Community Work:

This article presents a typology of models of community work currently extant in the United Kingdom. It focuses on clarifying theoretical points through analysis of the currently most widely accepted contemporary models in use throughout the UK: community care; community organization; community development; social/community planning; community education; and community action, and developing models of feminist community work, and black and anti-racist community work. The typology presented is organized on a continuum from models focused on ''care'' to those focusing on ''action.'' Each model is analyzed in relation to the following characteristics: strategy; workers' main roles; and typical agencies and examples of work. Selected critical key texts treating each model are documented. Discussion highlights similarities and differences among the models particularly with regard to techniques and skills and ideological traditions to provide a framework to understand community work practice.     

Navigating the gendered academy: women in social work academia

ABSTRACT

Women fare less well than men across all academic disciplines: they are less likely to be promoted, they earn less, and many more professors are men. There has, however, been little analysis to date of the experience of women in social work education, a discipline that has historically had higher representation of female staff and students. This study set out to explore women in the social work academy through a case-study of social work education in Scotland. A mixed-methods approach was used, including a review of relevant literature; an online survey of women and men academics in social work education; and semi-structured interviews with female social work leaders, past and present. The study found that women in the social work academy faced the same pressures as other women in higher education; some of these pressures were also shared by men. Most significant, however, was the extent to which women in social work academia experienced twin challenges, firstly, as female academics and secondly, as female social work academics in a discipline that struggles for recognition in the academy. We conclude that this makes for a contradictory and, at times, ambiguous experience for women as they navigate the gendered academy.     

关于社会管理框架中的人口管理创新的理论思考

转型期的中国处于人口问题的聚集期和凸显期,更是人口发展的关键期,经济发展和社会建设面临的重大问题无不与人口密切相关。现阶段,社会管理框架中人口管理的基础性、先导性和全局性的地位和作用愈发突出。“在社会管理框架中突出人口管理的创新”这一重大的现实主题是统筹解决人口问题,切实提高社会管理科学化水平的历史选择,更是建设服务型政府,推进和谐社会建设的必然要求。如何在社会管理框架中客观认识人口管理的创新,确定现阶段其内涵、任务、特点和作用具有相当的重要性和紧迫性。     

Creating Community Partnership as Foundation for Community Building: The Case of the Renewed Kibbutz

ABSTRACT

Expansion neighborhoods, built adjacent to kibbutz neighborhoods, are a new phenomenon in the rural peripheral regions of Israel. This article evaluates the process of building community partnerships, describes frictions created between residents of the expansion neighborhoods and kibbutz members, and defines challenges that need to be overcome in order to build an integrated community within the renewed kibbutz.Data collection was based on face-to-face interviews with new residents and officials from 10 kibbutzim. Qualitative analysis show the complexity involved in the process of building community partnerships and emphasizes the need to develop structures that will allow for dialogue and collaboration.     

Women Academics and Work–Life Balance: Gendered Discourses of Work and Care

This article examines how discourses of work–life balance are appropriated and used by women academics. Using data collected from semi‐structured, single person interviews with 31 scholars at an Australian university, it identifies and explores four ways in which participants construct their relationship to work–life balance as: (1) a personal management task; (2) an impossible ideal; (3) detrimental to their careers; and (4) unmentionable at work. Findings reveal that female academics' ways of speaking about work–life balance respond to gendered attitudes about paid work and unpaid care that predominate in Australian socio‐cultural life. By taking a discursive approach to analysing work–life balance, our research makes a unique contribution to the literature by drawing attention to the power of work–life balance discourses in shaping how women configure their attempts to create a work–life balance, and how it functions to position academic women as failing to manage this balance.     

The Experiential Community Assessment Project: Integrating Social Work Practice Skills

Although most social work students are primarily interested in micro practice, the Council on Social Work Education mandates teaching macro practice. The challenge of incorporating meaningful and relevant community assignments within practice courses is noted in the literature (Koerin, Reeves, & Rosenblum, 2000 Koerin, B. B., Reeves, J. and Rosenblum, A. 2000. Macro-learning opportunities: What is really happening out there in field?. Journal of Baccalaureate Social Work, 6(1): 109–121.  [Google Scholar]). This article discusses the Experiential Community Assessment Project (ECAP) that integrates social work practice skills through interviewing a community leader, attending a community meeting, and using publicly available data to assess at risk neighborhoods. Grounded in experiential learning theory, a series of reflection papers are used to help students process what they are learning. A capstone poster presentation is required at the end. Suggestions and recommendations are made for using or adapting this project within other social work curricula.     

