of issues identified and candidate ‘causes’. However, typical first responses were institutional, looking for triggers that would signify certainty about their, or other agencies’ involvement. This resulted in a complicated story, through which the family was disaggregated into individual problem-service categories. This paper argues that understanding these processes and their consequences is critical for exploring the ways in which we might develop alternative, supportive professional responses with families with complex needs. It also demonstrates how organisational systems manifest themselves in everyday reasoning.     

Social work stories: situated views and larger visions in disciplinary scholarship and education

ABSTRACT

This paper is about the changing imaginations of social work in an increasingly entangled world. It is also about the ways in which literatures shared across time and space encourage us to identify with larger collectivities. My central argument is that if social work is to find a larger vision in the wake of the failure of a range of modern progress narratives, we must engage differently with the challenge posed by multiplying and sometimes conflicting knowledge communities. Thinking with contemporary debates in transdisciplinary critical social theory, I nominate and explore a number of alternative heuristics—‘generational problematic,’ ‘translational space,’ and ‘imagined communities’—in support of future work on the uneven temporal and spatial communities of affiliation that reproduce and change what social work is, or could be, about. I conclude with theoretical suggestions, and some thoughts toward how social work education might better support incoming generations to locate themselves within the broader life-course of the discipline and profession.     

‘Stuck In The Middle With You’: Towards Enabling Social Work with Disabled People

This article explores progress to date in embedding enabling social work understandings and practices with disabled people by reviewing the UK social work curriculum. Based on these observations and the ideas from UK disability studies, it will offer possible solutions or at least better pathways to enabling practice with disabled people. As Meekosha has pointed out in a global context, to date social work has been experienced as an ambivalent practice [Meekosha, H. & Dowse, L. (2007) ‘Integrating critical disability studies into social work education and practice: an Australian perspective’, Practice, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 59–72], often both enabling and disabling; an intervention that can both lock and unlock resources, and challenge and reaffirm traditional notions of the ‘disability problem’ [Finkelstein, V. (1993) ‘Disability: A Social Challenge or an Administrative Responsibility?’, in Disabiling Barriers ‐ Enabling Environments, eds J. Swain, V. Finkelstein, S. French and M. Oliver, Sage Publications in association with the Open University, London]. Social work also has the potential to both challenge, but also be an (inadvertent) apologist for contemporary social support and welfare systems. Indeed it is clear that social work as a profession and social care as a policy area have been the poor relations of healthcare and health professions [King's Fund (2011) Social Care Funding and the NHS: An Impending Crisis?, King's Fund, London]. Viewed anthropologically, social work remains a largely non-disabled workforce ‘ministering’ to disabled clients (BCODP, 1997). This might reinforce the perception of ‘us and them’ in some social work encounters. As Paul Longmore questioned, can we begin to go ‘beyond affliction’ (2003) in our work with disabled people? Can social work help support the collective struggles of disabled people or is their role inevitably to reinforce that of individual(ised) clients?

The development of the personalisation agenda and self-directed support is clearly welcome in this context [DoH (2006) Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: A New Direction for Community Services, Department of Health, London; DoH (2007) Independence, Choice and Risk: A Guide to Best Practice in Supported Decision-Making, Department of Health, London; DoH (2009) Personalisation of Social Care Services, Department of Health, London]. Such developments reflect the changing service user–professional relationship. The temptation to see these developments as the icing on the social support cake needs, however, to be resisted. Arguably, with the increased rationing of social support, the continued role of social workers in assessment and monitoring of support could be seen to require a yet more reflexive and enabling professional education and training in an age of austerity, one where previously supported disabled people are being told that their needs can no longer be met.     

What do we know the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education? An empirical case study evidencing contested engagement and transformative learning

ABSTRACT

In social work education there have been very few attempts to empirically capture and measure how professional training programmes prepare students to work with ‘race’ equality and cultural diversity issues. This paper interrogates the experiences and outcomes of anti-racist social work education and evaluates the pedagogic relevance and practice utility of teaching social work students about ‘race’, racism and anti-racism. The data presented in this paper suggests that it is possible to discover the situated experiences of learning about anti-racism and measure how this teaching can affect and lead to knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The triangulated mixed methods evidence presented in this paper combines nomothetic and idiographic approaches with quantitative data for a matched pair sample of 36 social work students and uses non-parametric statistical tests to measure at two time intervals (before and after teaching); knowledge, skills and attitudinal change. The paper explores how anti-racist social work education enables students to move from ‘magical consciousness’, where racism and racial oppression is invisible and thereby left unchallenged and maintained, to more critical and reflexive level of awareness where it is named, challenged and no longer shrouded in a culture of professional denial and silencing.