An international definition of social work for China

There are differing opinions on how far the international values and internationally understood practice of social work, as epitomised by the international definition on social work, can apply universally to all countries, notably China. The lack of capacity in the Chinese social work community to develop evidence-based and adaptable practice has hindered the effective learning and systematic 'indigenisation' of overseas social work knowledge. This article argues that the international definition can serve as an active working platform where Chinese social workers and the international social work community can search for commonalities and facilitate mutual understanding. Social workers can only effectively respond to the trends towards globalisation by trying to find out more about their common identity and similarities through interactions, while at the same time showing more acceptance of the differences between countries.     

Social work students and social change: on the link between views on poverty, social work goals and policy practice

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that are associated with social work students' willingness to engage in policy practice. It examines a model according to which the willingness to engage in policy practice is linked to the importance that students attribute to the goals of social work and to their views on poverty. The sample consisted of 138 social work students in one of Israel's leading universities. The measures consisted of four questionnaires developed specifically for this study. The findings revealed strong relationships between students' views regarding the causes of poverty and their attitudes towards the preferred ways to deal with poverty. In addition, strong relationships were found between the importance that students attributed to the goals of social work and their willingness to engage in policy practice. However, no significant relationships were found between students' views on poverty and their willingness to engage in policy practice. Different explanations for these findings are advanced in the article.     

Theory and social work: A conceptual review of the literature

This article presents a conceptual review of the literature concerning social work and theory. Based on analysis of 93 research studies, drawn from literature in English published between 1968 and 2016, the review considers the many ways that theory is conceptualised in the literature, and asks meta‐theoretical questions about how and why different conceptualisations arise. The article examines definitional questions and ambiguities concerning the use of theory, extant research on the use of theory by social workers in practice, hostility expressed regarding theory in social work, the theory/practice divide and perspectives that emphasise theory's utility or functionality. The article points at some methodological and ethical limitations concerning current research, and summarises dominant, as well as less prominent, versions of what counts as theory within the social work discipline, before finally suggesting that further meta‐theoretical research is needed.     

Is there a field of social work?: Trainees evaluating social problems and social work

My aim was to study the experiences and priorities of two age groups of social work students practicing in client-centered social work. This article is based on the research on rationality and language games in social work. The target groups of the research project as a whole were the actors: the heads and social workers or activists in public social welfare and health care agencies and institutions and in voluntary associations and action groups, and finally, two subsequent classes of students from a school of social work, during their practicing periods. This article concentrates on the trainees. At first, the trainees wrote essays and kept diaries. Secondly, they marked their standings on graphs visualizing different types of information contents and social relation structures. Thirdly, they made their choices of reasons for and solutions to social problems on a problem wheel. The trainees' study, using different data gathering techniques, partly confirms the results of the research of the other actor groups, in which the data were derived using questionnaires and interviews. The trainees' study shows variation in the respondents' priorities within and between specified social problem categories. Qualitatively analyzed, however, the characterizations of social work, both those who currently act in and those aiming to enter this field, resemble one another.     

Multicultural social work practice and South Asian migrants in Hong Kong

This paper explores how multicultural social work responds to the needs and structural issues faced by South Asian migrants in Hong Kong. Three working approaches, namely, the problem-solving approach, the strengths-based approach, and the rights-based approach are identified from our empirical data. The analyses demonstrate the generally insufficient awareness of the practice in critically addressing existing policies and power relations based on race. Moreover, there is a lack of critical reflection on the notion of culture and social workers’ ethnocentric biases. This paper argues that this insufficient awareness could lead to reinforcement of the existing social exclusion of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Using Hong Kong as an example, this paper reflects on the implications of applying Western-based literature and practice model in a non-Western society.     

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.     

社会工作专业实践教学模式的反思与探索

社会工作是一门应用性学科,但是我国现有的专业人才培养方案明显地忽视了实践教学的重要性,这直接导致了专业学生缺乏基本的助人能力,间接上也阻碍着社会工作职业化发展。本文在分析当前专业实践教学模式存在的局限性的基础上,并结合实际,提出一个包含实验、实习和实训在内的"三位一体"模式。     

A preliminary exploration on transformative social work model in China: a case study on social work with migrant construction workers

Migrant workers in the Chinese construction industry have been described as ‘indenture labourers of the twenty-first Century’. Under the guise of flexible work and high salary, there exist serious problems such as lack of an employment contract, poor working conditions, and the delay of payment. The origin of these problems lies in the subcontracting production regime of the construction industry that masks its labour relationships. The system also makes the intervention of industrial social work, labour rights protection and advocacy of corporate social responsibility ineffective. Based on a case of a migrant construction worker service organization, this study provides preliminary explorations on an indigenous model called ‘transformative social work’ in China. This model includes long-term education to raise civil and class consciousness, encouraging workers to fight for their own rights, facilitating the development of workers' union, connecting the support from university student volunteers and university teachers, striving for the empowerment of migrant construction workers, and the transformation of the production regime.     

Deep Ecology's contributions to social work: A ten‐year retrospective

Besthorn FH. Deep Ecology's contributions to social work: A ten‐year retrospective In the last decade, a new generation of social workers have made great strides incorporating environmental awareness into their theoretical formulations and practice modalities. This is a welcome development for a profession often conspicuously absent in the emerging international consensus that Earth's capacity to support life is in deep trouble. Beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, a few intrepid North American social workers began to raise the alarm concerning the scope and extent of environmental decline. Several social work scholars implored the profession to play a more active role in raising ecological awareness and take a seat at policy and practice forums debating environmental issues. Deep Ecology, founded by the late Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, offers a comprehensive philosophical framework upon which social work might draw in the development of its conceptual orientations. This article examines the current manifestations of Deep Ecology as a philosophy and socio‐political movement. It briefly assesses the evolution of social work's nascent interest in the natural environmental, examines historical precursors influencing Deep Ecology, reviews several key concepts of Deep Ecology, discusses ongoing applications of deep ecological ideas to several disciplines and suggests how deep ecological ideas might help inform social work's understanding of social justice.     

