Social Workers' Responses to Experiences of Fear

Correspondence to Martin Smith, EDT c/o Social Services Department, Easton Street, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, HP11 1NH. E-mail: msmith{at}buckscc.gov.uk Summary This paper follows on from the paper ‘Social workers’experiences of fear’, written by the same authors, reportingon a research study that showed how social workers interviewedexperienced fears of assault, death, losing control and rejectionfrom their seniors during their working hours. Now, from thesame study, examples are given that illustrate ways in whichparticipants were affected by, and responded to, these fears.Substantive quotations from in-depth interviews are providedshowing effects of fears as being physical, cognitive and emotionaland as manifesting themselves differently with the passing oftime. Also given are examples of what it was that participantsfound to be helpful, or unhelpful, when attempting to deal withtheir fears and particular attention is paid to supervisionin this respect. The paper argues that drama therapy literaturehas much relevance to the management of fear as participantsoften reported different parts of themselves performing roleswhen affected by and responding to fears. Implications for socialwork training are considered in this light. Generally, it isclaimed that the more social workers can learn about fear andits manifestations and implications in their work, the betterthey will be able to respond to it and deal with it.     

Social Workers' Responses to Incontinence,Confusion and Mobility Impairments in Frail Elderly Clients

Social workers in home health care agencies are frequently involved in decisions concerning the independent living of their frail elderly clients. This study analyzes social workers' responses to elderly clients with three health problems that are relatively common among the elderly: urinary incontinence, confusion, and mobility impairments. Responses to clients with incontinence differ from responses to confused or mobility-impaired clients primarily in the specificity of attributions of cause of the problem and in evaluative responses toward the client. The findings are discussed in terms of the potential role of social work as an agent for change in both popular understandings of incontinence in later life and in the delivery of health care to the incontinent elderly.     

Depression in the Profession: Social Workers' Experiences and Perceptions

This study reports the findings of interviews with fifty socialworkers who volunteered to describe their personal experiencesof depression in the workplace. The findings confirm the literatureon the stresses of social work and provide an account of theways in which the social workers sought to reconcile their mentalhealth needs with their role as professionals. The study suggeststhe potential for those working at all levels in social workagencies to support social workers who are experiencing depression.At a time of shortages in the profession in the UK, and of effortsto enable those with mental health problems to remain in orreturn to work, the experiences of those social workers interviewedillustrate the managerial, training and human resource imperativesto provide more supportive workplaces.     

Machines and Mindlessness: Social Responses to Computers

Following Langer (1992), this article reviews a series of experimental studies that demonstrate that individuals mindlessly apply social rules and expectations to computers. The first set of studies illustrates how individuals overuse human social categories, applying gender stereotypes to computers and ethnically identifying with computer agents. The second set demonstrates thatpeople exhibit overlearned social behaviors such as politeness and reciprocity toward computers. In the third set of studies, premature cognitive commitments are demonstrated: A specialist television set is perceived as providing better content than a generalist television set. A final series of studies demonstrates the depth of social responses with respect to computer 'personality.' Alternative explanations for these findings, such asanthropomorphism and intentional social responses, cannot explain the results. We conclude with an agenda for future research.     

论农民工社会保障权的法律保护

农民工为城市建设作出了巨大贡献,但却未能享受到城市化和经济发展所带来的公共福利,其社会保障状况令人担忧。应树立农民工社会保障权平等保护观念,完善农民工社会保障权的立法保护,加快立法步伐,构建统一的社会保障法律体系,清理和修改不合理的法规、规章;加大农民工社会保障的实施力度,强化国家积极义务,加快农民工社会保障配套制度建设,提高社会保障部门管理水平,加强社会保障监督机制;健全农民工社会保障权的救济制度,扩大司法审查范围,推行简易程序,增设特别程序,合理配置举证责任,建立公益诉讼制度以及独立的争议解决机制。     

