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1.
How to be Modern: New Labour's Neoliberal Modernity and the Change for Children programme 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
In England the New Labour administration is seeking to embeda transformational reform agenda within childrensservice. Social workers, among others appear, however, to bewary of the agenda which is now rhetorically rooted in the EveryChild Matters: Change for Children programme (CfC). The mainsocial work practice elements of this programme are associatedwith the introduction of a Childrens Index, a multidisciplinaryCommon Assessment Framework and the role of Lead Professional.In terms of the promotion of this programme, the governmenthas maintained that the focal aim is to create a modernchildrens workforce. However, the entire transformationalagenda can be interpreted as reflecting New Laboursneoliberal modernity. This is particularly apparent in the termsof the ideas associated with flexibility whichare so central to the CfC programme. 相似文献
2.
Children's Voices: The Views of Vulnerable Children on Their Service Providers and the Relevance of Services They Receive 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
This paper describes and analyses the views of vulnerable childrenof eleven years and under on the relevance of services theyreceived. The two research questions posed were, first, whatare effective practices for engaging with vulnerable children;and, second, how can the voices of vulnerable children be usedto influence the development of policy? The first question wasaddressed through a systematic review of existing literatureon effective strategies for interviewing vulnerable childrenand revealed that few studies that focus on interviewing youngchildren are designed to address effectiveness. As yet, notall young children are asked for their views by those makingdecisions about their lives, though their involvement increaseswith age. The second question was addressed through focus groupsand interviews which revealed that children hold many validviews related to their roles and relationships with serviceproviders and decisions being made concerning their lives. Itwas concluded that whilst childrens lived experienceof services they receive could contribute to the creation ofmore democratic communities in which children and their familiesparticipate, it remains to be seen whether the new Green Paper,Every Child Matters (DfES, 2003), increases their sense of autonomyor merely extends the degree to which they are controlled. 相似文献
3.
Good Practice in the Education of Children in Residential Care 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
Gallagher Bernard; Brannan Chris; Jones Rob; Westwood Simon 《British Journal of Social Work》2004,34(8):1133-1160
Correspondence to The Directors, New Horizons (Child Care) Ltd., Unit B, Silkmoor, New Street, Frankwell, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY3 8LN, UK. E-mail info{at}new-horizonschildcare.co.uk Summary Research shows that the education of children in residentialcare is generally poor, in terms of both process and outcome.This has highlighted the uncertainty over how best to educatethese children and a pessimism over what they can achieve. Drawingupon the findings of an evaluation of a childrens home,this paper argues that children in residential care can havegood educational outcomes. It also shows that it is possibleto identify the processes by which these outcomes can be broughtabout. However, this largely positive assessment is predicatedupon education being defined broadly in respect of processand outcome. Moreover, it is important not tounderestimate the formidable challenges inherent in this work.While the multi-agency nature of this work gives rise to oneof the most significant, it has to be recognized that responsibilityfor the education of children in residential care falls primarilyto childrens homes. If childrens homes are tomeet the increasing expectations that are being made of them,national and local government will have to undertake a radicaltransformation of residential childcare, especially in termsof attitudes towards, and resources invested in, this sector.Central to this is the establishment of a qualified and properlysupported workforce. 相似文献
4.
The British Association of Social Workers has actively opposedAnti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). It is the contention ofthis article that there is a pressing need to interrogate factorswhich are influencing and driving the ASBO agenda during theperiod of New Labour in Britain. The discussion begins by referringto the significance of keywords and phrases in social work andsocial policy. This is followed by an examination of the recent(re)appearance of concern about anti-social behaviour.A critical overview of the White Paper Respect and Responsibility:Taking a Stand against Anti-Social Behaviour (Home Office, 2003a)is then provided. It is then argued that Tony Blair and formerhome secretary, David Blunkett, played distinctive roles increating Britains ASBO politics. This, moreover, is apolitics which potentially narrows social works roleand purpose. 相似文献
5.
