Exploring the Dynamics of Volunteer and Staff Interactions

The quality of the relationships between volunteers and paid staff can have far‐reaching consequences for organizations that utilize volunteer programs to support service delivery. We utilize a mixed methods case study design to explore volunteer and staff perceptions of their mutual interactions within a large library system in the southeastern United States. We consider which areas of these interactions might be vulnerable to conflict. Our findings suggest that conflict is likely to arise due to communication problems, behavioral or attitudinal issues, perceptions of job vulnerability, divergent expectations, lack of trust, and workflow integration hurdles. We argue that to avoid these tensions and promote effective service delivery, staff members must have appropriate training and preparation to interact successfully with volunteers.     

Personal sacrifice and corporate cultures: career progression for disabled staff in higher education

Disabled people are under-represented in higher education (HE), especially in senior posts. This article reports research on the perspectives of career progression into leadership held by disabled staff in one post-1992 university. Findings indicated that some participants were already engaged in leadership or aspired to such roles, and reported positive experiences. However, participants also experienced barriers to progression, including a lack of awareness of equality and diversity among managers and colleagues, inadequate professional development opportunities and the competitive organisational culture of management that could impact on their health and work–life balance. We conclude that disabled staff in HE do not yet have equal opportunities for progression into leadership roles compared with their non-disabled peers. There is a need for realignment of the culture of leadership and management to make it more compatible with the full inclusion of disabled staff in HE such that their unique contributions are valued.     

Tailoring Organizational Characteristics for Empowerment

ABSTRACT

Empowerment is an important value orientation and intervention approach in social work and other disciplines. Viewed from an ecological perspective, a good fit between organizational characteristics and the life circumstances of individuals should provide empowerment benefits. By studying interaction effects of material resources and organizational characteristics on empowerment, this research sought to extend understanding of empowerment dynamics in community organizations. Using hierarchical regression analyses to investigate socio-economic status (SES) in a moderator model, findings of the study demonstrated that, among a diverse group of participants in two different faith-based community organizations, perceptions of organizational characteristics were more strongly related to empowerment for participants of lower SES. A substantive implication of the study is that community practitioners should attend to the fit between specific organizational processes and economic circumstances of community based organization participants. Strategies weighted toward attention to relationships among members linked to availability of and participation in a variety of organizational roles may be more salient for empowerment of the disadvantaged. Our findings are consistent with an ecological orientation to empowerment, and they add further support to the importance of ecological specificity in empowerment theory.     

Factors contributing to the subjective quality of life of the chronic mentally ill.

Although the deinstitutionalization of the seriously mentally ill has been severely criticized, the success of some model community programs shows that community care can enhance patients' quality of life. We lack specific knowledge, however, about the components that make these programs effective, and why. A theoretical framework for identifying these critical components is proposed. Services can enhance life satisfaction by increasing individuals' actual power through economic resources or status, thus enhancing their perceptions of mastery. An internal evaluation of a model program provides support for this hypothesis. One hundred and fifty-seven patients were interviewed about services, quality of life, and perceptions of mastery. Results show that services providing economic resources and an empowerment approach to service delivery are significantly related to overall quality of life. Furthermore, perceptions of mastery account for the impact of these components on life satisfaction. These findings suggest interventions that can be adopted by a wide range of mental health programs for the improvement of the quality of life of the chronic mentally ill.     

Fostering Global Citizenship Dispositions: The Long-term Impact of Participating in a High School Global Service Club

To assist teachers in fostering students' global citizenship dispositions through service experiences, this article reports findings from a case study that investigated one high school's global service club and its impact on former club members' global awareness and global citizenship dispositions. Data were collected from Web-based documents and interviews with the faculty advisor and four former members. Data were analyzed by using the constant comparison method to elicit the following findings: (1) fundraising and awareness campaigns, when connected to a larger global service network, can act as viable local actions to combat global poverty; (2) club involvement can produce adults who feel more globally aware, but who do not necessary display critical understandings of global issues; and (3) club involvement can have a positive impact on global citizenship dispositions as participants reported feelings of empowerment and personal/social responsibility, yet no former club members continued participation in global service initiates as adults. Findings suggest the need for structural support when establishing high school global service clubs and, to optimize critical justice aims, local service actions should be tied to a more formal global citizenship curriculum.     

