The Role of Housing Managers in the Implementation of Community Care

This article will outline the response of housing management to the implementation of community care policy in the North East. It will locate housing's role within the broader development of community care policy, and briefly review the reasons for housing's relatively late arrival as a key partner, alongside social services and health, in the planning and delivery of services. Using information gathered from interviews with housing professionals, part-time housing students, voluntary organizations, and workers within health and social services, it outlines and evaluates five main factors which appear to be affecting the successful integration of housing management into the process of planning and delivering community care services in the North East.     

So near and yet so far - socio-spatial factors affecting service accessibility

ABSTRACT

Conventionally, social service planners conduct statistical analyses on service data for future planning. However, the limitations are their neglect of the spatial characteristics of these social data and their effects. All human activities have social and spatial dimensions. Social service provision is no exception. In this study, the authors suggest a socio-spatial framework in term of understanding service accessibility. A questionnaire survey was conducted and 491 participants, users and non-users, were interviewed. The results show that both spatial and social capital factors affect service accessibility. The study can help better service planning in densely-populated Asian metropolis like Hong Kong.     

Discharge Planning

Discharge planning services have become very important to older adults who are subject to shortened hospital stays due to the prospective payment form of reimbursement based on diagnostic related groups (DRGs). A study of older adults discharged from three acute care hospitals in New York City shows a direct association between patients' satisfaction with their discharge plan and the number of services arranged by discharge planners. Patients told, "your DRGs are up" as the reason for their discharge, needed the greatest amount of help with activities of daily living. Implications for social workers offering discharge planning services are addressed.     

Social exclusion in Europe: some conceptual issues

In the late 20th and early 21st century, social exclusion has become something of a trope around which is pegged justifications for various reforms. The notion of social exclusion has found its way into the lexicon of all major global governance institutions. How has this happened, and what are its implications for scholars of contemporary welfare reforms? In this article, we consider the ‘rise and rise’ of the discourse of social exclusion, with particular reference to its development as a policy paradigm within the European Union. We note that its initial iteration was anchored in a functionalist discourse of social organisation but that this was quickly challenged both by post‐structuralist and post‐colonial perspectives and by research findings that undermined the view of mainstream institutions as fundamentally integrative and inclusive in nature. The debate about social exclusion, we suggest, is simultaneously a debate about the historical and social dynamics of European modernity.     

Value Bases in Social Work Education

Correspondence to Elisabeth Lynn, Lecturer in Social Work, Centre for Applied Social Studies, 9th Floor, Chemistry Tower, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK. Summary In this paper the two values of social justice and personalcaring are identified as key ideologies within social work education.Their presence is traced within a historical ebb and flow oftheory and practice and it is argued that this dialectic isembedded in social and individual systems. Based on fieldworkresearch with social work lecturers and practice teachers, itis argued that anti-oppressive social work needs a reflexivetheory/practice model to provide an understanding of how structuralpower affects all aspects of an individual. This demands a workingsynthesis of the two values of Personal Canng and Social Justicewithin an understanding of a multiple approach.     

Main Street U.S.A.: A Comparison/Contrast of Streetscapes in Disneyland and Walt Disney World

All visitors to Disneyland and Walt Disney World must enter the “magic kingdoms” by way of Main Street, U.S.A.—the Disney version of a small town landscape of around the turn of the century, the “classical period” in American streetscape evolution. Extending far beyond its park setting, Disney's idealized Main Street (along with the overall design of which it is a part) is “one of the most successfully designed streetscapes in human history,” and has exerted enormous impact. Its design and images have influenced city and new town planning and the restoration of real Main Streets across the country, inspiring architectural restoration philosophy and practice; in short, writing an important chapter in the history of America's fondest image of itself. It was in fact from the ranks of planners and designers, not academic intellectuals or even social commentators (who scorned and reviled Disney's creations), that the initial awareness and appreciation of theme parks as structures and images came, as a leading edge in the breakthrough in perception of popular environments which has occurred only within the past decade. Richard Francaviglia is concerned with the architecture and design of Main Street U.S.A. as it preserves, controls, modifies and perpetuates a central collective image. But he goes further, comparing the original articulation in California with the Florida version a design generation later. What is ultimately revealing is the contrast of both of these related but distinct ideals within the parks to Main Street as it actually existed.     

Child Abuse, Social Anxiety and Welfare

Summary This article attempts to locate the ‘moral panic’concerning child abuse within the context of broader changesin the material conditions and ideological forces in Britainin the early 1970s. It argues that the development of a senseof social anxiety amongst certain sections of the populationand the appeal of the New Right were crucial in the processof establishing the problem as the major issue for social workers.As a consequence social workers have been constrained into amore punitive and interventive relationship with children andfamilies, particularly the poor. The analysis illustrates thatthe way social workers experience role conflict and tensionin this area of their work reflects much wider historical andcultural confusions and contradictions.     

