Social Work Teachers and Social Work Practice

Summary A survey was undertaken to discover the extent to which thosesocial work teachers who teach social work methods, continueto practise after they become educators. The results suggestthat not more than 25% do so, and many of these on only a tokenbasis. Most respondents however regarded such practice as animportant aide to the teaching of social work methods, althoughsome consider consultancy roles to be equally relevant. In nocases was such practice linked with research, and only exceptionallydid employers allow time explicitly for it. We outline fourdifferent bases on which teachers might practise, all of whichwere suggested by respondents, many of whom added personal notesto the questionnaire, indicating the extent to which this subjectis a matter of wide interest and concern     

社会工作与农村社会工作的使命

从社会工作与农村社会工作发展的现状入手,论述了社会工作尤其是农村社会工作的基础、特征、使命,强调农村社会工作的实践性与反思性,在此基础上提出丰富本土社会工作知识,加强与国际社会工作的对话能力。     

Social Gerontology and Social Work

Summary This paper reviews developments in the study of ageing as anindividual and social experience and it considers recent studiesof practical services for the elderly. In so doing it aims tohighlight the ways in which social work skills and helping techniquescan be developed. It also relates the findings of studies ofservice delivery to the elderly to the development of futurepolicy.     

Social Work for Social Fitness

Summary Social work has lost the perspective of social relationshipsas ends in themselves, and has become predominantly an impersonal,individualistic technology. Several interpersonal dimensionsare outlined to help fill this social value vacuum, and it issuggested that these can be held together by the concept ofsocial fitness. This is defined as the mutual development ofthe individual and his total network to a fullness of identitywhich is an end in itself and does not depend on the achievementof any other objectives. The kind of power produced by thisfitness is distinguished from power of the impersonal kind,and its meaning for social workers is discussed in relationto material need. Finally, the future development of socialwork is considered briefly in terms of promoting social fitnessthrough work with various kinds of social networks.     

A Case for Social Work Evaluation of Social Work Education

Correspondence to Imogen Taylor, Research Fellow, Department of Social Work, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN Summary This paper discusses the importance of evaluation of socialwork education by social work researchers, particularly giventhe increasing demands from different interest groups for socialwork courses to demonstrate effectiveness. It is noted that educational researchers are dominating thefield of educational evaluation, yet it is crucial for the survivalof social work that social work education be evaluated by socialwork researchers. Both the tools and the outcome of such evaluationwill shape the future of social work education and social workitself. Recognizing that cross fertilization of ideas between disciplinesis essential, a model for social work evaluation is proposedwhich is derived from models developed by other disciplinesand integrated with social work practice theory. The resultingresearch model draws a number of parallels between researchand practice, bringing together two groups which are often distantand distinct. The model also brings researcher and user closertogether. The model is analysed in light of its applicationto the evaluation of Enquiry and Action Learning, an innovativeapproach to social work education implemented by the Departmentof Social Work, University of Bristol. Central government funding must be available to ensure systematicand rigorous evaluation of social work education rather thanthe piecemeal research possible so far.     

Calling Social Work

New Labour has promoted the use of information and communicationtechnology. Call centres are a key development in this strategyand are now in use for accessing social services. In officialpolicy, the use of call centres is presented as an aspect ofattempts to change the relationship between service users andthe purchasers and providers of services. In contrast, we suggestthat the use of call centres in social care does little to shiftthe balance of power. Call centres bring together four dimensionsof New Labour discourse: learning from the private sector, cuttingcosts, technology and consumerism. Three issues emerge fromtheir development: the undermining of social work’s senseof place; the circumscribing of service user participation;the rationalization of social workers. The call centre servesas a signifier of what, it is claimed, the combination of NewLabour’s consumerism and technology can achieve. Thissignification disguises call centres’ properties of efficiency,calculability, predictability and control. Contrary to the rhetoricthat accompanies them, call centres may be curtailing serviceuser participation, as well as delimiting the social work role.Accordingly, their use has important, but as yet largely unresearched,implications for service users and social workers.     

Recognizing Social Work

There has been little interest until recently in the questionof whether social work has the characteristics of an academicdiscipline. This article offers a synopsis of issues arisingfrom a review of social work and social care research fundedthrough the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Followinga brief scene setting, the first main section of the articlegives a synopsis of the social work and social care community’sexperience and judgements regarding their engagement with theresearch council. In the second part of the article, we reviewrelevant policies, structures and trends from an ESRC and socialscience perspective. We focus on the development of researchprogrammes, followed by an outline of the delivery and implementationof programmes. In the final section, we review the issues, themesand directions that emerged from the project. These includejudgements of research relevance, research users, research utilization,the social work contribution to the development of researchmethods, inter-disciplinary research, the question of whetherthere are distinctive attributes of social work research, researchcapacity, career building, priority setting, and the outcomesof social work funding bids. We also reflect on the developmentand delivery of research programmes, and the implications ofthe invisibility of social work research within the ESRC. Disciplineswithin universities are not fixed and abiding realities. ‘Recognizing’social work is a dynamic, socially negotiated process, shapedby the construction and ordering of knowledge claims withinsocial work and social science communities, and reflecting powerdifferentials that are mediated through structural mechanismsthat tend to exclude new ‘claimants’ such as socialwork. We include a number of recommendations, and suggest waysin which the issues may have relevance beyond the UK.     

