Discharge procedures for mentally ill people: The perspective of former psychiatric patients on their primary social network, quality of life and future life expectations

This article on literature about social networks and social support in order to integrate a number of key concepts and findings that must be considered in research about the social conditions of mentally ill people. Interviews with 53 former psychiatric patients were carried out to get their perspective on their social network, quality of life and future life expectations. The duration of and stigma attached to mental illness, being without work and gender seemed to have the most influence on the primary network. The same issues, except for gender, together with place of residence, financial difficulties and inability to exert influence over one's own situation influenced the respondents' quality of life and their expectations of the future. These findings are analysed and discussed from a social psychological perspective.     

智障者社交技能学习研究——以香港培泽弱智协进会元朗马田一舍为例

随着和谐社会建设的推进,特殊人群的需求备受关注,尤其是智障者的关注。为了解智障者如何学习社交技能,笔者实地观察、直接参与智障者的日常生活,对其学习状况进行具体描述,并分析总结其中存在的问题,最后提出应对的策略。笔者希望通过本文,从社会工作专业视角出发,运用社会工作专业的技能与方法引导和协助智障者学习社交技能。     

Discharge procedures for mentally ill people The perspectives of professionals and former psychiatric patients on their quality of life

This article draws on literature about the quality of life and social relations to integrate a number of key concepts. Fifty-three former patients were interviewed to give their opinion on their quality of life. Almost as many professionals gave their opinion on the same issue. According to the former patients, the quality of life was influenced by duration of and stigma attached to mental illness, being without work, financial difficulties, inability to exert influence over their own situation and negative expectations of the future. Illness patterns seemed to be the all-pervading issue concerning the professionals' views on the former patients' quality of life. A social psychological analysis of these disparate views made it clear that they bring about contrasting claims; the professionals demanded continuation of a patient role whereas the former patients mostly wanted to find some means of embarking on ordinary useful lives.     

"We mentally ill smoke a lot": identity, smoking, and mental illness in America

Most of the history of the tobacco industry over the last few decades has focused on the conflicts between tobacco industry leaders who promoted smoking and tobacco control advocates who warned of the health consequences. Yet a view of this conflict from the perspective of smokers who are also mentally ill raises questions about how to frame public health policy for these individuals. Mentally ill consumers wrote to the tobacco industry between the 1970s and 1990s and expressed their commitment to smoking and to cigarette companies, despite their awareness of the health risks. This paper explores the relationship between mentally ill consumers, the tobacco industry, and public health in the United States through letters written by mentally ill smokers.     

Support for and From Aging Mothers Whose Adult Daughters are Seriously Mentally Ill

This article discusses, from the grandmother’s perspective, the ways in which support is exchanged in families coping with serious mental illness. A strengths perspective was utilized to identify ways in which family members help each other. Employing a qualitative approach, this study focuses on interviews obtained from a sample of 22 aging mothers, aged 52–90, who are in contact with their daughters who have a mental illness. Grandmothers provided several kinds of support to their mentally ill adult daughters and to their grandchildren, who also supported the aging mother in numerous ways. As social workers seek to assist individuals with mental illness, it is important to assess the existing strengths of their intergenerational family context.     

Empathy and professional attitude in social workers and non-trained aides

The purpose of this study was to investigate empathic communication and professional attitude in vocational groups representing different levels of professional training. A further aim was to elucidate some aspects of the impact of the clients. Four groups of professionals participated, three with degrees as social workers and one with only short professional training. Three groups worked with committed drug addicts, one group with somatically ill patients. The 110 subjects were tested with a video-test of professional attitude and empathic communication. Different response patterns were found in the different groups. The group with short training had the highest proportion of unprofessional responses. The group of social workers working with somatically ill patients showed the highest amount of empathic communication. Furthermore, there was a distinction among the kind of unprofessional responses used by the different groups. Hypotheses on the causes of these differences and implications for future research are discussed.     