The Expansion of the Peer Adviser Workforce: Opportunities and Challenges for Social Work

ABSTRACT

Peer adviser roles are becoming an increasingly common—and celebrated—aspect of agencies where social workers are located. This article reports on a qualitative research study exploring the experiences of staff within a homelessness outreach service in which three peer advisers (people with a lived experience of homelessness) commenced employment. Drawing on action research principles, the study explored the experiences of the peer advisers and the broader team following the introduction of the peer adviser roles. Themes identified include, realising the skills of peer advisers, defining the role, taking a “whole of team” approach, and reflecting on power. This study demonstrates that the introduction of peer adviser roles into human service organisations is a promising strategy for creating services that are more likely to respond effectively to the needs of service users. However, social workers need to be aware of the pitfalls of tokenism and the devaluing of experiential knowledge.

IMPLICATIONS

• Peer advisers in health and welfare agencies add significant benefits to an agency’s capacity to respond to the needs of service users.

• The introduction of the peer workforce is aligned to social work values of service user empowerment and the valuing of experiential knowledge.

• In order to avoid tokenism, the introduction of peer adviser roles should be supported by both the attitudes and actions of other staff members, as well as organisational support structures.

     

Cost effectiveness of an integrated service delivery model as measured by worker retention

This study sought to examine the impact of housing child welfare ongoing teams in the community, near client neighborhoods, and in a setting that also co-locates other service providers that serve the same clients. The focus was the impact of location and service integration on perceptions of worker stress and actual worker turnover. Thirty four workers from this type of setting and from a more traditional setting in two urban cities in a Southern state were interviewed. In addition turnover rates were calculated and compared. It was found that those located near clients and with staff from other agencies had better morale, lower stress levels, more positive attitudes toward clients and client contexts, knew more about the communities the clients lived in and had more chances to collaborate to solve client problems than those in a more traditional setting with co-location only with family support staff. The turnover rate was lower in the integrated service delivery setting than in either the traditional setting or the state overall. Thus, integration of service delivery benefits not only the child welfare workforce participants, but also the clients who have greater access to other service providers and to the bottom line of the agency through the retention of workers. Implications are described.     

New Disability Services: The Critical Role of Staff in a Consumer-directed Empowerment Model of Service for Physically Disabled People

Australian disability services have undergone a major review. Initiated by the government and now enshrined in new legislation, this review has significant implications for non-government social welfare organisations as major service providers in that it demands a significant service delivery reorientation. This paper describes one demonstration project involving four physically disabled persons, one female and three males, located in one domiciliary unit which signposts this new service direction and identifies it as a consumer-directed and empowering model. This is contrasted with previous institutional and care models of service. It identifies the staff role as important in this client-empowering model of service and raises a range of critical issues in the consumer-staff interface which enhances such empowerment. The paper suggests that where these staffing features and empowerment processes are lacking deinstitutionalisation may well have occurred without consumer empowerment being achieved.     

Establishing a feminist culture: the experience of Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network

The Zimbabwe Women's Resource Center and Network (ZWRCN) was established in 1990 to strengthen interorganizational networking activities for the exchange of experience and information on gender and development issues. ZWRCN has collected over 4000 documents on gender issues and operates a rural libraries program. Its efforts to create a feminist organizational culture fostering staff empowerment, lack of hierarchy, and participatory leadership have been more problematic, however. Most of the 15 staff recruited since ZWRCN's inception previously worked in male-dominated government agencies and are ambivalent about feminism. Struggles over power and control emerged between these employees, who regarded themselves as professionals in a bureaucratic sense, and junior staff with less expertise but a strong commitment to feminism. Also controversial were expectations that staff members would socialize outside of work and stay at work as long as needed to complete a task. In 1994, ZWRCN was forced to adopt a staff code of conduct and regulations in order to qualify for donor support. ZWRCN has been forced to abandon its original goal of creating a feminist culture and aim for a culture of participation less threatening to gender relations in the wider society. More awareness at the time of inception on the part of ZWRCN founders about ways feminist management styles would conflict with the socialization of future staff members might have averted some of this tension.     