This paper identifies and aims to explain an apparent dissonancebetween the dominance in Britain of anti-oppressivesocial work discourse and the socio-political context surroundingits use; a context often claimed to feature excessive regulationand control. Pursuing this, some politically radical aims associatedwith anti-oppressiveness are spelt out, and thedifficulty of achieving these in an unconducive climate is discussed.Then, a distinction made by Robert Merton between latentand manifest functions is used to suggest thatthe manifest radicalism of anti-oppressive discoursecan helpfully be distinguished from some latent largely unrecognisedconsequences of its use – not consequences with politicallyradical impact, but with a social meaning congruent with a climateof control. It is concluded that the success ofanti-oppressive discourse might well be viewed as requiringmore of the kind of critical analysis that the discourse itselfwas supposed to espouse. 相似文献
6.
Correspondence to Prof. David Howe, School of Social Work, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary For so long in search of a common base, there are early signsthat social work's intellectual outlook is fragmenting. Theunity that was once sought in both theory and practice as wellas policy and organziation is being abandoned. A child of modernity,social work now finds itself in a postmodern world, uncertainwhether or not there are any deep and unwavering principleswhich define the essence of its character and hold it togertheras a cohernt enterprise. The article outlines some of the characteristics of modernityand postmodernity, relating them to the rise of social work,its formation within modern society, and its current conditionin what many observers believe is a postmodern world. Thereare three visions within which people look toleam the truth of things, including matters offact and matters of value: those centred in God's word (revelation);those centred in the minds of men and women (reason); and thosede-centred and dispersed withing language, meaning and culture(relativism). 相似文献
7.
Rethinking Family Support in the Current Policy Context 总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1
This article uses the concept of the social investmentstate to understand key aspects of New Labourspolicies in relation to welfare reform. It argues that investingin children and creating responsible parentsare vital features of many of the policies and service initiativeswhich have emerged since 1997. Such features have considerableimplications for policies and practices in the arena of familysupport. The article goes on to outline aspects of an importantcritique of the social investment state which has emerged fromthose engaged in research and policy analysis who argue fora political ethics of care. It argues that thisperspective offers important possibilities to family supportadvocates not only for critique, but also for articulating muchneeded policy alternatives to those currently being promotedby New Labour. It also signposts the importance of conductingongoing research into the meanings which are being attachedby individuals to complex and contested terms such as familyand support. 相似文献
8.
This paper explores accounts and understandings of dementiathat are encountered infrequently. Childrens views ofdementia are under-explored and yet children, too, must be beinginfluenced by the growing public knowledge of dementia as anamed disease, particularly of old age. The first section notesthat many children will encounter dementia among family members,their grandparents and great-grandparents in particular. Thesecond section considers fictionalized accounts of dementia.These are assuming greater exposure, not so much in the professionalwelfare domain, but as a plot or character device in contemporaryfiction. This paper combines these two areas by discussing anumber of publications written for young people where dementiais a central issue, motif or characteristic. These include dementia-relatedmaterial targeted at a childrens readership. This isfollowed by development of themes arising from analysis of threenovels written for young people, emanating from Canada, Australiaand the UK. The paper ends with a series of discussion pointsfor social-work practitioners, educationalists and voluntary-sectorsupport or self-help groups working in dementia care and inolder peoples services. 相似文献
9.
Habermass critical social theory has been challengedon a range of fronts. However, the authors see merit in hismediation thesis as set out in the seminal text, Between Factsand Norms (1996). Adopting a pragmatist defence of the thesis,we review and demonstrate the effectiveness of what we believeis a coincidental expression of some of its main tenets—TheFamily Group Conference in Child Protection. Drawing furtheron Habermass work, we then proceed to re-work aspectsof the conferences core processes, thereby accentuatingthe possibility of empowering dialogue between its key participants:the families (who embody the lifeworld) and thesocial work professionals (who represent the system).In the final section, we argue that moral practice in childprotection must be safeguarded by communicational proceduresthat explicitly address issues relating to the use of powerand the need for recognition between subjects. 相似文献
10.
