Advocating the Clinical Social Work Professional Identity: A Biographical Study

Aiming to portray the clinical social work (CSW) professional identity, the present biographical study examines the CSW knowledge and practice domain boundaries as they appear from the perspectives of three Greek mental health social workers who have advocated for the professionalization of CSW. The practitioners' perspectives are studied in relation to their demographic characteristics, education and training, and multidisciplinary relationships. A thematic analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed that these practitioners retained their nuclear social work identity and felt their skills and interests to be different from those endorsed by the present generic social work education and practice system. The study also revealed differences in the educational qualifications and routes that each of the three practitioners followed in order to be able to identify themselves as ‘clinical social workers’. Although the common denominator in the practitioners' perspectives was their training in psychotherapy, the type of psychotherapy training pursued and the experience of personal psychotherapy differentiated each practitioner's ability to theorize on the CSW practice identity. The research data were filtered through a psychodynamic lens to reveal the dynamics of the unconscious processes within the relationships formed between individuals and organizations.     

Low-Wage Work: A Synthesis of Major Social Science Concepts

Low-wage work is a defining feature in the lives of low-income families, who are challenged to achieve self-sufficiency through employment. This article offers a synthesis of theoretical concepts at the micro (individual), mezzo (group and community) and macro (social and political) levels to aid in understanding the human behavior and social environmental dimensions of low-wage work. The article concludes with a case vignette designed to illustrate the role that theory can play in informing social work practice.     

White Privilege and Clinical Social Work Practice: Reflections and Recommendations

This exploratory study examined how seasoned White social workers grappled with the presence and effects of White privilege on their clinical practice. Data were collected in focus groups; findings were surfaced through thematic analysis. Five themes emerged: the role of engaging in continuous self-awareness in clinical practice; the complexity of using intersectionality to inform our work; the necessity of addressing White privilege in clinical conversations; the importance of creating strategies for use of power; and the process of engaging in life-long growth. These workers demonstrated awareness of, and accountability for, White privilege. Implications for progressive social work practice are discussed.     

Social Work Leadership: Identifying Core Attributes

This article argues that social work academics are educationally remiss for not defining the concepts touted as important for the profession and for our students. Through a content analysis of published literature, the author distilled five core attributes of social work leadership that underpin all other knowledge, personal, and skilled capacities. These core attributes are defined and how they have been used to date is described. This work is aspirational, and the author hopes that other academics and social work professionals may add to its thinking and application.     

Learning Global Social Conditions: A Broader View for Social Work Students

Today, students are increasingly interested in global issues. To meet this need, social work education must find models to incorporate international content into social work curriculum. This article presents a pedagogical experience to familiarize social work students with comparative social welfare from a global perspective. In a graduate seminar, students utilized data from the United Nations and the World Bank to examine social conditions in different parts of the world in order to gain a broader view of global social conditions. The result was a compilation of profiles highlighting the social conditions of developing countries across different regions of the globe. Furthermore, based on students’ feedback, the benefits of doing such comparative study and the implications for internationalizing social work curriculum are discussed.     

Response to Greene 2001, Redefining Social Work

ABSTRACT

This article is in response to the article titled Redefining Social Work for the New Millennium: Setting a Context, by Dr. Roberta Greene. I have come to view social work as a profession that seeks to enable others not just the poor and undeserved, the opportunity to better understand and navigate any situation that causes them stress or presents some type of barrier to their health and well-being.     

Science as a Strategy for Social Work

For more than one hundred years, various forms of science have been promoted to boost social work’s status as a profession. Evidence-based practice and talk about the science of social work are only the most recent manifestations of this pattern. Counter to this trend, this article argues that the latest upsurge of interest in scientific social work is no more likely than any of its predecessors to address the problems of the profession. Beginning with a linguistic analysis of the words science and scientific as positive signifiers, the article traces social work’s long history of science talk as a means of reassuring funding agencies and bolstering the profession’s status. Drawing on a critique of this discourse as the latest example of abstracted empiricism, it then contends that while scientific social work can only rarely capture what occurs in the field, its attempt to do so actually undercuts practitioners’ professional judgment and discretion. Last, after rejecting science talk as counterproductive, the article concludes with recommendations for an alternative strategy that might better position social work to reconcile its advocacy of social justice with its concerns about its professional status.     

