Raising awareness of transformative ecosocial work: Participatory action research with Australian practitioners

This article reports on Participatory Action Research with social work practitioners who collaboratively explored the effects on professional practice when practitioners raise their awareness of an ecosocial work approach. Although contemporary research in the profession has contributed to the ongoing development of ecosocial work, there is a notable lack of collaboration with social work practitioners. Using a transformative ecosocial work model of practice, researchers together with social workers from a range of practice contexts met as co‐inquirers to plan, implement and evaluate ecosocial work interventions. As part of a larger international study, this article reports on research outcomes within the Australian context. Overall, results indicate that practitioners incorporated interventions across personal, individual, group and organisational levels of practice, but were constrained by structural elements at broader levels. Continuing the development of ecosocial work requires further collaborative exploration with practitioners, which takes into consideration communities and broader social and political systems. Key Practitioner Messages: ? This research endeavours to contribute to the evidence‐base for progressing transformative ecosocial work in professional practice; ? Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), this research was done in collaboration with social work practitioners as co‐inquirers to develop ecosocial work interventions; ? A range of ecosocial work interventions were implemented at the personal, individual, group and organisational levels.     

A Definition of Social Work for Practice

Australian and international discussions of the broad mission of social work, of its underlying premise that the personal is political, that it is responsive and able to take a leadership role from a clear value base, are sophisticated debates that demonstrate the vitality, dynamism, and enthusiasm of a profession cognizant of changes and challenges occurring outside it. However such developments and considerations are possibly most meaningful for those social workers who are either very clear about what social work is or who are not daily confronted with challenges to explain or account for their profession in performance-driven agency contexts. This article proposes a simple definition of social work which, while cognizant of the theoretical developments occurring both in and outside the profession, presents the profession in a way that clearly articulates what it is that social workers do.     

Some considerations on the debate on social work in China: who speaks for whom?

In this article I persist with my argument that indigenous, local, culturally relevant practice ought to trump the external imposition of social work definitions, standards and professional models. The challenge, however, is not to fall prey to false dichotomies. Importantly, social work in China is not static but emergent, and no‐one is sure of the exact shape it will take. And the essential question is to what extent will Western knowledge and standards be uncritically appropriated into China? Most contributors to the debate thus far have taken the international definition of social work as their starting point, but far more significant are the political dimensions involved in this process of indigenisation. This article proposes that empirical evidence from within China regarding culturally appropriate, effective local responses – and some clear benchmarks for international engagement – should form the basis for dialogue between China and the broader social work community.     

The Political and Economic Impact on the Development of Social Group Work in Taiwan

This article uses a political-economic lens to clarify the development of social group work in Taiwan. During the past 50 years, Taiwan has experienced a great economic and political transition. This article focuses on three different periods of time. Under the political repression of the 1950s and 1960s group activities were a means of social control. In the 1970s economic development evoked social changes that led to relaxed controls over civil organizations and political freedom. Community development and “Americanized” social work education marked the first step for social work with groups. During that period group work in Taiwan placed more emphasis on individual problems. In the 1980s political change brought the expansion of group work in Taiwan. An open political scene and flourishing social movements gave impetus to extension of various forms of group work in all kinds of situations. In particular social action and self-help groups played a critical role in the growth of the interests of people.     

The post-1994 transformation of social work in South Africa

This article examines the transformation of social work in South Africa in response to the transition to a developmental welfare approach. Always moulding and shaping itself in response to its social context, social work in South Africa, as elsewhere, is a reflection of the broader political landscape. In South Africa the social work profession has struggled to assert its independence and become self-regulating. It is unique in the Western world in that since 1978 it has been regulated by a legislatively constituted statutory council. While the profession has tried to transform itself in the new democracy, outside pressures have found it wanting and deeply divided. Thus, despite progress in other areas social workers have not yet been successful in forming a strong, united professional association and this severely limits its ability to lobby politicians and advocate on behalf of clients. It seems, however, that the tide is turning and social workers are gaining recognition but, once again, the challenge remains deciding on the extent to which the profession cooperates with the government's agenda for change. Social work educators took the lead in setting education standards in response to higher education policy and are also playing a part in devising practice standards through their involvement in the social work board which falls under the umbrella of the Council for Social Service Professions. However, education and practice are somewhat out of step and professional unity remains a pressing issue on social work's transformation agenda.     