Risk and Supervision: Social Work Responses to Referred User Problems

Correspondence to Peter Burke, Department of Social Work, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX Summary This study examines social work responses to users followingcase allocation of the initial referral. The aim of the studyis to demonstrate the need for supervision of social workersdealing with cases which have in common an inherent quality,described as ‘risk’. The study also links referralsto other practice responses identified as ‘service delivery’and ‘advisory’ work. The relationship between theseparticular responses is tested against the outcome decisionreached on case closure. All referrals were allocated betweentwo fieldwork teams over a one-year period and a total of 312referred cases was allocated within the categories mentioned.Findings are indicative that more ‘risk’ type referrals,however defined, are resolved with additional supervisory inputthan without, and that lower status workers favoured ‘middleground’ decisions of outcome when compared to their seniorcolleagues. A consideration resulting from this research isthat agency definitions of risk are different to the type ofrisk which requires crisis intervention. The question of riskto the user or to the agency requires the workers concernedto be able to discriminate between such cases. The implicationfor team training is that supervisory input should clarify thenature of risk, if any, and the task required of the workerfollowing case referral. The matching of skills which wouldultimately be the objective of this type of research cannotbe finally determined until a more comprehensive set of parametersfor practice is identified. This study shows that the responsecategories used demonstrate some basic supervisory needs ofthe worker.     

Global Social Justice for Older People: The Case for an International Convention on the Rights of Older People

Older people are beginning to represent a large proportion ofthe general population and have become a major area for socialprogramming in many parts of the world. However, neglect orviolation of older people’s rights is common. Until recently,there has been a surprising lack of advocacy on the part ofnon-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activistsfor a legally effective international convention on the rightsof older people, as compared with other vulnerable groups suchas children and women. This paper argues that the introductionof an international convention on the rights of older peopleis long overdue. Such an international convention should containcomprehensive and legally binding provisions which would requireratifying states to promote older people’s rights. Itshould be reinforced by a strong monitoring system that wouldinvolve key members of the international community. This paperoutlines the arguments in favor of the creation of a transnationalhuman rights agreement for older people and proposes that internationalNGOs and human rights advocates should work toward creatingsuch a convention.     

Mistrust and Self-Isolation: Barriers to Social Support for Older Adult Methadone Clients

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore barriers to the use, maintenance, and expansion of social supports in older adult methadone clients. Methods: The data for this analysis were derived from a qualitative study of the needs of aging methadone clients. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 24 methadone clients over the age of 50. Results: A lack of trust was identified as a principal barrier to the use, maintenance, and expansion of the social supports of older adult methadone clients. Causes of this mistrust include issues associated with aging, past traumatic experiences, and difficult personal relationships. Implications: These findings imply that addressing the issue of self isolation and recognizing the reason older adult methadone clients engage in this behavior is a key element in getting this specific population to use, maintain, and foster healthy social supports. A common phrase echoed throughout the interviews is that a person cannot trust anybody. Because of this mistrust, some clients keep to themselves by electing to self-isolate and decline to use, maintain, or foster new relationships. As a result, these individuals are less likely foster and/or engage in healthy social relationships, which are a key component of substance abuse treatment and abstinence maintenance.     

For the Sake of their Health: Older Service Users' Requirements for Social Care to Facilitate Access to Social Networks Following Hospital Discharge

Facilitating older service users’ requirements for accessto or re-engagement in social networks following hospital dischargeis recognized in social care analysis and policy as criticallyimportant. This is because of the associated benefits for restoringphysical health and psychological well-being. However, it tendsto be a neglected dimension of current social care/intermediatecare. Our paper draws on a qualitative study of voluntary sectorhospital aftercare social rehabilitation projects in five UKlocalities, which focused on addressing this issue. Throughexamining older service users’ feedback and experience,our study confirms the health benefits of social care facilitatingaccess to social networks at this crucial juncture. By providingsensitive interpersonal interaction, advocacy and ‘educational’assistance, social care workers supported older service users’re-engagement in a variety of networks. These included friendship,recreational and family groups, health care treatment programmesand locality based contacts and organizations. As a result,material, interpersonal and health care resources were accessed,which contributed to restoring and sustaining physical healthand psychological well-being. The process of such social carealso emerged as critical. This included ensuring that objectivesreflected service users’ priorities; integrating ‘low-level’home care; offering befriending; and challenging the pre-settime frame of intermediate care.     

