Child Protection Workers’ Perspectives on the School-to-Work Transition for Young People in Care

Abstract

Young people in the care of the state are reported as having generally poor education and employment outcomes due to such factors as high rates of school exclusions and non-attendance, frequent placement moves with consequent school disruptions, deprived precare backgrounds, lack of coordination between education and child protection personnel, lack of attention to educational needs by professionals, and low expectations held by carers and caseworkers. The present article examines child protection worker perspectives on young people's transition from school to work. Caseworkers believe that, for young people in care, factors such as unstable placements, psychological and behavioural problems, inadequate vocational options, poor caseworker knowledge of available training and education, and negative perceptions of young people in care may impede them from making a successful transition from school. Research suggests that child protection caseworkers need to integrate education and work with leaving care planning, given it is vital to the future wellbeing of young people in care.     

Social Workers’ Perspectives Regarding the DSM: Implications for Social Work Education

There is a decades-old debate in social work regarding the appropriateness of the use of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) by clinicians in this profession. Despite often contentious perspectives, there has been very little study regarding clinical social workers’ experiences, attitudes, and beliefs about the use of the DSM in their work. In this qualitative inquiry, 20 clinical social workers who had recently completed master’s of social work coursework and were working with children were interviewed using grounded theory methods. Results of the inquiry are presented and implications for social work education are discussed.     

Child Protection Workers’ Perceptions of Foster Carers and the Foster Care System: A Study in Queensland

Abstract

Child protection workers are key players in the statutory system for the protection of children and young people. For this reason, their perceptions of the operation of the system are important. This study, conducted in Queensland, Australia, explored the views of child protection workers regarding foster carers and the foster care system. The present study revealed the difficulties the child protection workers encountered in engaging with foster carers. These difficulties were due to the structure of the child protection system and the conflicts experienced by workers in balancing the needs of children and young people, their primary clients and the carers of those children and young people. Several recommendations for policy and practice are made.     

Social Workers’ Observations of the Needs of the Total Military Community

Researchers surveyed licensed social workers from 5 Mid-Atlantic states to explore their perspectives on the current state of mental health and service delivery for military service workers, families, and contractors. Social workers identified needs in the following areas: mental health, physical health and wellness, social and environmental, interpersonal and family, and military-specific needs. The majority of needs were most critical during the postdeployment stage. Education related to the observed needs was reported; social workers were most interested in learning about military culture and how to coordinate resources within the community to support the total military community. Suggestions for social work education and future research are discussed.     

Social Workers’ Conflict of Loyalty in the Context of Social Activism: The Case of the 2011 Social Protests in Israel

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examined the experiences of social workers who participated in the 2011 Israeli social protests. Data were collected through 1 focus group interview. The sample included 11 social workers employed in 11 social welfare departments throughout the country. Findings highlight the complexities and dilemmas experienced by social workers who protested against the system that employs them. Research findings contribute to the discourse regarding the conflict of loyalty experienced by public social workers engaged in social activism that targets the system that employs them.     

Jane Addams’ Social Vision: Revisiting the Gospel of Individualism and Solidarity

Designated an early pragmatist, Jane Addams has significantly inspired contemporary pragmatist research. However, Addams also consistently articulated ideas harking to primordial Christianity and sought inspiration in the social gospel of her time. This article explores how Addams’ writing resonated with key tenets of social gospel theology, which imbued her texts with an overarching vision of humanity’s progressive history. It is suggested that Addams’ vision of a major transition in industrial society, one involving a “Christian renaissance” and individuals’ transformation into “socialized selves”, constitutes a political eschatology. Of particular interest is how Addams conceived the relationship between the individual and society, inventing the term “new social ethics” to reconcile the difficult balance between individual autonomy and social solidarity. The article suggests some ways in which Addams’ writings relate to contemporary issues such as individualism, neo-conservatism, and militarism. Her social thought constitutes a thus far under-examined source of sociological critique in regard to such issues of public concern.     