Whilst the importance of gender for social work practice, riskand mental health has been recognized theoretically for sometime, few attempts have been made to explore this area empirically.This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study of socialwork practice in relation to mental health service users perceivedto be high-risk. Findings suggest, first, thatthe concept high-risk was gendered because theprimary focus in social work practice was on the risks posedby male service users to others. Second, female social workersin the present study were found to have more female serviceusers from their caseloads who had been defined as high-riskcompared with their male counterparts. The paper goes on toexplore this apparent congruence between female social workersand female service users and highlights how the management ofrisk could be considered gendered because it reflects a workers(perceived) capacity in cultural terms to decodethe nature of the risks that their clients face as genderedsubjects. The paper demonstrates how the intersections betweenrisk, mental disorder and social work practice can thereforebe understood as a gendered landscape. It concludes by highlightingthe implications of these findings for social work practiceand research. 相似文献
11.
This study is a preliminary examination of life satisfactionamong 103 children in one residential treatment care (RTC) settingin Israel. Life satisfaction was examined using the MultidimensionalStudents Life Satisfaction Scale (MSLSS). Gender differencesin life satisfaction and correlations with background and in-carevariables were examined. The study revealed that girls weremore satisfied with RTC-specific domains than boys and thatthe residential child-care workerchild relationship playsa major role in the childs life satisfaction. Findingsprovided some support for the utility of the MSLSS to describeRTC children and youths life satisfaction across a numberof important life domains. Ongoing administration of such scaleshas the potential to monitor RTC childrens life satisfactionand its correlates throughout their stay in care. 相似文献
12.
The article focuses on the perceptions of Irish social workersworking in children and families settings in Britain.These respondents cannot be seen as representative of all Irishsocial workers in Britain, yet they do provide insights intofive significant themes: the approach to raceand ethnicity in social work education; Irish identities inBritain; racism and stereotyping; children and families whoare Irish Travellers; and an agenda for the future. The discussionconsiders some of the issues raised in the context of what hasbeen referred to as the politics of recognition. 相似文献
13.
This article considers key developments in social work in thelast decade. From the vantage point of Australia, British socialwork (and the British Journal of Social Work) is seen in a particularperspective. However, some international comparisons are possible.Thus, the article focuses on two apparently contradictory developments:the search for uncertainty in post-structuraltheory and the search for certainty in evidence-basedpractice. It concludes that both, in different ways, describesocial work in the early twenty-first century. 相似文献
14.
Correspondence to Paul Michael Garrett, c/o, British Journal of Social Work, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL Summary This paper explores aspects of the Looking After Children: GoodParenting: Good Outcomes system (LAC) (Parker et at., 1991).It is suggested that the scheme, to be used with children andyoung people who are looked after by local authorities,needs to be subjected to greater critical scrutiny. The paperseeks, therefore, to situate the LAC system in a social andpolitical context and highlights how it also relates to thedominant operational modalities of social work interventionin the late 1990s. In addition, the paper explores how troublesomechildren and ideas centred on parenting featurein the LAC discourse. The discussion concludes with an examinationof Action and Assessment Records (Ward, 1995b), the centrepieceof the LAC system. 相似文献
15.
Correspondence to Carol-Ann Hooper, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK. E-mail: cah13{at}york.ac.uk Summary Concerns about the parenting capacity of adults with a historyof childhood sexual abuse have often been framed in individualizingand pathologizing ways. This paper draws on qualitative researchwith twenty-four women survivors of childhood sexual abuse todevelop a new framework for understanding the possible vulnerabilitiesof their children that may help inform anti-oppressive practice.The framework places the mother-child relationship in its broadercontext, taking account of the role of the immediate family,the extended family, the community and the state. Within eachlevel of context we identify the range of issues that couldcontribute to childrens vulnerability, elaborating theprocesses involved. Some issues recur within different contexts,for example the impacts of survivors issues around attachment,and others connect across contexts, such as the impact on childrenof deterioration in their mothers' mental health when appropriateservices are not available. All of these issues may affect survivorswell-being and access to social support and hence their abilityto care effectively for their children. Ways of supporting bothsurvivors and their children involving greater collective responsibilityfor children, effective collaboration between mental healthservices and child-care services, and professional responseswhich take account of contextual issues are identified. 相似文献
16.