Poverty Among Korean Immigrant Older Adults: Examining the Effects of Social Exclusion

ABSTRACT

Previous studies have shown that elderly Asian immigrants face greater risks for living in poverty compared with their native contemporaries. Particularly, Korean immigrant older adults are reported to be most likely to experience poverty among many Asian immigrant groups. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which demographic, human capital, and social exclusion factors contribute to such economic vulnerability among Korean immigrant older adults. Adding to previous research, this study broadly conceptualizes social exclusion and tests for its additive effects on poverty using nationally representative public data of Korean immigrant older adults. From the 2008–2010 Public Use Microdata Sample of the American Community Survey, this study extracts a sample that consists of individuals aged 65 years and older whose national origin is Korean, who were not born in the United States, and thereafter immigrated to the United States (N = 3,820). The findings indicate that 3 dimensions of social exclusion—exclusion from social and civic life, exclusion from asset building, and exclusion from the labor market—contribute significantly to Korean immigrant older adults’ odds of living in poverty. The study concludes with practice implications for socially inclusive workforce development as a way to ameliorate economic afflictions among Korean immigrant older adults.     

Taking Rights Structurally: Disability, Rights and Social Worker Responses to Direct Payments

Correspondence to: Tim Stainton, School of Social Work and Family Studies, University of British Columbia, 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T 1Z2. E-mail: timst{at}interchange.ubc.ca Summary This article examines the link between a justice and rightsdiscourse and disability policy and practice. Specifically,it considers social worker responses to direct payments, a policywhich has been linked to a discourse of social justice and rights.The article initially considers the nature of justice and rights,arguing that these can plausibly be seen to be grounded in theidea of autonomy and that a rights or justice based social policyand practice must be grounded in the protection, enhancementand development of the capacity for autonomous action. The articlethen presents partial findings of a research project, whichsampled social workers' views and attitudes towards direct paymentsin three local authorities. The findings suggest that socialworkers are aware of the link between direct payments and autonomyand are generally very supportive of the move to a rights basedapproach to policy and practice as evidenced by programmes suchas direct payments. The paper also concludes that structuralconstraints limit social workers' ability to fully functionfrom a rights based approach to disability.     

Absent Role of the State: Analysis of Social Support to Older People with Disabilities in Rural China

China is experiencing rapid population ageing and already has 44 million older people with disabilities aged over 59 years. Yet social support of these older people with disabilities is undeveloped and not well researched. This article contributes by using a disability rights framework (right to life and protection, economic security and social support) to analyze local cases in rural China. It finds that, although the family is still the main provider of economic and care support to rural older people with disabilities, the absence of a state role in welfare provision has negative impacts on the well‐being of older and younger generations in rural families.     

Social Citizenship Rights and the Welfare Circle Dilemma: Attitudinal Findings of Two Chinese Societies

This paper places social citizenship momentum into the context of squaring the welfare circle for examination. Citizenship is a powerful world-level organizing principle especially by the minority groups for their claim of equal treatment. The squaring of welfare circle refers to the need of the governments to constrain their budgets but also meet the rising demands from and needs of their people. This comparative study looks at the attitudinal findings of two Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan to see whether or not the cultural factor can mitigate the momentum of social citizenship rights and the demand side of the welfare circle. Implications for social policy are also discussed.     

New Directions for the Study of Incarcerated Older Adults: Using Social Capital Theory

As the population of older adults continues to rise, so, too, does the population of older adults in prison. The body of literature on older adults in corrections is scant, particularly with regard to health and social functioning. Past studies of aging inmates primarily focus on health care and related costs. The purpose of this article is twofold: (a) outline and synthesize the research on older adults living in prison; and (b) propose a framework for future research and intervention development based on social capital theory. Recommendations for social work practice, programs, and research are discussed.     

Beyond the Nation State: Social Policy in an Age of Globalization

The paper proceeds from the assumption that globalization has placed significant constraints on the autonomy of nation states in the making of social policy. It argues that the post-World War II welfare state represented a social system highly successful in combining economic efficiency and dynamism with equity and solidarity. This historic achievement at the nation-state level is being undermined by economic globalization. It is both necessary and feasible to recreate and institutionalize this mixed system globally. The paper argues that the concept of social rights, which has served as the basic underpinning of the welfare state, has many weaknesses—logical as well as empirical. While the principles of civil and political rights are being consolidated and extended worldwide the principle of social rights is in decay. The paper presents the case for replacing social rights by social standards as the major concept for buttressing systems of social protection. To be applicable globally a social standard must be conceptualized as a level of social development which corresponds to an appropriate level of economic development. Finally, the paper considers the problems and prospects of developing social standards transnationally. It reviews, briefly, the nature and extent of transnational social policy-making by inter-governmental organizations and concludes that despite difficulties of global action advances towards global social standards remain possible.     

