The Use of Self from a Relational Perspective

This article explores the implications of a contemporary relational perspective on the use of self in social work practice. The author is responding to an article by Andrea Reupert, who interviewed social workers and reported they tended to see their concept of self as individualistic, autonomous, and only partially defined by others, even though social work practice focuses on person-in-environment. In this article, the author expands the concept of self and argues that a contemporary view of the therapist’s self is one that is dialogic, contextualized, decentered, and multiple. Additionally, the author suggests that this relational perspective has implications for teaching and supervision. Several clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate the concepts under discussion.     

Using family circles to increase competency and confidence in social work

The family circle instrument is a self-constructed diagram that has been used by family physicians for more than 40 years to gather and assess information about patients’ family connections and relationships. Even though healthcare professionals have found the family circle instrument to be effective and easy to administer, the literature is silent on social workers’ use of this instrument to engage and assess individuals and families. This article describes the effectiveness of the family circle interviewing method in increasing the confidence and skill of graduate social work students in assessing families. The author also presents the results of an evaluative study that examined graduate social work students’ use of the family circle instrument. Graduate social work students received instruction on how to administer the family circle interview as a method of engaging and assessing families from a family systems perspective. Thus, a primary focus of this article is upon how using the family circle interview can promote competency and confidence among students to engage and assess families. A majority of the students that completed family circle instruction felt the instrument helped them understand families from a systems perspective and increased their confidence in their ability to assess families.     

Rethinking Social Work's Interpretation of ‘Environmental Justice’: From Local to Global

This article challenges social workers to expand their understanding of the ‘person-in-environment’ perspective and become more active in addressing current environmental crises. Although social work scholars have begun to explore the relationship between social work and the natural and built environment and professional organizations mandate the integration of this content into practice and education, these goals remain unrealized, particularly in the USA. To address these issues more effectively, social work educators will need to distinguish between understanding persons in their environment and environmentalism, and between environmentalism and environmental justice. This article analyzes the emergence of the environmental justice movement in the USA and other nations and its relationship to environmental racism. It presents a case study of a local environmental justice effort to demonstrate how social workers can use their knowledge and skills to make important contributions to environmental justice and sustainability. It also discusses the potential of ‘green social work’ and transformative learning theory as tools to help social work educators better equip students to make strategic alliances across professions, disciplines, and systems to address contemporary environmental crises.     

Increasingly Strange Bedfellows? An Examination of the Inclusion of Disability Issues in University- and Agency-based Social Work Education in a Welsh Context

Previous research has indicated relative reluctance among student social workers to plan future careers working with people with physical impairments. This continuing longitudinal study followed one cohort of undergraduate social work students from induction, to investigate and contribute to the development of effective curriculum strategies in preparing students for contemporary generic social work practice in relation to disability issues. A mixed methodology approach utilising questionnaires and focus groups was used to track the development of social work student perceptions of their preparedness for working with disabled people at different points in their education.

Preliminary results revealed that while personal experience is a strong determinant of future interest in working within a particular service area, the use of case studies designed and delivered in conjunction with service users, carers and current practitioners appeared to be a particularly positive method of encouraging students to reflect upon real-life challenges within a safe environment. Results also suggest that interweaving features of a curriculum infusion model with a distinct module approach may moderate the gap that is perceived by students as remaining stubbornly prevalent between university- and agency-based learning.     

Hearts and Minds: Aspects of Empathy and Wellbeing in Social Work Students

Although empathy is critical to social work practice, the extent to which it can be measured, nurtured or taught is hotly debated. Furthermore, definitions of empathy are typically one-dimensional referring to the ability to adopt the perspective of others in order to understand their feelings, thoughts or actions. Such definitions do not adequately reflect the realities of empathy in the social work context or recognise its potential to lead to distress. This study utilises data from 359 social work students to examine relationships between several dimensions of empathy (i.e. perspective taking, concern and distress), reflective ability and wellbeing with a view to using the findings to develop evidence-based interventions to help staff develop appropriate empathic responses to service users' experiences. Whilst students reported fairly high levels of empathic concern, they also disclosed considerable empathic distress. Some evidence was found that reflective ability might protect social work students from empathic distress. Findings suggest that students require support to develop their empathic and reflective skills to effectively manage the emotional demands of practice. The use of techniques such as mindfulness and experiential learning for enhancing such skills is explored.     