The Supportive Community

Abstract

This study examines supportive community programs in Israel, which aim to improve the quality of life of the elderly. These innovative programs pool existing resources to provide a benefits package that includes medical services, an emergency call switchboard, a “neighborhood facilitator,” and social activities. Data were collected in 2000-2001 using qualitative and quantitative methods. The program provides specific services to meet needs that otherwise are not adequately addressed. The major contributions of the program reported by the members was increasing their personal security (two-thirds), easing the burden on their children (one-third), and enabling them to remain at home (one-quarter). The supportive community program enriches the variety of services available, thus providing the elderly with the choice of staying within their familiar surroundings of their homes and neighborhoods. This model appears to be both a cost-effective way to facilitate aging in place and a way to meet many of the elderly's essential needs, thereby maintaining their quality of life.     

Community distress predicting welfare exits: The under-examined factor for families in the united states

Using a quasi-experimental design, a sample of female welfare clients (N = 91) was followed over 32 months to compare two competing models used to describe welfare dependency. The individual deficit model suggested that clients would not engage in work activities on their own initiative and that legislative sanctions were required to force clients into employment. The ecological/community model suggested that community economic distress, rather than lack of skills or motivation, prevented clients from becoming gainfully employed. Results showed that while both models explained the rate at which clients left the welfare system, the community that one lived in was a stronger predictor of welfare exits than government programs mandating individual effort. Results revealed that many clients were employed regardless of whether or not it was mandated. Furthermore, clients who resided in lower income communities and were required to work to keep receiving welfare benefits under the new legislation, spent an average of nearly twice as much time in the welfare system (22.75 months) as individuals who faced neither stress (11.5 months). The findings highlight the need to incorporate community economic development strategies in the overall program to decrease welfare dependency, rather than focusing solely on individual remediation.     

关于创新城市社区管理服务的几点重要思考

创新城市社区管理服务涉及到城市社区管理的方方面面,但当前的城市社区管理实践所反映的问题主要出现在社区基本理论依据、党政组织机构的地位作用、社区治理结构健全和运行机制等几个领域。主要问题是缺少对中国城市社区管理实情的客观认识,缺失从基层社区实际出发的解决问题的正确路线和缺乏对城市社区管理体系的系统、长远的考虑。本文正是从这些重要问题出发,思考、探讨城市社区管理创新的新思维、新路线,力求破解当前城市社区管理创新的困局。     

Theory for Community Practice in Social Work:

The effort is made to revitalize the search for practice theory which will inform and guide the community practitioner. Ecological theory is used to identify a generic model of community practice and analyze member cohesion in the three traditional modalities. The theory of energy in human ecology is developed to set the stage for an energy assessment, and the selection of strategic energy patterns in phases of organizing. Theoretical propositions with practice implications are offered for research on the relationship between strategic energy-patterns of organizing, energy costs, specialization of function, and styles of intervention.     

‘Now,We Have the Same Rights as Men to Keep Our Jobs’: Gendered Perceptions of Opportunity and Obstacles in a Mexican Workplace

Drawing on extensive qualitative data at a Mexican‐owned multinational corporation, this case study investigates professional employees’ perceptions of changes to a prohibitive work policy requiring women to quit working upon marriage and having children. Employees believed the policy change meant working women were valued employees, but how this translated into opportunity highlighted distinct views of the types of positions professional women could occupy at the company, reinforcing sex‐segregated job allocation. Whereas women's narratives pointed to cultural resistance, men's narratives attributed the dearth of women in higher level positions to their lack of professionalism and commitment to work. The work policy change only guaranteed the right for women to work as the company modernized to fit the neoliberal demands of the global marketplace. Now women faced the challenge of turning that right into career advancement in a traditionally masculine‐defined company. I argue that even with the policy change, gendered discourses on women in professional occupations constructed and maintained gender inequities in the workplace. This study contributes to the scholarly discussion on gendered discourses within the context of global restructuring by showing how mechanisms at work maintain gender inequity in the workplace.     

上海加快形成社区共治与居民自治有效机制研究

上海推进社区共治和居民自治,在创新社会管理、优化公共服务、激发社会活力、重构社会秩序等方面取得了明显成效。但从与上海转型发展和现阶段社会发育格局的适应性,与社会管理体制创新和基层民主政治建设的新要求相比,还存在着不少差距,一些瓶颈问题急需破解,一些影响社区共治和居民自治深入推进的体制性、机制性障碍尚需突破。     

Technology,Social Inclusion and Poverty: An Exploratory Investigation of a Community Technology Center

ABSTRACT

Community technology centers (CTCs) are advanced as a major part of the solution to the so-called digital divide. It is believed that in the knowledge economy access to computing resources should level the playing field for low income people. Faced with a growing population that cannot afford computers or the Internet, government policy makers have been turning to technology community access points. This article presents a brief overview of the digital divide and whether or not CTCs can effectively address the problem. A CTC located at the Debra Dynes Family House in Ottawa, Canada–a center that has been highlighted in newspapers and government reports as a success story in bridging the digital divide-is reviewed. The concept of social inclusion is explored to determine how CTCs are addressing poverty and social exclusion.     