This article is primarily concerned with emphasizing the importanceof gender in relation to understanding and responding to sexualityand sexual abuse/exploitation issues within residential childrenshomes. Initially, past research and inquiry reports are analysedand evaluated, not only in relation to their overall conclusionsand recommendations, but also with regard to their consideration,misrepresentation or omission of gender issues. A theoreticalframework is then drawn up which takes into account historicaldebates and contestations around notions of gender. This illustrateshow gender is frequently conflated or merged with understandingsabout sex and sexuality. This theoretical conceptualizationis then extended to consider the effects of the social constructionof childhood and childhood sexuality, and how sex, gender andsexuality may commonly be represented and understood withinorganizational, public-sphere contexts. Important findings froma recent indepth qualitative research project focused on sexualityissues in childrens homes are then presented thematicallyand through narrative excerpts. These findings are also locatedwithin and made comprehensible in relation to the theoreticalframework previously constructed. The conclusion examines theimplications of the findings presented and their theorization,and briefly evaluates the usefulness of recent policy initiativesintended to improve the care and development of lookedafter children. 相似文献
17.
Parry Odette; Pithouse Andy; Anglim Cathy; Batchelor Claire 《British Journal of Social Work》2008,38(1):5-19
This paper is based on findings of a Welsh Assembly Governmentfunded review of childrens independent advocacy servicesin Wales with reference to their involvement in complaints madeby children, or by their parents or carers on their behalf,about local authority social services. It draws, primarily,upon qualitative interviews with local authority childrenscomplaints officers, whose task is to receive complaints orconcerns, field these to appropriate social services staff,maintain oversight of their progression and keep complainantsinformed of developments. The paper describes the challengesthat complaints officers perceive children encounter in movingcomplaints forward, especially in a context where independentadvocacy services are involved and where these services areviewed with some suspicion by social services staff. It suggeststhat complaints officers play a pivotal part in managing thesometimes contested and complex interface between service providerand child and may do so from a position of limited authorityand influence. The role of complaints officers in engaging withcomplainants and their advocates, and with those colleaguesimplicated in complaints, has rarely been the topic of research.This paper provides accounts from these key staff that helpilluminate the tensions and difficulties that can enter thechildrens complaints process. 相似文献
18.
Correspondence to Paul Michael Garrett, Centre for Social Work, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. E-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary The heavily promoted Looking After Children: Good Parenting,Good Outcomes (LAC) project continues to exert a powerful influenceon social work in the UK and elsewhere. Despite the repeatedassertions that the documentation associated with LAC is embeddedin objective research, this not sustainable onaccount of the failure of the researchers to interrogate theirown normative assumptions and judgements. Specific criticismscan also be levelled at the community study connectedto the evolution of the Action and Assessment Records (AARs)which are the key part of the scheme. The system should alsobe viewed in the context of wider pre-occupations about outcomes.In addition, the project needs to be politically situated andthe researchers' relationship with the Department of Healthshould be more fully explored. In conclusion, it is suggestedthat the LAC experience contains important messagesfor the future of social work research. 相似文献
19.
20.
Ng Siu-man; Chan Cecilia L. W.; Ho David Y. F.; Wong Yu-Yeuk; Ho Rainbow T. H. 《British Journal of Social Work》2006,36(3):467-484
Background: Depression was translated into Chinese as yiyu,with reference to the yu syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine.Literally meaning not flowing, entangled or clogged,yu, or stagnation in English, is, however, a constructdistinct from depression. Objective: The study aimed to explorethe construct of stagnation through scale development. Method:A concept-driven approach was adopted to generate candidateitems for the Stagnation Scale. Other measures were a validitychecking item, a Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and a twelve-itemGeneral Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Respondents were recruitedby convenience and snowball sampling, resulting in 602 questionnairesbeing completed by adults between the ages of eighteen and sixty-five.Results: Exploratory factor analysis provided a three-factor,sixteen-item solution. The three factors were named Overattachment,Body-Mind Obstruction and Affect-Posture Inhibition. Cronbachsalphas of the entire scale and subscales ranged from 0.82 to0.91. Correlations of the scale total with the validity checkingitem, BDI and GHQ-12 were 0.71, 0.53 and 0.48, respectively.Stagnation showed a pattern of associations with demographicvariables different from depression. Conclusion: The StagnationScale has good psychometric properties, and has meaningful factorstructures. The evidence supports the contention that stagnationis a clinical syndrome distinct from depression. The new concepthas important implications for social work practice. 相似文献