Digital Exclusion: Potential Implications for Social Work Education

QAA Subject Benchmark 5.9 requires social work students to demonstrate the ability to have a critical understanding of the social impact of ICT, including an awareness of the impact of the ‘digital divide’. In the twenty-first century, the implications of digital exclusion may become increasingly relevant for the social work profession with its values of empowerment and anti-oppressive practices. As governments and organisations move closer to the provision of online services, the social worker may find themselves addressing the disempowerment of service users and carers disconnected from a virtual welfare state. The concern is that Benchmark 5.9 does not go far enough, that the full significance of this requirement may not be sufficiently realised and a greater awareness urgently called for.     

Empowerment in Coalitions Targeting Underage Drinking: Differential Effects of Organizational Characteristics for Volunteers and Staff

Social work has adopted the Grand Challenge to reduce and prevent alcohol misuse and related consequences. This study extends previous research through a macro examination of distinct roles within coalitions implementing prevention strategies targeting underage alcohol use. The purpose was to determine whether hypothesized relationships among organizational characteristics, empowerment variables, and perceived effectiveness differed for 2 subgroups (i.e., volunteers and paid staff). The sample was comprised of 357 survey participants affiliated with a statewide substance abuse initiative. Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized relationships between study variables and found differences among subgroups. Results can inform organizational processes within coalitions that focus on engaging different groups to have a stronger impact on community issues, such as substance use consequences.     

Western Donor Assistance and Gender Empowerment in the Palestinian Territories and Beyond

Since the end of the Cold War, the quest to spread democracy has become the rallying call of many Western donor agencies. Reflecting this new agenda, new program priorities prevailed that placed greater emphasis on civil society development, civic engagement and gender empowerment. Contrary to expectations, however, many of these programs have often adversely affected existing social movements. Most scholars attempting to explain these unintended outcomes have focused on the impact of NGO professionalization. Examining the Palestinian women's movement, this article addresses the inadequacy of this explanation and focuses on the political dimension of this discussion by illustrating how Western donors' lack of understanding of the Palestinian women's movement and its “embeddedness” in the broader political context served to weaken and undermine this movement. The influx of Western donor assistance in the post-Madrid, post-Oslo era, along with the greater emphasis on Western promoted gender empowerment, undermined the cohesiveness of the women's movement by exacerbating existing political polarization (that went beyond Islamist and secular divisions) and disempowering many grassroots activists. Effectively, many of these activists were transformed from active political participants involved in their organizations to the recipients of skills and services in need of awareness raising. Findings in this article also speak to current regional developments, especially in light of the current Arab uprisings and the promise of greater Western involvement to empower women in the region.     

Organizational capacity building: addressing a research and practice gap

The purpose of this article is to address the gap between evaluation research, and the practice of capacity building with nonprofits. This study describes a 5-year capacity building initiative with grassroots organizations including a longitudinal evaluation of the implementation and outcomes achieved. Formative processes yielded many lessons that were used to improve the capacity building model of services. The results show that the majority of groups met a priori expectations for participation success. Organizational staff valued technology, consultants, and program funding the most. Increases were found in board membership and perceptions of visibility of the organization were enhanced. Executive directors reported greater awareness of needs and improved management knowledge. These small organizations fill many unmet needs and more capacity building evaluation studies are needed to understand the mechanisms that support their efforts and the impact on their sustainability.     

Growing Down Like a Banana: Solomon Islands Village Women Changing Gender Norms

This article presents Solomon Islands village women’s opinions about gender norms. It explores their perceptions of their ability to be involved in leadership roles and decision-making, and their analysis of how they conceive of their abilities changing. It attempts to unravel the ‘push-pull’ experience for Solomon Islands rural women—a push towards modernity equated with gender equity and development, and the pull of traditional gender roles for women embedded in notions of what it means to be a good Solomon Islander woman. It concludes that women’s empowerment must be viewed as a journey that encompasses women’s strategic and practical interests relating to agency in a variety of locations. This article contributes to understanding some aspects to women’s empowerment and how international NGOs and other development entities may have a role in creating space for women’s self-reflection, public commentary and visibility in secular social space.     

