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.     

Some considerations on the validity of evidence-based practice in social work

Summary This paper considers the validity of evidence-based practicein social work. It critically examines various underlying presuppositionsand assumptions entailed in evidence-based practice and drawsout their implications for social work. The paper is dividedinto three main parts. Following a consideration of the backgroundto the development of evidence-based practice and a discussionof its key organizing concepts, the paper goes on to examineits underlying scientific assumptions. It shows that evidence-basedpractice proposes a particular deterministic version of rationalitywhich is unsatisfactory. Evidence-based practice is derivedfrom ideas based on optimal behavior in a planned and systematicallyorganized environment. By concentrating on 'epistemic processes'involved in planning and psychological inference it is claimedthat cognitive heuristic devices are the determinants of decisionmaking and not evidence. The heuristic model suggests that decisionmaking is indeterminate, reflexive, locally optimal at bestand based on a limited rationality. It is argued that socialworkers engage in a reflexive understanding and not a determinateor certainty based decision-making process based on objectiveevidence. Complex phenomena such as decision making are notrationally determined or subject to 'control'. The paper goeson to suggest that the tendency to separate processes into 'facts'and 'values' implicit in evidence-based procedures underminesprofessional judgement and discretion in social work. The thirdpart of the paper focuses on the connection between method andideology in evidence-based practice. It examines how the evidence-basedpreoccupation with positivistic methods and determinate judgemententraps social workers within a mechanistic for of technicalrationality. This framework restricts social work to a narrowends-means rationality such that only certain forms of actionare considered legitimate. This feeds into the rhetoric of newmanagerialist strategies aimed at developing a performance cultureby further regulating and controlling individual practitioners.In the conclusion a number of critical indicators are givenwhich should be addressed by the proponents of evidence-basedpractice. It is suggested that unless these are adequately dealtwith, social work is not greatly advanced by adherence to anevidence-based approach. Moreover, the problematic epistemologicaland ideological base associated with it are to be regarded asinherently insuperable.     

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.     

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.     

Developing critical social work in theory and in practice: child protection and communicative reason

This paper argues that a critical analysis of the ideologies that inform contemporary child care has been missing from the 're-focusing debate'. Such an analysis points up the necessity of reasserting a critical social work position in order to provide a basis for reconstructing practice and engaging with other social actors and their ideologies in an open and creative fashion compatible with Habermas' aspiration of 'communicative reason'.     

Action theory: a tool for understanding in social work

This article presents a theoretical framework that can be used not only for understanding the client but also one's own action as a practitioner. This framework, which has its roots mainly within philosophy and social psychology, uses terms of everyday language that are given a more precise meaning in the conceptual analysis of the Finnish philosopher G. H. von Wright. The application of action theory to social work practice is briefly described. The approach can be seen as an expansion of the problem-solving method developed by Helen Harris Perlman.     

Essay: On spirituality and social work practice

Abstract

Gradually, developments in both psychoanalytic theory and practice have pushed the psychoanalytic therapist from a position of presumed knowing and automatic authority towards a more full, complex and parallel participation in the therapeutic process. This dethroning corresponds to the more general undermining of the expert in the postmodern critique of established knowledge and power relations. It is argued that the shift has come about within psychoanalysis by the increasingly environmentalist tilt in theory, by the ascendance of countertransference thinking, and by the demise of the natural science model for psychoanalytic theory. Some implications for practice deriving from these changes are discussed.     

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.     

Mental health practice in primary care: Some perspectives concerning the future of social work in organized delivery systems

Abstract

The rise of managed care as the dominant form of healthcare delivery in the U.S. clearly has dramatic implications for the profession of social work. Thus far and for good reasons, the professional dialog about managed care has largely focused on . the threats posed to the professional agenda of social work by managed care in its various forms. This article considers some of the more positive aspects of the transformation from fee‐based to population‐based healthcare systems, in particular the vigorous trend toward multidisciplinary primary care and collaborative mental health practice in primary care settings. It is argued that the market forces behind this trend also promote the emergence of models of social work practice that better integrate historically dichotomized aspects of health and mental health practice. Also considered are implications for social work education and the division of labor among the healthcare professions.     

COVID‐19 and social work practice for older adults in China

After the spread of COVID‐19, the Chinese central government has issued a series of policies and regulations to guide the prevention and control of the epidemic in the elderly care industry. Social workers provided a series of services for older adults in nursing homes and in the community. All efforts made by government agencies and social workers have helped older adults go through the difficult time.