Social development and the status quo: professionalisation and Third Way co‐optation

Gray M. Social development and the status quo: professionalisation and Third Way co‐optation Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 463–470 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Social development is a massive undertaking that has spawned a multitude of organisational forms. It nevertheless remains an ambiguous term and ill‐defined area of work, though some social development practitioners have succeeded in making small‐scale local differences in particular situations. While largely a tool of the status quo, some believe that social development has transformative potential and provides valuable space to confront inequalities and deprivation. In this article, I argue that in contemporary neoliberal environments social development is being co‐opted by Third Way politics and professionalisation processes. As it professionalises through the creation of professional structures and educational systems, it is becoming increasingly like social work, despite arguments that it is as an alternative approach to poverty and social exclusion. In the process, it is losing its transformative, critical edge, and morphing into a neoliberal, social investment approach that absolves government of its responsibility for the welfare of citizens.     

Social Exclusion, Inequality and Social Work

This paper sets out the environment of inequality in which social work and the poor have recently operated. It explores pragmatic and idealist arguments concerning whether or not the poor need social work. Finally, policy solutions developed in consultation with social service users and carers are suggested in relation to poverty and social exclusion. Social exclusion can be linked to relative poverty as exclusion from economic and social norms. However, there is a wider brief in our own government’s publications and those of Europe, of examining how people are excluded from actions and policies of agencies who are there to support them. This paper will retain the concepts of poverty as lack of material income, and inequality as the gap between the rich and the poor, while being aware of the policy implications for social service users and carers of the more comprehensive process of being shut out partially or fully from social, economic, political and cultural systems. The debates around social work, social exclusion and inequality that follow establish: that some of the poor do need social work; that the poverty of social service users is related to policies that have restructured welfare in Britain; that the reason for individuals approaching or being referred to social services are complex but are likely to include financial deprivation as a key contributory factor; that if the poor do need social work, advocacy is essential rather than social work being seen as concerned only with social control—taking children into care, mentally ill people into hospitals, and advising the DSS on the suitability of claimants for benefits. Finally, the discussion turns to new policy agendas on social exclusion instigated by the Labour government. What positive difference can such policies make for social service users, their carers and social workers?.     

The Faculty Meeting: Practicing Social Justice-Oriented Group Work

Social group work scholars and practitioners have begun to locate and recognize important sites for thinking about and practicing social group work as increasing evidence demonstrates its diminishing importance. This article identifies faculty meetings as a significant site for integrating social group work more fully into departments and schools of social work and helping to achieve the profession's social justice mission. Challenging the meaning of the faculty meeting and thinking of it as a faculty group is a necessary prerequisite to realize this goal. A set of principles is presented and next steps explored to reclaim and reinsert the value of social group work for the profession today.     

Reconstruction of social work education in China through transformative partnership: Case study of the 30 years’ partnership between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Peking University

ABSTRACT

Social work education, first introduced to the Chinese mainland in the 1920s, was eliminated from all universities in the early 1950s, but was restored to higher education institutions to respond to the growing demand for social workers in the end of 1980s to resolve escalating social problems triggered by the open-door economic policy. In this paper, the authors will present the concept of transformative partnership and discuss the evolvement of the partnership relationship between The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Peking University during the past thirty years in fostering the reconstruction of social work education in Mainland China from 1988 to 2018 and beyond. The authors will illustrate the gradual deepening of our partnership from one which was transactional to one that is transformative in nature. The authors believe that our partnership has not only transformed the traditional paradigm of professional education in China but has also transformed all the key stakeholders involved, particularly the educators, students and service-users through the partnership process.     