Beyond Income: A Social Justice Approach to Assessing Poverty among Older Adults with Chronic Kidney Disease

ABSTRACT

How social workers define and assess poverty is a matter of economic and social justice. Recent conceptual and measurement advances point to a multidimensional definition of poverty which captures material, social, and political deprivations. Using data from a survey, this article describes how nephrology social workers assess poverty among older adults living with a chronic kidney disease (N = 52). Results suggest respondents already conceive of poverty as a multidimensional experience, support awareness-raising about poverty, and primarily assess poverty by employment status, income, access to transportation, and education. Opportunities to expand poverty assessment in future work are promising.     

The Distribution of Public Social Expenditure in Spain: A General Analysis with Special Reference to Age and Social Class

This paper attempts, first, a general analysis of the distributive incidence of social expenditure (both in cash and in kind) in Spain, within a framework of partial equilibrium. Second, the analysis isolates the redistributive effects caused by age differences from those caused by differences between social groups. Within the area of the latter, the type of redistribution that occurs is examined as well as the point to which the middle classes are privileged recipients of public social spending. In these analyses decomposable indices of generalized entropy are used. The data used for verifying the hypotheses are taken from the European Community Household Panel microdata (1995 wave).     

Patients with Minor Mental Disorders Leading to Sickness Absence: A Feasibility Study for Social Workers' Participation in a Treatment Programme

Minor mental disorders are common among patients who visit theirgeneral practitioner. In the Netherlands, they are associatedwith high costs due to absenteeism, disability benefits andmedical consumption (consumption of drugs as well as expenditureof medical staff’s time). In the Netherlands, a protocolwas developed for the treatment of minor mental disorders, basedon the principles of brief cognitive behaviour therapy. Thecost-effectiveness of this protocol was tested in a group ofpatients whose minor mental disorders had lead to sickness absence.The protocol was completed by Dutch social workers, one of whosecore tasks normally is to provide psychosocial care. The mainaims of the protocol are for the patient to regain functionalityand to prevent long-term disability. The protocol emphasizespatients’ own responsibility and active role in the recoveryprocess, includes homework assignments and stresses the importanceof early work resumption. This article focuses on a discussionof the feasibility of this treatment for minor mental disorders.The evidence for or against the protocol’s cost-effectivenesswill be discussed in future papers. The results show that patients,social workers and general practitioners were motivated to participateand that the protocol was well received by all three groups.If the treatment also proves to be cost-effective, it wouldappear to be a promising intervention for a frequently encounteredproblem in primary care.     

Early Recognition of and Responses to Dementia: Health Professionals' Views of Social Services' Role and Performance

Correspondence to Jill Manthorpe, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN, UK. E-mail: jill.manthorpe{at}kcl.ac.uk. Summary Increasing calls for early diagnosis of dementia look set toimpact on social services. This article explores some of theissues, drawing on a series of multi-professional dementia workshopsheld in the UK. The workshops identified a series of questionsthat need to be addressed by social services in the areas ofthe drivers for early assessment, ensuing expectations, problemsand advantages in involving social services, and the benefitsof early diagnosis for individuals and their families. The articlediscusses the implications for social services in light of thedata and notes a possible move to specialist services, withinor without the social services sector. Tensions between currentresource shortages and anticipated demands for services areidentified. The difficulty of meeting low level needs whileservices are targeted on those with high levels of need presentsa further challenge to service delivery.     

Differences in the Seriousness of Problems and Deservingness of Help: Swedish Social Workers' Assessments of Single Mothers and Fathers

In this vignette study, three hypotheses concerning differencesin social workers’ assessment off single fathers and mothersare tested: first, that single fathers with custody of theirchildren, who have problems similar to those often faced bysingle mothers, are assessed as having more serious problemsthan the mothers; secondly, that single fathers in such a situationtend to be assessed as being less deserving of support thansingle mothers in the same situation; thirdly, that the helpoffered to both sexes follows gender-traditional patterns. Theresults support the hypotheses. The overall problems and mentalhealth tended to be assessed as more serious in the case ofthe father than in the case of the mother. The single fatherwas assessed as being more responsible for his situation. Thesingle mother was assessed as being in need of assistance inmore areas and more varied social welfare measures were recommendedfor her than for the father. Finally, the results also showthat only support which could enable the client to obtain paidwork and be able to pay off the debts on his car was given higherpriority in the case of the father.