Becoming aware of the grand social challenges: how an international and interdisciplinary educational context may broaden students’ perspectives on human rights and public health

ABSTRACT

The understanding of contemporary social problems and challenges in an international and national perspective is a significant issue for social work because of globalisation and social problems are too complex to handle by single actors themselves. The need for interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration is important. This paper focuses on experiences from an Erasmus Intensive Programme with the title Human Rights, Public Health and Social Service Challenges on Local Government in the Nordic-Baltic Sea Area. Social work students from different countries interacted with students from other disciplines such as political science, psychology and economy to discuss common challenges and solutions in this field. The analysis of the findings shows students reflect upon human rights issues as universal rights and how challenges presented by contextual differences in preconditions for everyday life between the countries, are reflected from different disciplines/professional perspectives. The paper argues that international and interdisciplinary programmes, where students get the opportunity to meet and to work with overarching and transnational issues, have a great potential for engaging students in global development in a rapidly changing world.     

The Learning Relationship: Working Through Disjunctions in the Classroom

This paper advances a relational perspective to teaching social work practice. The reflective use of this relationship aids the instructor in conceptualizing interactions with students in ways that further the students' understanding of social work practice. We argue that students learn first-hand about social work through the instructor-student relationship. Inevitably, parallel to clinical practice and the client-worker relationship, disjunctions in the learning relationship occur. Drawing on the literature pertaining to the client-worker relationship and to the supervisor-supervisee relationship, this paper explores the use of this relationship to address ruptures in the learning process and to enhance students' professional development.     

Social Work within a Community Discourse: Challenges for Teaching

This paper considers the continuing debate about the relationship between social work and community work. We write about our collaboration as educators, one from a social work background and the other from a community work background and discuss the challenge of teaching community work to social work students in a way that is relevant for contemporary practice, and that embraces community work principles and values. Our paper explores Ife's framework of competing discourses of human services and discusses how it has helped us to articulate our thinking and teaching practice in the Irish context. For us, the framework integrates social work and community work within a community discourse that provides a language transcending disciplinary boundaries. This approach represents a means of familiarising students with the community work process and enabling them to take action on issues of social justice. The framework represents four competing models of human service delivery: the managerial, the market, the professional and the community. We discuss how we use this conceptualisation to teach and engage students in a process of critical reflection. The paper discusses methods we use to undertake this process, and the development of our teaching practice over the last two years.     

Teaching Note―Conceptualization of a Contemporary Social Work Ethics Course

This article outlines the conceptualization of a contemporary social work course for the foundation level of a midwestern U.S. master’s of social work program. The conceptualization uses problem-based and applied learning and reflective thinking with attention to the developmental level of students. A brief review of factors to be considered in teaching social work ethics is included. Student learning beyond the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics is described as well as the use of an ethical decision-making model.     

Reflections on Study Abroad Education: Guidelines on Study Abroad Preparation and Process

In view of constant changes in today's world, it is imperative that social work education embrace a global perspective. Therefore, educators must continue to pay attention to, and adopt methods of, social interventions needed to address changing world circumstances. This paper will present a rationale for the study abroad experience and for the use of social networking to enhance the experience. Shared are points to consider when preparing and educating social work students for a global perspective in social work practice. Participant partners were Fayetteville State University, the University of Dar Es Salaam, and the Institute of Social Work.     

The role of social work field education programmes in the transmission of developmental social work knowledge in Southern and East Africa

This paper reports on the findings of a study on the role of social work field education programmes in the transmission of developmental social work knowledge in Southern and East Africa. It highlights the challenges in locating developmental social work placements and the creativity shown by social work educators in addressing these challenges and improving learning opportunities for social work students. Both academics and students were found to be committed to developmental social work, within a willing practice environment hampered by knowledge, capacity and resource constraints. Social work education was found to be playing a transformative role through the teaching of a developmental social work curriculum and the creation of collaborative developmental social work learning experiences. Social work educators trained and supported agency supervisors in developmental social work, while students served as conduits, modelling developmental social work practice. What has yet to be determined in future research is the students’ perspective of this developmental educational environment.     

Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece: educating the workforce to combat inequalities

Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying social work education in Greece influence students' ability to manage value tensions in relation to anti-oppressive practice? Using a case study methodology, the research was based in one Social Work Department (subsequently abolished). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from social work students at the beginning and the end of their professional education (n?=?32) and once from academic staff/placement supervisors (n?=?10). Data were analysed drawing on grounded theory techniques. In this paper only one particular dataset is considered in detail: the attitudes and experiences of final year students. The main findings indicate students' narrow understandings and individualistic approaches towards oppression, reflecting an urgent need to redefine social work education and practice in Greece according to current social justice concerns. Specifically, social work education needs to give greater weight to a structural perspective on the dynamics of oppression. Although focussed on Greece, the paper offers a critical debate of contemporary relevance for social work education in many European nation states.     