Academization of social work in Sweden and China

All professions with claims to status and trustworthiness must build a knowledge base of their own. This article is the product of over 10 years of study of social work research. It explores the academization of Swedish social work according to three phases: the establishment of a social work discipline, the consolidation of the discipline, and the challenges ahead. It also examines the challenges facing doctoral research in the social work discipline in China. The establishment of the discipline depends on stakeholders both within the academic sphere and outside it. Social work is a discipline that must achieve legitimacy in both the academic context and the political/professional context.     

Critical commentary on 'Social work as art revisited'

While agreeing with the importance of art as a stimulus for the imagination in social work practice, Healy takes issue with the broader aspirations of the article. Healy questions whether art can or should be used to foster "a collective moment of political truth" for social work, as such an inspiration is likely to gloss over the important differences in context and purpose that profoundly shape the nature of social work in the wide variety of contexts where it is practised. Healy argues for the recognition of art as a possible contributor to knowledge and practice but contends that an ongoing and productive engagement with other forms of knowing is equally if not more critical to the development of social work knowledge and identities.     

Social Work and the Shift from 'Welfare' to 'Justice'

It has become increasingly clear that the emancipatory capacityof social work has been eroded. Several scholars link this tothe influence of neo-liberal and ‘Third Way’ thinking.However, it has recently been argued that social work was notonly a victim of these new influences, but that it is also veryadaptable to the influence of such new ideas (Jordan, 2004)and not very critical about its own role in these changes (Lorenz, 2005).In this article, we will further develop this criticism, byfocusing on the debate surrounding youth delinquency. Accordingto Sharland (2006), youth delinquency has become someone else’sproblem. By analysing the role of social work within the youthjustice system, the article shows that (i) social work has notonly been the victim of recent changes, but that it has alsowithdrawn from the debate on youth justice, and (ii) that thisprocess is related to how social work is defined as a methodicalanswer to the problem of youth delinquency.     

Social work and parent support in reaction to children's antisocial behaviour: constructions and effects

This article focuses on STOP4-7, an ecological early intervention programme for children with serious behavioural problems in Belgium, which includes social skills training for children, management training for parents and classroom management training for teachers. We argue how this type of social work benefits from empirical research on its effects on children and parents. Yet social work research that addresses these questions needs to extend its focus to overt and covert inclusion and exclusion mechanisms that operate through social work. Finally, we argue that, in the case of STOP4-7, social work is embedded in the process of social and political framing of the problems it is supposed to solve. By extending the focus of social work research to the very construction of social problems, we show how social workers may perform their agency as reflective practitioners, rather than being objects of interventions.     

The politics of case management and social work

A case study analysing the introduction of case management into British social services supports the argument that social work is constructed through political processes. In such processes, the interaction among the interests of stakeholders within service innovations influences the construction of the role of social work. Case management was introduced to Britain, but developed in three different forms: social care entrepreneurship, brokerage and multiprofessional case management, including assertive outreach. The forms adopted were affected by the political interaction of stakeholders rather than the professional possibilities offered by case management itself. Evidence for the politics of case management is drawn from analysis of professional literature, the texts of official documents and empirical research outcomes. The introduction of case management led to a debate about how the nature of social work was affected by the innovation. Three alternative views were that social work was improved, or attacked by case management, or made a valid contribution to case management as a different form of practice. It is proposed that to understand the impact of a service innovation on social work, four factors must be considered: the character of the innovation itself; the economic, political and social contexts in which it is introduced; the political and social interests of the stakeholders themselves; and the political and social processes that take place during the introduction of the innovation.     