Mental health in postgraduate social work curriculum: Review of training contents in Indian schools of social work

Training of social workers according to the changing needs of the society is important. To this end, we decided to review the adequacy of mental health training in postgraduate programme in social work. The Mental Health Care Act 2017 defines psychiatric social worker (PSW) in India to have additional higher qualification beyond post‐graduation in social work. The number of such qualified PSWs appears to be limited due to small number of institutes that offer advanced training in the country. Though, the number of available PSWs with such qualifications is rising, the manpower in proportion to the mental health needs in the country continues to remain low. It is therefore, relevant to review the quality of psychiatric social work education at postgraduate level if this level is to be considered as the desirable qualification for PSW. In this context, postgraduate social work syllabi from 71 universities including autonomous institutions were reviewed using semi‐structured assessment. The results show a lack of uniform teaching components, training methods and insufficient skill orientation towards mental health interventions. These observations suggest that curricula and training are modified with strengthening and enhancing the quality of training of mental health at post‐graduate level in Social Work.     

The definition of social work in the United Kingdom, 2000–2010

Dickens J. The definition of social work in the United Kingdom, 2000–2010. This article reviews the approaches that the four countries of the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have taken in recent years for organising, regulating and defining social work. Social work is one of the policy areas that have been devolved to the constituent countries. This has brought extensive organisational changes, multiple policy initiatives and a proliferation of regulatory and advisory agencies. The article focuses on the attempts by these official bodies to define social work, treating the United Kingdom as a case study of the tensions of specifying what social work is and what it should be. The various attempts expose the strains and overlaps between the different agencies, and a bigger struggle to contain and control social work. The article highlights four key dimensions in the enduring debates: values–roles, social–individual, care–control and public–professional.     

The relationship between social work and environmental sustainability: Implications for interdisciplinary practice

Schmitz CL, Matyók T, James C, Sloan LM. The relationship between social work and environmental sustainability: Implications for interdisciplinary practice The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development, established by the United Nations in 1983, links peace, security, development and the environment claiming that war, poverty and structural violence result in the oppression and degradation of the human community as well as the physical environment. Likewise, human rights and social and environmental justice are intertwined, and social work, as a profession that collaborates across disciplines and within communities, is uniquely situated to provide leadership in the field of environmental studies. Its strong focus on human rights, social justice and community building creates a sound base from which to engage in the collaborative, creative, interactional processes required for environmental practice. This article seeks to discern a model for environmental social work within the context of interdisciplinary practice with peace and conflict workers and through the integration of inclusive models of economic development.     

Using critical social theory to develop a conceptual framework for comparative social work

This paper sets out a conceptual framework for comparing and contrasting social work within nation-states and across international boundaries. The framework is "situated" theoretically within a (late)modernist understanding of events within advanced capitalism and draws primarily on Habermas' critical social theory. The authors apply this framework to explicate the development of social work in Northern Ireland, a region in which high levels of political conflict mark it out as a site of local, national and international interest. It is suggested that the ideas developed from the case study have relevance for the social professions in other countries, particularly where social conflict is in evidence.     

The role of law in welfare reform: critical perspectives on the relationship between law and social work practice

This article considers the complex relationships between law, welfare policy and social work practice, in order to address the question of what role legal frameworks might play in achieving welfare policy and professional practice goals. It traces how law has developed as a core component of professional practice, and challenges some of the false expectations placed upon it. It then draws on findings from an international knowledge review of law teaching in social work education to propose a model for understanding how professional practice incorporates legal perspectives, and proposes ways in which legal frameworks can provide positive and constructive vehicles for accountable practice.     

Evidence-based practice in Chinese social work: overcoming language and developmental barriers

This scoping review followed Cochrane guidelines to comprehensively assess the use and understanding of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) in Chinese social science literature. We conducted a research across three electronic databases and three major social science journals for the studies published between 2004 and 2016. Chinese social work literature demonstrates a precise understanding of EBP defined as a process, but it lacks comprehensive discussions about EBP that extend beyond basic principles and process definitions. We identified language barriers and developmental issues for social work in China that contribute to these incomplete discussions. We examined the importance of broadening and enriching the discussions around EBP, especially for Chinese educators, researchers, and clinicians involved with empirically supported treatments. We also consider the implications of our findings for the development of social work in China.     

Pacific epistemologies in professional social work practice,policy and research

Utilising traditional cultural perspectives is an important lens towards developing a platform to create effective social work practice, policy and research. Through this relevant and realistic cultural context, social work as a profession may strive to interface more appropriately with individuals, families and the community. This article examines Pacific epistemologies, and the experiences of eight Western Sydney University social work students who have completed a three-month placement within the islands of Fiji and Samoa; and their reflections on the differences between Western and Pacific epistemologies and respective methods of intervention.     

Defining the profession? Exploring an international definition of social work in the China context

Global social work defies concise definition. In this article, the key terms of the definition of social work formulated by the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) are critically analysed. It is argued that this definition cannot claim to be 'universal' given the assumptions on which it is built and the rapidly changing global society in which social work is undertaken. This is demonstrated in the form of an analysis of social welfare provision and its implications for contemporary social work in China to assess whether the IFSW definition is applicable in this context. The conclusion is that the emerging aims and practice of social work in China are likely to be quite different from those in the West, and that the IFSW definition of social work has value as a point of reference rather than as a definitive definition or a statement of intent. Failure to recognise the limitations of a global definition risks ignoring the lived experience of social workers in China and those they work with.