‘Back to our Roots?’ Re-visiting psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in the education of student social workers

While there is a well-established literature on psychoanalytically-informed baby and young child observation in social work education, little has been published recently. This paper reviews the rationale for its use, evaluating its impact on students’ learning in the light of contemporary policy and practice contexts facing social work education. Analysis of feedback gained from a recent cohort, identifies three ways in which learning through baby and young child observation contributes: firstly, students encounter and learn about the complexity of child development from the direct experience of observing and secondly, observing facilitates the development of important skills for practice; students’ ‘use of self’. Thirdly, through observing, students describe how they develop the capacity to take-up and sustain a professional role. Well-structured teaching and learning through observation is therefore shown to provide a rigorous, theoretically-grounded contribution to the training of university-based social work students entering this complex and challenging professional field.     

“扩展的临床视角”下企业社会工作的干预策略——以广东D厂的新员工为目标群体

在劳资冲突愈发严重的当代中国,作为劳资之间的沟通桥梁,企业社会工作越来越受到关注。基于巴尔廓帕尔提出的扩展的临床视角,结合笔者在广东D厂的实习社工经验,从人与环境的双重改变入手,本文构建了面向新员工的企业社会工作干预策略,阐述了社会工作介入企业所面临的挑战。本文认为,在员工高流失率困扰越来越多企业的情况下,选取新员工进行企业社工干预的尝试不仅具有可行性,也是社工介入企业领域的新契机。     

‘What shall I pack in my suitcase?’: the role of work-integrated learning in sustaining social work students’ professional identity

Interest in the reflective practitioner as a model of a ‘good professional’ has increased in several professional fields and is also valued within social work education as a key aspiration to address the uncertainties and challenges encountered in contemporary working environments. Reflecting on their own professional identity, as well as theories, values, and devices used in professional practice, can help practitioners deal with complex work demands and help students be better equipped to transition from university to work. Work-integrated learning (WIL) provides students with an opportunity to integrate academic learning with ‘real-world’ experiences to develop both valuable self-monitoring and professional self-constructive ability. This paper presents a case study in social work higher education in which WIL class-based teaching was combined with the use of reflective journals to explore the role of WIL in developing reflective practices for professional identity formation. 21 reflective journals by social work students are analysed. The findings suggest that teaching practices based on WIL enable professional identity formation by developing reflective practices, and that different learning conditions sustain specific dimensions of professional identity, i.e. professional expertise, membership to a professional community and sense of professional self.     

Teaching Critical Perspectives: Analyses of Professional Practice in the Film Ladybird,Ladybird

This article presents three critical analyses of social work practice as depicted in Ken Loach's 1994 film Ladybird, Ladybird. The analyses are intended to serve as a teaching tool in a course on critical perspectives in social work. The tool applies the radical, feminist and postmodern critiques of social work practice to the depiction of the practice in the film. It seeks to contribute to a better understanding of those critical approaches that have developed within the social work profession and, in particular, to emphasize the relevance of these approaches to actual practice. The article explicitly endeavors to arouse debate and reflection on practice among social worker students and to encourage self‐criticism in order to further the development of anti‐oppressive social work practice.     

Promoting Resilience Through Social Work Practice with Groups: Implications for the Practice and Field Curricula

The realities of contemporary social work practice often push social workers toward a deficit-focused orientation. The article begins with an overview of the major tenets of resiliency and adversarial growth theories and related research findings. We suggest that the group modality epitomizes the application of resiliency theory and adversarial growth to social work practice. A primary focus of this article is on articulating and illustrating the unique contribution group work makes for promoting client resilience. The article provides a theoretical and empirical framework that students, practitioners, and educators alike can use to identify, understand, and capitalize on client strengths through group work. Implications for social work education, specifically the practice and field curricula, are discussed.     

Reality-play--experiential learning in social work training

A unique teaching model, called reality-play, arose as the result of the author's two concerns about how to teach students to integrate a theoretical model as a working tool in social work and how to prevent them from categorising people. In this teaching approach students have to go through a whole social work process by using their own real life challenges as learning material. The purpose is to learn social work from the perspective of a social worker, a user and an observer at the same time. The paper is divided into two parts. The first paper introduced the teaching model, showed how it built on an overall theoretical perspective of social constructionism, and on learning theories of adult, experiential and confluent learning to meet the concerns mentioned above. This second part presents a student evaluation of the teaching model in relation to three interwoven topics: involvement, integration of theory and practice, and awareness.     

Teaching social workers about microaggressions to enhance understanding of subtle racism

Understanding microaggressions can aid learners in exploring the complexity of contemporary racism. The concept of microaggressions refers to subtle acts of discrimination stemming from various individual and societal factors that combine to perpetuate often unintentional and unconscious acts of racism. Although much is known about microaggressions, there are few educational tools on the subject described in the literature, particularly within the field of social work. We have developed a workshop to be used with both social work students and professionals on how to recognize and interrupt microaggressions. The workshop content includes a biopsychosocial framework for understanding subtle racism.