Living on the edge: welfare and the urban poor in 1930s Beijing

This article examines poverty and welfare provision in early twentieth-century Beijing as dialogue and transaction between the city government and the urban poor. Earlier studies of the Chinese urban have tended to emphasize the material aspects of urban development, and the efforts of planners and city governments to modernize China’s cities, rather than the human experience of the city. This article draws on the extensive archives of the Beijing Municipal Government Social Affairs Bureau to extend our understanding of the experience of poverty and the agency of the poor. The archive confirms that Beijing’s growing and increasingly formalized welfare institutions were designed to discipline the poor as they alleviated poverty. However, the correspondence between applicants for welfare and the Social Affairs Bureau also reveals that the poor often approached these institutions instrumentally and assertively. Recourse to the welfare institute became a livelihood tactic, a claim on the authorities in pursuit of which certain sub-groups within the poor mobilized intangible assets, from social networks to understanding of the intended terms of the system, to sway the terms of their engagement with the authorities in their own favour.     

Knowing what we know about knowledge in social work: The search for a comprehensive model of knowledge production

Influenced by its historical beginnings, the production and modelling of knowledge in social work has become a small but diverse field. Ten key models exploring the nature of knowledge and its production in social work are reviewed against significant ideas from the interdisciplinary knowledge production literature beyond social work. In so doing, the place of holistic approaches to modelling the knowledge production process within social work and the human services is highlighted. It is argued that despite the number of models that attempt to describe the knowledge production process, there is scope for a more comprehensive, holistic, complex approach to modelling knowledge production in social work and the human services.     

跨国社会工作：全纳式模式

本文将对作为跨国社会工作模式的全纳式服务输出进行探索。全纳式模式（Wraparound Model）最初应用于社区儿童心理健康服务以及儿童保护行动中。这种模式可以有效的为需求复杂,并且需要多个服务提供者的客户及家庭进行服务规划。目前大多数社会工作属于国内或国际性输出,很少需要跨国完成,本文将就如何构建该模式以适应跨国移民的特殊需求（涉及非政府组织（NGO）和国际性非政府组织（INGO）的参与）进行概括,并说明其中主要的障碍和限制。     

Conceptualizing and responding to poverty in the Republic of Ireland in the 1960s: a case study of Dublin

The 1960s saw reformulations and rediscoveries of poverty in the West. This article examines the experience of the Republic of Ireland, a state with a large network of religious charitable agencies and a predilection for voluntary over statutory services. While sociologists have identified an Irish rediscovery of poverty as occurring in the early 1970s, it is argued here that a reframing of understandings of poverty, and the services required to address it, was apparent throughout the 1960s, in the media, in the actions of voluntary, civic and political groups, and in attempts to gather data on social problems. This article investigates the extent to which external ideas influenced a rediscovery or reformulation of poverty in Ireland, placing developments in local, national and transnational contexts. It focuses in particular on the changes within Catholicism that were key to the Irish rediscovery. Dublin is used as a case study in order to examine experiences of poverty on the ground. The correspondence associated with a charitable agency and a maternity hospital reveal the nature of the welfare mix that existed in the capital city and the way in which poverty was managed at a local level. In examining poverty from these different vantage points, this article identifies how ideas of and responses to poverty evolved in this period. It argues that while calls for the further development of collective responses to poverty were key to its reformulation, the historical dominance of voluntary agencies and the complex realities of welfare provision on the ground limited the potential for transformative change.     

Using research in practice: A research information service for social care practitioners

In recent years a variety of initiatives have been created with the aim of increasing the use of research in social care practice. This article reports findings from a one‐year pilot research information service provided by the What Works for Children project. Taking note of the evidence from the research utilization literature, the service was set up to support social care practitioners in using research findings in their service‐planning. An implementation officer worked with service‐planners to identify areas where research could be helpful. Researchers provided responses to practitioners’ questions by searching for, critically appraising and summarizing the relevant literature. This article looks at the practicalities of running such a service and discusses its potential for influencing research use. The pilot underlines the importance of some of the obstacles to using research, some of which our service was able to overcome. The gap between what practitioners want from research and what research provides is discussed.     