Social Work Today

Correspondence to Chris Jones, Department of Social Work and Community Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2TQ Summary This paper argues that over the last fifteen years social workin Britain has undergone a significant transformation. Underincreasing attack, both in the media and from government andits new right ideologues, social work has faced an increasinglyimpoverished client group with fewer resources and growing uncertaintyabout its legitimate role. In this context, legislative, administrativeand financial changes have pushed social work into an increasinglyantagonistic relationship with clients and have left it demoralizedand without a clear sense of direction. The paper looks at theway this change has come about and argues that it has profoundimplications for the future of social work in the reduced welfarestate of the 1990s.     

Defensive Social Work

Correspondence to Nigel Harris, Department of Philosophy, The University, Dundee DD1 4HN. Summary Social workers with child clients face the possibility thatsome mistake or oversight of theirs could lead to a child abusetragedy, for which they may suffer opprobrium and blighted careers.How can they guard against such risks? This paper shows howsocial workers might use different types of ‘defensive’measure to protect themselves. These parallel the types of measureused by some doctors, particularly in the United States, facedwith risks of litigation on grounds of malpractice. Becausedefensive practices have undesirable consequences, it is importantto find ways to eliminate their use by protecting social workersby other means.     

Social Work as a Social Institution

This paper discusses trends in social work in the last twenty-fiveyears. Within the broad theme of social work as a social institution,more detailed attention is focused on: services for childrenand elderly people; manageralism; and social work research andevaluation. Processes of secularization, professionalism andmanageralism have weakened the impetus for social reform. Thishas sharpened dilemmas for social work in balancing benefitsfor service users and public involvement with tight state controland regulation.     

Social Movements, Social Justice and Social Work

Correspondence to: Neil Thompson, Avenue Consulting Ltd, PO Box 2060, Wrexham LL13 OZG, Wales, UK. Summary This paper explores the relationship between social movements,social justice and social work. It examines the role of socialmovements in promoting social justice and considers the influencesof such movements in the development of emancipatory forms ofsocial work practice. It also considers the question of whethersocial work can be viewed as a form of social movement in itsown right. A central theme of the paper is the fundamental tensionbetween social work as a force for social regulation and asa force for social development and emancipation.     

Work Satisfaction in Probation and Social Work

Correspondence to Professor Martin Davies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Summary The design and preliminary development of a research instrumentintended to provide comparable measures of work satisfactionwithin different social work settings is described. The resultsof administering it to two separate samples of social workersand probation officers are presented. It appears that probation officers feel themselves more highlyregarded by members of the general public and are less likelyto say they are badly paid; they enjoy more job autonomy; rathermore social workers tend to feel alienated at work, but mostbelieve that they have better chances of career advancementthan is the case in the probation service. There are broad similarities between the two work settings sofar as work with clients and attitudes towards colleagues areconcerned; it is argued that the emergence of these similaritiesis methodologically reassuring because it suggests the stabilityof the data overall, and therefore increases the likelihoodthat the findings regarding agency differences are a valid reflectionof social reality in each setting.     

论社工教学中社工元素的融入与应用

目前,社会需要大量的社工专业人才,但社工人才流失却很严重。社工教育对学生社工实务能力的培养有限,学生对专业的认同也不够,是导致社工人才流失的部分原因。在社工教学中融入社工元素有助于改变这一现状。文章分享了将社工元素融入社工教学的一些经验,并尝试提出相应的社工教学改革建议,以促进教学质量。     

Social Work and AJSI

AJSI had its genesis in the Department of Social Work at the University of Sydney in 1961. Since that time both social work and the AJSI have developed and drifted apart. This paper charts this journey and points to a future where social work and AJSI will function as partners in critiquing social policy and social issues.     

Trusting in Social Work

Two successive terms of a New Labour government have requiredsocial work practice in the UK to occupy a particular publicpolicy context that is, at best, indifferent and, at worst,hostile to some of the professional interests and traditionalconstituencies of social workers. In this paper, the immediatepast editors of the Journal reflect on how social work has soughtto adapt and survive under these conditions, as revealed inthe papers published during the period of their stewardship.     

Graduate Social Work Education

This paper reviews the current state of empirical research on graduate social work education, focusing upon the major curriculum content areas of research, practice skills, HBSE, policy, values, and field instruction. The authors address what has been accomplished to date, and which areas are especially in necd of quality research investigations.     

我的社工生涯

启程2008年11月4日,我带着一个红白蓝胶袋、一个皮夹,背着一部手提电脑,一个人来到了江门,一个全新的城市,开始了我的社工生涯.来到这个城市,主要是因为被健玲师姐那份浓浓的家乡情怀深深吸引,当时从报道中看到她那种投入和不断将社工理念和方法融入到医院工作中的热情,我的心里有一股热潮:这就是我要去的地方!从我开始接触社工...     

社会工作价值理念在民族社会工作中的运用

社会工作是一个以其专业价值理念为本的学科。民族社会工作是社会工作本土化过程中的重要实务领域,自然也要以社会工作的价值理念为指导。在民族社会工作中,结合少数民族自身的特性,相应的社会工作价值理念的运用尤其重要。     

社会工作价值理念在民族社会工作中的运用

社会工作是一个以其专业价值理念为本的学科。民族社会工作是社会工作本土化过程中的重要实务领域,自然也要以社会工作的价值理念为指导。在民族社会工作中,结合少数民族自身的特性,相应的社会工作价值理念的运用尤其重要。