ICT,young people and social work: distances and opportunities

ABSTRACT

The relationship between social work and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is an awkward one in Spanish tradition, particularly from social work perspective due to a certain lack of institutional and professional competence in terms of understanding the capabilities of ICTs. Young people use ICTs to connect to each other and express themselves, however. ICTs represent a means—increasingly the main one—for young people to build and communicate their own identities and understand reality. As with other social sciences, social work suffers from a difficult relationship with young people. Youth is often studied differently and sometimes perceived as a problem that ends when adulthood is reached. In this context, the relationship among ICTs, social work and young people is also a difficult one. But this problem may also be a solution. By adopting a critical ICT approach, social work can create innovative initiatives and frameworks to improve communication between social work practitioners and teachers as with young people and students. Imagination and empathy will clearly be key to achieving this, in addition to deeper involvement in the use of new software and applications that can offer enhanced communication and build bridges between social workers and young people.     

Young people,social workers and social work education: the role of digital skills

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses a key issue in the development of youth-focused social work: the role of digital skills in the relationship between young people and social workers who work with these native digital users. To this end, we analysed data from the International Digital Economy and Society Index 2019 and Eurostat. Information from the sixth European Working Conditions Survey and a survey conducted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence and the British Association of Social Workers supported the empirical analysis. The main findings reveal a gap between the level of digital skills required in the labour market and the actual level of digital skills in both young people and social workers, despite efforts by both groups to improve their skills. Initiatives to foster digital skills are therefore recommended to bridge this digital divide. Lastly, it was concluded that both groups could act as mutual drivers of digital transformation.     

On social work and what gender has got to do with it

Living in gendered societies makes it necessary to take into account the specific ways in which social problems and social issues affect the lives of women and men, girls and boys. Not only are social problems and social issues very often gender biased; this is also true for the professions dealing with these problems and issues, and for the training programmes for professions like social work. Sociological analysis of society and philosophical understanding of a good life are permeated by gender-specific perceptions -- often without those involved being aware of them. Furthermore, social policies reinforce gender-specific biases because they are based on gender-specific (i.e. male) standards. Gender as an analytical category has been brought into scientific and public discourse by feminist theoreticians and activists making women -- and thus also men -- visible with regard to structure and subject issues. The development of gender theory and research highlights the significance of gender arrangements to understand social phenomena and to support gender-equality ways of thinking and policies. At the same time, men and women are not only confronted with gendered structures, but via socialization processes and personal development they also reproduce these gender differences in their daily lives by 'doing gender'.     

Oh no! not more isms: Feminism,postmodernism, poststructuralism and social work education

In this article we explore how perspectives drawn from feminism, postmodernism and poststructuralism can usefully be applied to debates in social work education. Within this framework we highlight the centrality of issues related to power, knowledge, difference and subjectivity. We do not seek to offer a new set of ‘isms’, but to suggest a range of possibilities about the ways in which knowledge is produced and used within social work.     

Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel

Policy-practice is a form of social work intervention that is intended to influence social policy. It is linked to an understanding of the role of social workers which places the struggle for social justice at the forefront of social work activity. However, this form of social work intervention has remained on the sidelines of social work practice and education in most welfare states. This paper seeks to understand the role that policy-practice and social policy play, and have played, in social work and social work education in Israel. The findings indicate that, despite a growth in interest in the political role of social workers in Israel during the 1970s, policy-practice has remained a mode of practice adopted by a minority of members of the profession in Israel. An empirical study of the curriculums of the schools of social work in Israel indicates that this is the case for the study program in most of the schools. The reasons for this can be linked primarily to the overwhelming influence of American social work upon the development of the Israeli profession and to the process of liberalization and privatization of the Israeli welfare state in the last two decades.     

Interprofessional education: a curriculum response to work with children and young people

This paper charts the development of undergraduate teaching material produced at the Open University in the United Kingdom. The School of Health and Social Welfare at the University has a long history of providing open and distance learning and multiprofessionally focused education and training opportunities. In this instance two courses, entitled ‘Working with Young People’ and ‘Working with Children and Families’, were created to meet the needs of a diverse student audience working across the public, voluntary and private social care, health and education sectors. The materials produced were underpinned by the desire of their academic authors to challenge long‐established assumptions about the nature of children and young people's lives. Crucially though, both course developments reflected a requirement to demonstrate how policies and services for children and young people might be significantly improved. Accordingly, the paper offers some useful indications as to how interprofessional working with children and young people could be fostered. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distance education and international social work education

As a result of the development of new communication technology, distance education has become a rapidly growing area over the last few decades. Market and commercial pressures are major factors in its developing impact. Distance education has also been applied to social work education. Because it is a small field it may be both positively and negatively affected. Social work education requires face-to-face communication training. Educators need to respond to the limitations of distance education technologies and processes to provide for cultural and linguistic diversity, through openness to joint work across different cultures, anti-standardisation and -discrimination, reflexivity, user control and resources, and cultural and language translation.     