关系网络与政治行为——西方政治网络观简析

对政治行为进行解释和理解的关键在于考察其社会背景和社会网络,这一点近年来得到西方学者的重视。西方政治网络观认为,政治行动者之间的关系网络以及行动者在网络中所占据的位置,对行动者及其群体的政治行为以及政治态度等具有重要影响。从"关系网络"的角度对选举行为、政治参与、社会运动、权力结构等进行分析,可以加深我们对政治现象乃至一般社会现象的理解,可以为社会科学研究提供新的视角,进而超越传统的二元对立,并带来新的洞见。     

Promoting children's rights through the use of relationship

This paper reports on a research study exploring the views of 27 children and young people on their involvement in a child protection investigation. Their perspectives on the personal and professional qualities of the professionals involved and on the choice, influence and representation they experienced and prefer are discussed. One of the most striking findings is that most of the children and young people had experienced a positive relationship with a social worker. Overall, many reported improvements at home, at school and in their health and behaviour. Their responses to different aspects of the intervention are discussed within the context of their rights to participation, choice and representation. It is acknowledged that children lack agency in promoting these rights in child protection work and concluded that these are best promoted through the development and maintenance of a relationship of trust, offered by a key professional in their network. Drawing upon Heard & Lake's (1997) work on attachment theory, it is suggested, further, that relationships and processes which embody supportive and companionable interactions are more likely to offer opportunities for representation and participation than those which are dominant and submissive. Finally, it is argued that children's services should be based on a human rights perspective, the discourse of which has more in common with the values of respect and honesty than with cost effectiveness and business management.     

Professional Social Science: Responsible as Well as Respectable?

Acceptable professional behaviour for social scientists has strayed from traditional ideals. Among other reasons, the predominantly middle-class world view of most social science professionals has contributed to a narrow perspective on social matters which often leaves prevailing societal assumptions unchallenged. The emerging vision of a socially responsible role for social scientists calls into question many currently accepted aspects of professionalism, and the paper argues for a change of emphasis within social science to accommodate this new vision within the fold of professional respectability.     

Social work and social problems: A contribution from systems theory and constructionism

Social work builds its identity on social problems. The goal is to generate knowledge about causes, consequences and solutions. However, there is a lack of theory of social problems. We suggest that research on social problems can benefit by ‘bringing the observer in’: Loseke's constructionist framework and Luhmann's systems theory. According to Loseke, social problems appear differently when constructed by different observers. Constructions vary in terms of morality, conditions, victims/villains and solutions. From Luhmann we learn that modern society consists of a multitude of social systems (e.g. politics, science, economy etc.), each operating with their own communicative codes. Combining both approaches, we hypothesise that any social system constructs its own (version of) social problems. Illustrating with the empirical case ‘suicide among mentally ill people’, we examine how a phenomenon is constructed differently as a social problem by four different social systems: the disability movement, politics, medicine and social work.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： SPACE PRODUCTION AND URBAN ORDER IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA--From Object to Perspective： A Shift of Significance in Space Production and Space Criticism--The Issue of Space in Conceptualizing Contemporary Chinese Urban Construction

物质性的空间一是指自然物理空间,二是指社会空间即社会关系。空间生产包括空间中的生产和空间本身的生产两个向度的内涵。这两个向度内涵之间的关系和物理空间生产与社会空间生产之间的关系构成了空间生产中两大基本关系。这两大基本关系的辩证内涵表明,空间生产根本上可以归结为社会关系再生产。由此,关于空间生产问题的讨论就发生了一个根本性的意义转换,即从对象到视阈的意义转换。以此来审视,当代中国城市建构理念尚存在某些偏差,即对象与视阈的意义断裂与分离,由此造成了当代中国城市化进程中一些不必要的风险和代价。     

The management of professional roles during boundary work in child welfare

Hall C, Slembrouck S, Haigh E, Lee A. The management of professional roles during boundary work in child welfare Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 348–357 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. This article examines the ways in which child welfare professionals negotiate their roles and those of other professionals in home visits with clients, in this case the parents of young children. The concept of boundary work is developed within the context of the professional–client encounter. Drawing on Goffman's concept of ‘footing’, the analysis examines how professionals attend to ways of constructing family problems in terms of appropriate professional interventions – both from themselves and others. It is argued that the careful consideration of how problems merit interventions displays an adherence to the development of the supportive relations which move beyond strict professional remits. The article adds to the research evidence, which sees inter‐professional coordination as a complex matter, located in everyday practice rather than as advocating more tightly monitored procedure.     