Inter and Intra Professional Social Work Differences: Social Works Challenge

Social work historically has had two overarching domains. One domain is concerned with communities and policy development, the other with direct practice involving individuals, groups and families. Both the macro and micro domains are infused with concerns of social justice and advocacy. Conflict in the profession between social justice and casework began over a century ago, with early social work leaders Mary Richmond and Jane Addams. Controversy within the profession continues today. This paper will present many of the differing viewpoints within the ever-changing kaleidoscope of the profession. The paper will objectively present the issues of debate regarding micro and macro foci and recent debates related to professionalization, licensure, and the education of social workers. It will challenge readers to critically think about their own practices and view points. The synergy of the profession is much more than either people changing or society changing. As a profession we must move beyond the discord to the embodiment of harmony. The problem of AIDS will be discussed in order to demonstrate the challenges of working at both the micro and macro levels. Dorothea Marie Epple, PhD, LCSW, BCD is an Assistant Professor in the MSW program at the University of St. Francis. She received her PhD in 2002 at the Institute of Clinical Social Work Chicago and an MSW from Loyola in 1982. Dorothea has 25 years experience in Clinical Social Work in mental health, hospital and hospice settings.     

Undoing Islamophobia: Awareness of Orientalism in Social Work

Islamophobia describes the racism, exploitation, and violence experienced by Arabs, individuals of Arab descent, and Muslims. Although social workers are meant to challenge social injustice, social work codes of ethics and the literature are without guidance for unlearning Islamophobia. Arguing that one’s ability to interrupt Islamophobia is strengthened by an understanding of the historical record and theoretical tenets of Orientalism, we offer social workers explicit linkages between Orientalism and Islamophobia and engage with the idea of Islamo-racism. In this article, we attend to the ways in which Orientalism is used to “other” individuals while strengthening white hegemony, and we link those processes with Islamophobia and Islamo-racism. We conclude with some strategies derived from postcolonial theory to disrupt Islamophobia.     

The Social Work and Politics Initiative

Abstract

Social work is becoming a more politically oriented profession. In addition, social work education is including politics as a greater part of the curriculum. Still, much more can be done to increase the amount of political content in social work education. This paper describes a model for involving students in political social work without drastically altering current arrangements. The model consists of two parts: a class on politics and social work and field practica in state legislators' district offices. Following a discussion of the literature on education for political social work, we look closely at the Social Work and Politics Initiative. We also examine problems encountered with the program.     

Toward a Radical Model of Social Work in Rural Communities

“Rural” areas as distinct from “urban” continue to be defined by greater personal interactions and less emphasis on formal systems of support. This reality rests in contradiction to the overwhelming majority of social work scholarship and theory development which takes place in an urban context. As such the present-day act of being a “social worker” in a rural community can, in many ways, feel like a bad fit, back-applying the model of an urban generalist into an environment whose organic community ties the social work model itself was originally designed to substitute for. In recognition of this, it is necessary to develop a “combined” model of practice for social work with rural communities and peoples. The fundamental distinction to be made is that rural social work, in its most radical form, is less concerned with adapting persons to the Gesellschaft than it is with strengthening the capacity of the Gemeinschaft to provide the kind of support capacity it historically has, taking into account changes and challenges resulting from factors such as globalization, urban sprawl, and cultural change.     

Combat Social Work During the Surge in Iraq

The military has long recognized the short-term psychiatric effects of war upon soldiers, a significant factor for combat operational readiness and strength (NATO, 2008). Currently referred to as combat stress reaction or combat operational stress reaction (COSR), the condition has debilitating, immediate effects as well as long-term consequences for soldiers and military units. For the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, commanders expected psychiatric casualties rates equaling physical ones, stemming from the intensity and duration of these conflicts, nonlinear nature of the battlefields, unit morale, and soldier experiences and preparedness. For these recent wars, the concept of behavioral health, combat stress, and its military importance has dramatically changed, as have the protocols dictating the delivery of preventive and restorative combat behavioral health care. This article outlines the conceptual foundation of modern combat stress control, protocols, and the efforts of one social worker–led combat stress prevention team, forward deployed to a small base in a volatile area of Baghdad during the height of the surge in 2006–2007.     