Social Workers’ Attitudes Toward Older Adults: A Review of the Literature

Ageist attitudes toward older adults have been recognized as barriers to recruiting and training competent social workers. This article provides a systematic review of the literature that focused on social workers’ and social work students’ attitudes toward older adults and working with older adults. The authors sought empirical studies that used an attitudinal measure of ageism with a social work sample, and a total of 20 articles met the criteria. Characteristics of the studies’ participants, methodology, instruments, and results were evaluated. This article discusses the findings and offers implications for future research.     

Pathways to Mental Health Services for Children and Youth in the Child Welfare System: A Focus on Social Workers’ Referral

Case abstraction was used to collect data from court reports to examine characteristics that predict referral to mental health services by court and child welfare social workers and whether referral to mental health services was a significant determinant of service utilization. Home placement and multiple types of abuse were significant predictors of a referral to mental health services by the court social worker and age and reported sexual abuse were significant in the utilization of services. Practice and policy implications are discussed.     

Preparing Social Workers for Child Welfare Practice: An Innovative University–Agency Learning Collaborative

This paper describes the evolution of a university–community child welfare learning collaborative based on an adaptation of the teaching hospital concept. This partnership between an agency providing a range of child and family welfare services and two university units, the school of social work and outreach, was intended to accomplish multiple agency, university and community goals: implement best practices in the agency, enhance social work education, increase staff resources in child welfare, influence public policy, and improve the lives of children and families in the child welfare system. The major strategy was ‘Grand Rounds’ modeled after the system used to train medical students through multiple transactions with experts in a clinical setting. The first year was very successful, with students, agency staff and faculty giving the sessions high ratings in content, quality and utility. One key to the success of the initiative was that it was an agency‐driven process and was based on working relationships of mutual respect and trust. Building such relationships takes both time and effort. Future challenges will include garnering the resources, both human and financial, to sustain the collaboration over time.     

From the Mouths of Mothers: Can Drama Facilitate Reflective Learning for Social Workers?

This article explores and evaluates a cross-disciplinary small-scale project using applied theatre in social work education. The aim was to provide an ‘Affective Encounter’ where students could practice empathic engagement, understanding of the needs of children who have been sexually abused and their protective parents/carers and engage in the complexities of working with family members who may be resistant. The workshop took place five times over a period of three years and was attended by children and families social workers on a one year post-qualifying graduate diploma course. While the use of verbatim theatre does not offer a guarantee of factual truth, it provided the students with some performed moments of personal testimony which was taken word-for-word from mothers whose children had been sexually abused. This allowed the social workers to hear the marginalised narratives of the protective mothers and to practice without a negative impact on the service user. The evaluation identified from self-report the development of emotional and practical skills and knowledge of available resources. This paper focuses on the emotional skills reported and two emerging themes are discussed: learning for humane practice, and the use of this pedagogical approach to encourage affective reflection.     

Critique of the Vatican’s Role in Recent Child Protection Practice: A Brief Report

The current report aims to clarify the practices and implicit intentions of the Holy See in addressing child sexual abuse (CSA) by clerics in the twenty-first century. Church investigation reports, United Nations reports, press coverage, and academic literature were explored to understand the relationship between Church intention and practice. Various types of literature highlight the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) as an organization that is self-referential and self-defensive, with the implicit aim of protecting the reputation of RCC at the expense of children. Organizational responses are seen as promoting the protection of perpetrating clerics, resulting in the spread of CSA by clergy nationally and globally. Recommendations are made for the introduction of modern-day management practices in RCC, filtered through a faithful understanding of gospel principles. The authors suggest that the United Nations may be an important vehicle for fostering leverage for change in RCC child protection practice.     