The Emperor's new clothes: South Africa's attempted transition to developmental social welfare and social work

This article critically interrogates the depth and quality of change of post‐apartheid welfare policy and social work practice towards a social development paradigm against the background of inequality and poverty in South Africa. It asks several questions: what kind of welfare system has the current welfare dispensation created? How far has it moved from a residual, ameliorative system to an institutional developmental system, in keeping with the developmental welfare paradigm? To what extent can residual provisions be transformed into developmental processes? What conditions are necessary for this to happen? The answers to questions such as these provide the basis for assessing South Africa's new developmental processes. The article highlights the fundamental contradictions in social development policy imperatives, which call for a marriage of economic and social considerations, and the internal contradictions across and within various welfare policies. Further, it argues that the government does not have the political will to bear the costs of the substantive change that the move towards developmental social work requires, choosing instead limited, individually targeted and ameliorative measures, such as increased social security spending. Thus, it suggests that ideological critique, consciousness raising and participation in public policy debates remain crucial for those who seek long‐term solutions to inequality and poverty in South Africa.     

自然法的古今之变:《自然社会》的思想史评析

从自然法到自然权利的范式突变是西方社会思想史和政治思想史上的重大事件。政治社会乃是自然社会,即符合人的自然性（人性）的社会,这一由亚里士多德首先系统阐述并主导着西方古代和中世纪政治思想的主流学说,到早期现代受到全面颠覆。政治社会被理解为人为脱离自然状态而通过社会契约建构而成的人造物。李猛的《自然社会》一书是对上述问题的系统讨论。该书不乏有创造性综合的见解。但本文侧重于指出其中的几点不足,包括未能发现古罗马人的自由概念与主体权利概念之间的相似之处,以及未能发现平等而不是权利对现代观念的构成性影响等等。笔者以为造成这些缺陷原因在于李猛放弃了他擅长的社会理论方法,而纯粹从观念史的角度来思考伦理和政治问题。     

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

In this article we examine the emergence of social worker training in the Nordic countries and discuss the possible effects that the social democratic welfare regime has had on such training. We also discuss the development in recent decades of the academisation of the training and the establishment of social work as a subject of research and teaching. The early history of social worker education is based on archival material, national inquiries and secondary sources. Our presentation of the recent history of social work education is based on the responses to a questionnaire sent to teachers of social work in 33 Nordic social work programmes, and on a survey of course syllabi and prospectuses. It is also based on the reading lists for the social work courses in these programmes.     

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

In this article we examine the emergence of social worker training in the Nordic countries and discuss the possible effects that the social democratic welfare regime has had on such training. We also discuss the development in recent decades of the academisation of the training and the establishment of social work as a subject of research and teaching. The early history of social worker education is based on archival material, national inquiries and secondary sources. Our presentation of the recent history of social work education is based on the responses to a questionnaire sent to teachers of social work in 33 Nordic social work programmes, and on a survey of course syllabi and prospectuses. It is also based on the reading lists for the social work courses in these programmes.     

Social work education: state of the art

In assessing the appropriateness of contemporary social work education to its context, the article assumes that social work practice and education must relate to its social reality. The article argues that, since the 1970s, that reality has changed in relation to the role of the welfare state, perceptions of economic growth and the independence of the state. As a result, the roles of civil society, the community and welfare personnel have changed, with implications for social work. At the same time, the earlier tendency of social work to avoid the major social issues of the day is no longer appropriate, and the article outlines five major issues needing to be addressed by social work. In conclusion, the article presents four options that social work education should, as a total profession, address, if the profession is to play the roles demanded of it by its contemporary social reality.     

The definition of social work in the United Kingdom, 2000–2010

Dickens J. The definition of social work in the United Kingdom, 2000–2010. This article reviews the approaches that the four countries of the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – have taken in recent years for organising, regulating and defining social work. Social work is one of the policy areas that have been devolved to the constituent countries. This has brought extensive organisational changes, multiple policy initiatives and a proliferation of regulatory and advisory agencies. The article focuses on the attempts by these official bodies to define social work, treating the United Kingdom as a case study of the tensions of specifying what social work is and what it should be. The various attempts expose the strains and overlaps between the different agencies, and a bigger struggle to contain and control social work. The article highlights four key dimensions in the enduring debates: values–roles, social–individual, care–control and public–professional.