历史个体与普遍历史:历史主义脉络中的社会变迁

发端于18世纪的德国历史主义思想脉络中,包含着一种从历史个体到历史个体的普遍历史解释模式。这种独特的社会变迁思想是在同启蒙思想的对话中确立起来的。起先包裹在天意历史论的目的论外衣中,后来历史主义的发展逐步脱去了这层外衣,在解释社会学传统中演变成了一种经验科学意义上的独特社会变迁思想。随着社会理论对韦伯的去历史化,蕴含在解释社会学中的这种社会变迁思想逐渐被淹没了。有鉴于此,本文将在赫尔德以来的历史主义脉络节点中梳理这种社会变迁思想的形成。     

Rethinking needs assessment in planning services for older adults

Needs assessments are widely used in the field of aging, and are considered valuable tools for planning service responses to unmet and undermet needs of older adults. This article describes a comprehensive needs assessment of Bermuda's older population and presents some of its findings to illustrate concerns about needs assessments that emerged from this experience. We suggest that even when needs assessments are carefully planned and adhere to generally recognized best practice principles, they may not be able to fully provide desired information. A revision of key assumptions about needs assessment is offered for researchers, planners, and community workers.     

历史唯物论视野下的新农村建设

新农村建设是在农村落实科学发展观的具体体现,是构建社会主义和谐社会的重要内容和关节点。从历史唯物论的视角看,新农村建设中存在着共性难题:一是新农村建设中主客体错位与主体缺失;二是新农村建设发展动力不足;三是新农村建设的制度制约。原因有:第一,作为农村上层建筑的政治体制改革相对落后,致使保护农民合法权益、合法利益的制度缺失。第二,对农村发展规律把握不准,致使决策层所制定的某些政策缺乏操作性。第三,党中央新农村建设任务与各地农村经济社会发展现实没有实现有机结合,致使农民在行动上不主动,使建设主体缺位。这就要求我们在制度设计上,借鉴外国经验,使之与我国及各地生产力发展水平有机结合并付诸实践。对农村领导干部和农民的教育,为新农村建设提供上层建筑的文化条件和主体动力。推进农村上层建筑的政治建设实现制度创新,以制度安排推动新农村建设。     

A New Model of Welfare: Re-asserting the Value of Kinship for Children in State Care

This paper briefly examines current arguments concerning the demise of the traditional family, pointing out that the numbers of lone-parent families are not historically unparalleled and noting that the current emphasis in the "death of the family" debate on the nuclear rather than the extended family marks a significant shift over recent decades. The nature of kinship is briefly examined in historical context, and kin relationships are seen to be fundamentally different on a number of important dimensions from other social relationships. The erosion of kinship as the consequence of the increasing state regulation of family life and the lack of importance it is now generally accorded in modern child welfare systems is considered and the reasons for this are discussed. Finally the article turns to the changes that would be required were kinship decision-making once more accorded a key place in planning for the care of children deemed to be in need of care and protection and the potential, as a model for practice, of the family group conference is considered.     

The Historical Forms of Materialism and the Philosophical Domain of Historical Materialism

Natural materialism, humanistic materialism and historical materialism are the three historical forms of materialism. The “material” in historical materialism is a social thing which is “perceptible and imperceptible by the senses” and connotes social relations; and the “history” in historical materialism is the realm in which contradictions between man and nature and between man and society are able to unfold, so historical materialism is “actually a critical view of the world” that inherently contains dialectics in a “rational form.” The formulation of historical materialism opened a new path for the development of materialism and even philosophy as a whole. In the course of its critique of capitalist society, which unfolds with capital as a core category, historical materialism sublates abstract existence and discovers real social existence, thus putting an end to metaphysics, which is grounded in abstract ontology.     

Optimal control of large nonlinear models: An efficient method of policy search applied to the Dutch economy

A modification of optimal control for an economy under uncertainty, by splitting the technique into a simulation phase and a control phase, makes policy optimization feasible for large-scale nonlinear models. The advantages of this approach in a policy search are clearly illustrated by an application to Dutch economic planning. A historical analysis shows that it is important to treat unemployment and the balance of payments as the key targets. That dual target strategy, worked out for the current planning period, leads to economic expansion and employment creation rather than retreachment.     

Norway: relevance of the social development model for post-War welfare policy

This article examines the extent to which social policies in post-War Norway fit three key features of the social development model, namely productivism, social investment and universalism. The historical review shows that the pursuit of a social development model changes in line with economic development and the expansion of the welfare state. It reveals that policies to promote full employment have been central to the country's economic and welfare policies throughout the post-War period. Nevertheless, the extent to which the productivist objective has been emphasised and implemented has fluctuated over time. In contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, the 1990s witnessed a strengthening of the work ethic but also a continued commitment to de-commodification. The extent to which the combination of productivism and social investment is pursued is examined with reference to services for the insured and uninsured. The article concludes that the ways in which the social development perspective understands and defends universalism and social investment only partially applies to the mature Norwegian welfare state.