Fit for Purpose? Post-Qualifying Social Work Education in Child Protection in Scotland

Recommendations for post-qualifying training and education in child protection social work consistently form part of the political response to child abuse scandals. The influence of child abuse politics upon the push towards post-qualifying training and education has been consistent across the United Kingdom. Within Scotland educators have been quick to respond to the market demand for programme provision and there is now a growing number of academic programmes being offered by higher education institutions. Yet despite post-qualifying training and education achieving the status of ‘panacea’ there is little in the way of a national dialogue about what post-qualifying training and education in social work child protection should look like. The parameters of this have not been subject to any kind of national debate and the Scottish academic community has not entered into a professional dialogue on these issues. More crucially, educators have not engaged in any level of identifiable evaluation of their provision and there is an absence of engagement with the scholarship of teaching child protection at the post-qualifying level. This paper connects with these issues to question whether the post-qualifying training and education delivered by Scotland's universities can be considered fit for purpose.     

Preparing for Practice: An Evaluation of an Undergraduate Social Work ‘Preparation for Practice’ Module

The requirement for social work students to undergo assessed preparation prior to undertaking their first practice placement raises key questions about the type of knowledge and experience that is needed for those at the start of their training. This paper shows the need for social work educators to become re‐engaged in debates about the practice–theory relationship and to explore what is meant by an incremental approach to learning. A Preparation for Practice Learning module which was delivered to a cohort of Level 1 undergraduate social work students at a London university is described and evaluated. The paper highlights the key themes which emerged from the evaluation; these include the importance of work shadowing, observational learning and the centrality of critical reflection in aiding students' personal and professional learning. A discussion of its effectiveness in preparing students for their first practice learning experience follows. It concludes by recommending how students' learning in relation to the nature of social work and the skills required to undertake the role effectively might be addressed within the curriculum. Finally, a Preparation for Practice Learning model based on these findings is proposed.     

“Walking the Tightrope:” Clinical Social Workers’ Use of Diagnostic and Environmental Perspectives

The purpose of this study was to understand how clinical social workers think about and utilize two distinct worldviews: the psychiatric perspective of DSM diagnosis (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and the contextual person-in environment perspective. The former is a requirement for service and reimbursement in nearly every clinical setting, while the latter has always been the hallmark of a distinctively “social work” approach. Although there have been quantitative surveys of social workers’ use of the DSM, this is the first qualitative study to examine how social workers actually navigate these two worldviews. Thirty clinical social workers took part in individual interviews, and their responses were analyzed thematically using HyperRESEARCH, a qualitative data management program. Findings reveal an array of ethical and practical issues, including the central “tightrope” of balancing the need to “ramp up” problem formulation in order to access service with the desire to “damp down” in order to minimize stigma and avoid pathologizing problems in living. Implications are addressed for social work practice, policy, and education.     

More than Money: The Importance of Social Exchanges for Temporary Low-Skilled Migrant Workers’ Workplace Satisfaction

Research has focused on the happiness of immigrants, but the workplace satisfaction of temporary low-skilled migrant workers has rarely been explored. By utilizing survey data for two years, 2010 and 2013, along with interviews with migrant workers, we explored how economic or social factors could trigger diverse impacts on the satisfaction of temporary low-skilled migrant workers in different work environments. Results showed that economic factors triggered more notable impacts in 2010, while the importance of social factors increased with improvements in work environments in 2013. The results indicated that moving motive premises and social exchange theory effectively explain attitudes of temporary low-skilled migrant workers. Theoretical and practical contributions and suggestions of the results are also included.     

Graduate Social Work Students’ Approaches and Ways of Thinking in Child Protection Assessment: Case Vignette Reflections from Estonia

This article examines Estonian graduate social work students’ (MSW, n = 41) assessment approaches (deficit-based versus strengths-based) in the context of a child protection assessment through a case vignette format. The study found that students tend to focus more on a traditional deficit-based approach in their responses to a presented case, and less on capabilities and resources. The study indicates the need to find ways to promote more client-friendly approaches (for a shift in the way of thinking) in social work education to empower families through developing a respectful and effective helping relationship that promotes comprehensive assessment guided by social work values. Practice implications are discussed and recommendations for future research are outlined.