The foster care system simulation: Evaluation of a training innovation

Although foster care is often spoken of as a system with many interactive facets, foster care personnel often carry out their specific roles with little understanding or consideration of the ultimate impact of that system. A simulation of public foster care service delivery designed to sensitize participants to these interactions is described. Evaluation of the simulation's accuracy in portrayal of actual service delivery and a study of the kinds of learning demonstrated by participants at three points (pretest, posttest, and follow-up) are reported. Participants found the simulation an attractive training method, indicated a greater appreciation of system-wide foster care problems, and reported changes in foster care thinking and work, but other indicators of learning were inconsistent.     

Catering to sex,sexual, and gender diversity: An exploratory study on the effects of LGBTI awareness training on aged care staff in Tasmania,Australia

The Australian National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategy seeks to address the lack of recognition of older lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) adults living in aged care. Awareness training for aged care staff forms a crucial part of this strategy, but the impact of such educational programs are yet to be examined. In this article, we examine the effects of LGBTI awareness training on staff working in an Australian aged care facility. These staff perceived the awareness training as valuable, but the outcomes from it were limited. Therefore, we indicate changes that are necessary to support the translation of training into practice.     

Triads in Equine-Assisted Social Work Enhance Therapeutic Relationships with Self-Harming Adolescents

Despite an increasing number of studies, there is still a lack of knowledge about the unique features that underlie the process in equine assisted social work (EASW). This study aimed to reveal, through qualitative methods, the dyads within the triad that become stronger during the process of EASW, as well as the effect of the participation of the horse on the relationship between the counselor and client. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with nine female self-harming clients aged 15–21 years and eight staff members. The interviews, together with video-recorded human–horse interactions with three staff members and four clients were analyzed, resulting in additional issues answered by these three staff members and four clients in a second interview. Critical dialogues between patterns and fragmentations in the narratives and video-recordings, as well as a dialogue with the participants while they were viewing videos of their own EASW sessions, led to the conclusion that adding a horse qualitatively changes therapeutic relationships in EASW. The different triads consist of different liaisons between actors in the triad, giving rise to unique combinations. The quality of the relationships depends on both the staff and the clients’ attachment orientations. Further research is needed to investigate how the degree of emotional connection to the horse affects the impact that horses have on triads in EASW.     

A menu for learning: a World Café approach for user involvement and inter-professional learning on mental health

Inter-professional learning (IPL) initiatives and service user involvement are well established in professional education programmes, but are seldom incorporated in the same teaching and learning project. In order to accomplish a combination of these approaches, an interactive learning format, styled as a World Café on mental health, was chosen to bring social work and mental health nursing students together with service users and carers. The project aimed to be participatory and inclusive from the outset, establishing a steering group with staff, students and user/carer volunteers to plan the day-long event. The event enabled all participants to engage in round table conversations to learn from each other's outlooks and roles, and for students to reflect on their future inter-professional practice and engagement with service users. Findings from this project indicate that the World Café as a teaching and learning method may have much to offer students engaged in IPL activities. We believe that the findings from this project can contribute to the advancement of existing knowledge regarding IPL and user involvement, and that a World Café approach may serve as a template for replication for other education providers, as part of a wider repertoire of inter-professional and service user involvement initiatives.     

Changing Relationships through Interactions: Preliminary Accounts of Parent–Child Interactions after Undertaking Individual Parent Training

Parent and child interaction training has been increasingly investigated over recent years. However, the mechanisms of change within individual training programmes are not well understood. To explore the factors that can facilitate or inhibit meaningful changes in interactions and ultimately relationships, the current study employed semi-structured interviews to obtain first person accounts from parents who had undertaken an individualised parent-training programme. Three participants provided accounts of the training programme and their perceived impact upon interactions with their children were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. The analysis resulted in three themes, which illustrate how participants adjusted their interactional style with their child to varying degrees through enhanced personal awareness, increased understanding of their child’s emotional and interactional needs, and accepting the reciprocity of interactional accountability. Changes in interactional style enabled participants to alter their perceptions of their own behaviours, their child’s behaviours, and how they influenced one another through interactions. Recommendations for future research and therapeutic practice are discussed in the context of the findings and the existing evidence base.