The Social Work Outreach Service Within a School of Social Work

ABSTRACT

This article describes a unique community outreach service that is designed specifically to meet the needs of the local community, provide training ground for social work students, and experiment with the development of new practice models. Located within a school of social work, the service was born in an atmosphere in which both the university and the school were being called upon to play a greater part in the community. Since its inception in 1992, it has successfully served the local community through direct service, community organization activities, and consultation. Despite these successes in outreach to the community, internal challenges continue to exist.     

Human Rights and the Social Work Curriculum: Integrating Human Rights into Skill-Based Education Regarding Policy Practice Behaviors

This article provides a model for social work educators seeking to integrate human rights content in the policy course. Each of the four policy-related practice behaviors (e.g., policy formulation, policy analysis, policy advocacy, and collaboration in policy practice) is examined with respect to the traditional methods used in social welfare policy courses and the ways in which these methods can be expanded to include human rights content. Available literature and multimedia resources are noted and practical human rights applications are presented with the goal of supporting efforts to achieve this integration.     

Using Participatory Action Research to Access Social Work Voices: Acknowledging the Fit

This article presents Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a critical methodology that fills a gap in health research, and describes the importance of using PAR with a group of social workers about their conceptualizations of health. While social work practice, knowledge and contributions extend beyond the traditional positivist framework that dominates health research, the profession’s unique understanding of health is frequently subsumed within work contexts that are dominated by bio-physiological conceptualizations of health. PAR provides a means of engaging the knowledge of social workers, which, in turn, helps in the pursuit of wide-reaching social justice and change.     

Social Capital Across the Life Course: Age and Gendered Patterns of Network Resources1

Despite increasing research interest in network dynamics and cumulative advantage/disadvantage processes, little remains known about how social capital varies across the life course. While some researchers suggest that social capital increases with age and others argue the opposite, this study tests these contradictory assertions by analyzing multiple indicators of social capital from a nationally representative data set on working‐age U.S. respondents. The findings reveal evidence of both social capital accumulation and decline. Social resources from occupational contacts tend to increase with age, but eventually level off among older respondents. Changes in voluntary memberships follow a similar pattern. However, daily social interaction is negatively associated with age. Overall, the results suggest that social capital embedded in occupational networks tends to accumulate across the career, even in the face of a general decline in sociability. The study also uncovers gender differences in these social capital trajectories that are linked to the distinct life experiences of men and women.     

Religious Discrimination in Social Work

Abstract

Using quantitative and qualitative methods, this study explored perceptions of compliance with the ethical standards related to religion (N = 222). As posited, perceptions of ethical compliance were lower among social workers who affirmed a conservative or orthodox theological orientation compared to those who affirmed a liberal or progressive theology. Standards of particular concern were those related to (a) social work education about religious diversity and the oppression religious people encounter and (b) efforts to prevent and eliminate religious discrimination. In concert with these findings, qualitative analysis indicated two areas of major concern: institutional settings, such as academia, and colleagues. Respondents reported being demeaned, denigrated, ridiculed, and scorned by social work colleagues due to their religious beliefs, particularly in educational settings. Interestingly, 44% of both orthodox and progressive respondents knew of clients who had experienced discrimination due to their religious beliefs at the hands of social work colleagues.     

Community-Based Research Strategies for Social Work Education

Teaching students to understand, appreciate, and utilize research based in the community is needed in social work education. This paper outlines five strategies for involving students in community- based research and discusses the advantages to this approach. Examples drawn from the authors' experiences are used to demonstrate application.     

Paulo Freire: Neglected Mentor for Social Work

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator and author, advocated radical educational approaches to empower oppressed peoples. Social workers contributing to English-language journals and other literature have made only limited use of Freire's ideas. Explanations may include social work's clinical drift, discomfort with radical ideas, obliviousness to contributions from the developing world, unease with religious thought, and avoidance of primary sources, in addition to the complexity of Freire's writing style. This article introduces Freire's contributions and suggests consistent approaches in social work practice, past and present, illustrating that those who practice with marginalized and disempowered people can benefit from reading Freire as a mentor.