Sexuality,child care and social work education

Whilst it is important to acknowledge the holistic nature of sexuality and its relevance in all areas of social welfare and service provision, this paper is specifically concerned with lesbian, gay and bisexuality and child care. The issues discussed will be common to all service user groups but the insidious nature of the 'contamination or corruption' theories of homosexuality are particularly inflammatory for those working in the child care field and the young people with whom they work. This paper argues that the needs of lesbians and gay men, particularly young people, will continue to go unmet unless lesbian and gay issues are addressed explicitly in social work education and in a way which does not oversimplify what is an extremely complex task. Anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive practice are central features of the academic and practice curriculum; however, it is not simply a matter of adding lesbian and gay issues to the ever-increasing list of oppressions. The ideology of heterosexism and a legal framework which endorses the discrimination of lesbians and gay men create additional challenges to working with this group of people. As social work education becomes increasingly government and agency led, with a competency model of assessment ruling the day, the realities of what social workers can achieve need to be acknowledged if we are not to be accused of perpetuating meaningless rhetoric; playing into the hands of those who refer to political correctness.     

Communication,culture and competence in social work education

This paper argues that the managerialist influence on the DipSW has meant that both the models of social work and of social work education that have come to dominance since it was first approved in 1989 are incompatible with the development of anti-racist practice. We explore the potential of reformulating social work as a communicative activity and the implications of this for the education of social workers. We argue that this would require an approach that incorporates three main elements: an analysis of the way in which power and disadvantage is distributed between racial groups and the ways in which this affects their ability to represent their own needs in political debate; an understanding of the ways in which the wider discourses of racial domination find expression in culture; and the development of our understanding of how intrapsychic representations of race and power come to be inscribed in mental life. It is through the interrelationship of these domains that anti-racist practice can become integral to social work.     

Practice experience and social work education

Abstract

This paper examines the arguments that are often put in favour of social work academics having direct practice experience in order to enhance their teaching effectiveness. The paper looks at the number of ways that social work academics can gain up to date knowledge of practice developments and explores what constitutes an effective teacher. It concludes that recent direct practice experience will be of limited use in assisting social work academics to become effective teachers and that there are other ways that academics can become aware of practice developments that are in line with the other professional requirements on academics such as research and knowledge generation.     

Attempting suicide and help-seeking behaviours: using stories from young people to inform social work practice

In recent decades Australia has recorded one of the highest youth suicide rates worldwide. Attempted suicide is considered to be up to 50 times more common than completed suicides. This small, qualitative study, undertaken in North Queensland, aimed to offer a window into young people's lives concerning their suicide attempt(s) and their help-seeking behaviours. In-depth interviews were undertaken with nine young people. Findings reveal help was sought from a range of individuals prior to the attempt, including family, friends and professional workers. Regarding their attempts, there was evidence in some stories of a series of events leading up to the attempt, but also evidence in others of more impulsive acts. The intent of the attempt for this sample appeared to be unique to individual attempts. Getting information about depression, and workers listening to young people's unique story was important and workers, who could fill a ‘mate’ role, was viewed by some participants as helpful.     

Setting the agenda: social inclusion,children and young people

This paper was prepared collectively by participants of the third seminar in a series with the title Challenging ‘Social Inclusion’: Perspectives for and from Children and Young People. Three 3‐day seminars took place at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling in 2002–3 attended by academics, professionals from voluntary sector children's agencies, young people, representatives from central government and postgraduate students. Funding was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Children's Society.     

Conceptualizing anxiety among social work students: implications for social work education

Student anxiety is frequently discussed within social work education. Due to its potentially devastating impacts, social work educators need to have a full understanding of anxiety in this context, in order to determine the best way to support students. Research on student anxiety from a broad body of literature provides implications for social work classrooms and field education. Key underlying concepts from previous social work and related research on student anxiety inform a conceptual model to help educators develop a more complex understanding of student anxiety. Implications for further research and important next steps in the development of support strategies for social work students are identified.     

Looking back on social work education

Some personal reflections on some major issues, problems and achievements in social work and social work education in the last forty years together with a, probably unwise, attempt to predict the future.     

Developing social work education in Lithuania

From 1991 through 1998, during the turmoil of independence and transition to a democracy and free-market economy, the authors established the first social work education programme in Lithuania and assisted Lithuanian professionals to assume responsibility for the programme. This article supplies an initial general and conceptual narrative and analyses some of the factors that influenced the development of the programme and a practice model to address conditions in Lithuania.