The development of a new measure for work-family research: Community resource fit

We describe the development and validation of a quantitative measure of community resource fit; i.e., satisfaction with the extent to which community resources meet the needs of working families of school-aged children. The measure has good psychometric properties, and preliminary results suggest that the measure warrants further study. The measure is composed of six moderately intercorrelated subscales assessing resource fit in the areas of work, public transportation, school, school transportation, after-school programs and after-school transportation resources. We found interesting patterns of results linking community resource fit, especially in the areas of work and school resource fit, to a variety of quality-of-life and well-being outcomes among employed parents of school-aged children. These outcomes include work-to-family and family-to-work conflict and enhancement, psychological distress, job–role quality, likelihood of losing or leaving one's job and likelihood of leaving one's line of work.     

Social Work,Economic Conversion,and Community Practice:

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a new administration in Washington, hope is renewed for a peace economy. This hope is evidenced in the growth of new economic conversion projects ranging from legislative initiatives to new grassroots organizations. This exploratory survey of 15 directors of conversion projects sought to discover the kinds of strategies used and the degree of social work participation. Although results indicate that only one-third of the organizations involved social workers, there is much common ground between conversion strategies, community practice, and social work.     

The Effects of Work and Community Resources and Demands on Family Integration

This paper uses interviews with 1,156 married dual-earner parents of children aged 10–17 from the 1992–1994 National Survey of Families and Households to examine relationships between work and community resources and demands and two aspects of family integration: activities with adolescents and family cohesion. The results indicate that mothers' shorter paid work hours and fathers' lower participation in community-professional organizations and moderate and high levels of informal helping are positively related to activities with adolescents, whereas moderate and high levels of participation in organized youth activities are positively related to family integration. Community-based subjective resources are positively related to family integration, whereas work-based subjective demands are negatively related to family cohesion. The findings generally are similar for mothers and fathers.     

Project Homeless: A Model for Student Involvement in Community College

This paper describes the way students activated community awareness and involvement in the problem of homelessness in their rural area by participating in Project Homeless, a community organization and planning course. Students studied research and collected data by interviewing service providers to discover met and un-met needs, problems, and available resources. As a result of their findings, the community mental health center sponsored a task force on homelessness.     

Community role salience: the development and testing of a new measure

There is growing recognition that community plays a role in an individual's work-life experience. While measures of work and family role salience have been developed and applied in the work-life literature, no measure of community role salience had been developed. This has served to limit our understanding of community role salience and how it influences work-life experience. The research aimed to address this gap by developing a new measure for community role salience and community role importance, with a view to understanding the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience. Surveys were administered to 59 participants from the construction sector. The new measure of role salience shows considerable promise as a reliable instrument. The structure and nature of work undertaken in the construction industry is different from that in many other industries, therefore the results may not be generalisable to other industries. However, it is considered that the instruments themselves can be applied in different contexts to explore the role community plays in shaping an individual's work-life experience.     

Implementing a Knowledge Management System in a School of Social Work: The Possibilities,Challenges, and Lessons Learned

Managing emerging scientific, professional, and applied practice knowledge has become increasingly more important in the 21st century because economic and social connections in organizations are becoming more complex, associated with greater global connectivity. One approach to this growing complexity and emerging need involves the development of a technology-based knowledge management (KM) system. This paper describes one human service organization's attempt to implement and capture the complex knowledge needs and requirements for a knowledge management system. The implementation described is in the third year of a five year process. The challenges when incorporating such reorganization will be addressed. This case example also illustrates the complexities, possibilities, and lessons learned while implementing a knowledge management system within a school of social work and subsequently its capacity to be transferred to human service organizations.     

Leadership,Through Loss and Change: Management of Change Viewed as Challenges within a Couple Relationship*

This paper emanated from a Doctoral Thesis, which was an in-depth single case study of a frontline social work team based in the third sector. The research took place over a period of five months and included weekly visits to observe the day-to-day operations of the team, attending special events such as the Teams Away Day, Team Meetings and undertaking management consultation sessions with the Project and Deputy Managers. The thesis concludes that just as frontline staff require effective support, frontline managers also need space to effectively reflect on their experiences in role. The focus of this paper is the relationship dynamic between the managers, the team, senior management and the wider organisation as they dealt with the sudden announcement of the project’s closure. The paper makes use of ethnographic and psychoanalytically informed observations of the team’s ordinary day to day work processes, in addition, use was made of consultative interviews (MCI’s) with the managers of this service who were afforded space to think about their management roles. Aspects of thematic analysis informed by psychoanalytic theory were used to analyse the material.