The Approved Social Worker -- Reflections on Origins

Correspondence to Pauline M. Prior, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD. Summary The aim of this paper is to examine the role of social workersunder current mental health law, in order to see if the adventof the Approved Social Worker (ASW) represents any more thanthe re-appearance of old concepts in a new guise. It is arguedthat it is impossible for the ASW to be anything more than anupdated version of the Relieving Officer of the last century,in view of the fact that the Mental Health Act 1983 does notprovide a clear mandate for an effective professional advocateon behalf of mentally ill people.     

Part III: A student learns casework

Abstract

When homeless and severely mentally ill individuals leave housing programs designed to help them achieve stability, their very lives become at risk. Despite the prevalence of this problem and its potentially life-threatening consequences, there is a complete dearth of case studies examining why clients in programs for the homeless and mentally ill suddenly depart from those programs, and how paranoid and other seemingly unreachable clients can significantly improve the quality of their lives. This single case study, utilizing a naturalistic methodology, provides a before and after picture of a client who precipitously left a housing program, then returned two years later in a state of severe physical and mental decompensation. The study focuses on understanding why the client left the program the first time and what could be done to prevent another premature discharge. The findings point to a lack of coordination of care and problems with stable human interaction on the part of those caring for Charles, and are critical to understanding how to engage successfully with homeless and severely mentally ill clients.     

The New American Social Work Gospel: Case Management of the Chronically Mentally III

Correspondence to Dr R. A. Cnaan, School of Social Work, University of Pennsylvania, 3701 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. Summary Case management is currently the most popular mode of servicedelivery in the United States, especially in community programsfor chronically mentally ill people. Proponents of case managementclaim that it is cost-effective and that it assures provisionof necessary services to clients. In this paper I do not challengeits effectiveness but argue that case management neither empowersclients nor is it free of drawbacks. Given that many countriestend to model the United States, foreign social workers andother human service professionals should first examine the usefulnessof case management vis-à-vis their own cultural and economiccontexts, especially in the light of its many drawbacks.     

城市弱势群体的社会支持网络——基于河北省保定市北市区的抽样调查研究

在保定市北市区弱势群体的抽样调查基础上,本文通过引入社会网络理论范式,对弱势群体的基本状况进行了具体的描述和深入分析,认为城市弱势群体社会支持网络存在着规模小、构成简单、同质性强、缺乏阶层内部整合等特征和问题,而引入社会工作专业支持,对培育和强化弱势群体社会支持网络至关重要。     

To rely or not to rely on common sense? Introducing critical Realism's insights to social network analysis

In this article, I aim to critically evaluate the epistemological position of social network analysis. My main point is that while the two main schools of social network analysis – formalism and relationalism – claim to be different because of their respective comprehensions of the ontology of social networks, epistemologically they both rely on network actors' commonsensical comprehension of social ties to conduct social network analysis. Following critical realists' insights into the depth ontology of the social world, I argue that social network analysts must break from their and network actors' commonsensical comprehension of social ties in order to illustrate the objective principles of social networks. I suggest that one strategy for doing so is to treat the current networks of social actors under investigation as a product of historically shaped and state-mediated contests among social actors to define hierarchical features of their social relations. I present my study of the history of social networks in Indian politics during the early postcolonial period (1947–64) in support of my points.     

Positive Connections: a programme for children who have a parent with a mental illness

Mental health professionals working with parents who suffer from a mental illness often overlook the children within the family. Children whose parents are mentally ill face numerous obstacles to their own emotional development and these children are at higher risk for developing mental illnesses than other children. These risks can be decreased if protective or positive interventions are available for the children. This article will describe the development and implementation of Positive Connections, an effective intervention programme specifically designed for children whose parents have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. The effectiveness of this programme has been evaluated using both qualitative and quantitative research strategies, and the results are presented.