The Meaning of Camp and Social Group Work Principles

SUMMARY

The paper examines the experience of campers at a summer residential camp in relation to principles of group work practice that are incorporated into the camp program. Through the use of examples and stories from campers, six different principles are discussed in relation to their meaning to campers. All of the practice principles discussed are applicable to other recreational, residential, and educational settings.     

社会工作建构主义实务原则指导下的小组工作反思

社会建构主义是一种反实证主义的学术思潮和运动。社会建构主义影响下的社会工作实务原则包括;对本土化的强调、社工与案主关系及社工角色的不断反思、社会工作实践模式的转变。在社会工作建构主义实务原则指导下的小组工作反思包括：“前台-后台”情节反思、需求评估目标确定及活动节目安排反思、小组工作者的角色反思。     

社会工作机构与政府组织的相互嵌入及其影响

由于政府的主导推动和社工机构对政府资源的强依赖,社工机构在创建及运作过程中与政府之间呈现出相互嵌入的倾向和特点,其中政府对社工机构的嵌入突出表现为一种结构性的强嵌入,而社工机构对政府的嵌入则是一种制度性和职能性的弱嵌入。本文以上海市自强社会服务总社等三家社工机构为例,来具体分析社工机构与政府之间如何相互的嵌入,以及这种相互嵌入对社工机构的实际运作及长远发展又产生怎样的冲击与影响。     

本土社会工作实务中个别化原则的思考

本土社会工作实务的广泛开展需要对西方社会工作理论技术和中国本土价值体系进行深入思考,探索出适合中国实际情况的实务原则。本文从社会工作的一个基本原则"个别化"入手,分析其含义与思想渊源,进而分析在中国传统文化价值环境中开展社会工作实务时,运用个别化原则需要注意的问题并提出适用这一原则的具体方法。     

Social Work and Child Mental Health: Psychosocial Principles in Community Practice

Correspondence to Steven Walker, Senior Lecturer, School of Community Health and Social Studies, Anglia Polytechnic University, 2nd Floor, Ashby House, Brook Street, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ, UK. E-mail: s.walker{at}apu.ac.uk Summary The increased prevalence, complexity and earlier onset of childand adolescent mental health difficulties, has prompted governmentinitiatives to reconfigure current provision for this clientgroup, their parents and the carers who try to support them.Social workers have an important part to play in respondingto the needs of these individual children and families. A residual,care management role is not adequate in these circumstances.This paper describes the development of social work in childand adolescent mental health, and suggests that a synthesisof psychosocial principles and community practice, offers theoptimum social work model of assessment and intervention. Sucha model embraces the most useful aspects of psychodynamic theoryin the context of practice consistent with anti-discriminatory,children's rights and partnership principles.     

Social Work Teachers and Social Work Practice

Summary A survey was undertaken to discover the extent to which thosesocial work teachers who teach social work methods, continueto practise after they become educators. The results suggestthat not more than 25% do so, and many of these on only a tokenbasis. Most respondents however regarded such practice as animportant aide to the teaching of social work methods, althoughsome consider consultancy roles to be equally relevant. In nocases was such practice linked with research, and only exceptionallydid employers allow time explicitly for it. We outline fourdifferent bases on which teachers might practise, all of whichwere suggested by respondents, many of whom added personal notesto the questionnaire, indicating the extent to which this subjectis a matter of wide interest and concern     

论社会救助中的预防机制和服务保障：社会工作的功能及其运用

在社会救助中，社会工作应充分发挥其预防性功能。专业的社会工作能够在价值理念、理论模式、实务技巧及救助效果等四个方面指导、协助社会救助工作的展开，并使得社会救助的服务工作有效实施。社会救助与社会工作两者之间的有机衔接，将使得社会救助真正实现“从救济到救助、从保障到共生”的转变。     

The Independent Social Work Agency: A Report on the First Year of an Experiment in Social Casework

Summary The authors present an account of their experiences in organizinga research project to explore aspects of the need and demandfor social work through the use of an independent fee-payingagency. Some of the problems encountered in setting up the projectand the agency are discussed, along with some observations onthe first year's work in the agency.     

Structure, Agency and Social Transformation

Revisiting the structure/agency debate, the article puts forward the broad position shared by Giddens'structuration theory and Bhaskar's transformational model. It defends Giddens'concept of structure as'rules and resources'against charges of idealism, arguing that its strength is its focus on the interface of structure and agency. But both Giddens and Bhaskar emphasise social reproduction as an unintended consequence of social action. Taking issue with postmodern pessimism, the article goes on to consider the conditions of possibility, and requisite forms of knowledgeability, for deliberate social transformation.     

Social Gerontology and Social Work

Summary This paper reviews developments in the study of ageing as anindividual and social experience and it considers recent studiesof practical services for the elderly. In so doing it aims tohighlight the ways in which social work skills and helping techniquescan be developed. It also relates the findings of studies ofservice delivery to the elderly to the development of futurepolicy.     

社会工作与农村社会工作的使命

从社会工作与农村社会工作发展的现状入手,论述了社会工作尤其是农村社会工作的基础、特征、使命,强调农村社会工作的实践性与反思性,在此基础上提出丰富本土社会工作知识,加强与国际社会工作的对话能力。     

Worker Participation and the Social Service Agency

Summary Is there real sharing of decision-making responsibility withinsocial service agencies? What hope is there for participationby the consumer of services if the agency worker nearest andmost relevant to him has little voice or leverage within theorganization? This paper examines the notion of worker participationwithin the context of the social services department and theprobation service, noting the imperfections of the ‘publicmandate’ behind the authority structure of these organizations.Above all it looks for continuity between the values socialservice agencies publicly represent and the values in theirday-to-day dealings with their own staff and clients. Currenttrade union proposals for worker representation at committeelevel are considered, and Dutch experience in extending theworkers' council from the industrial to the social welfare sphereis presented as one alternative model.     

Social Movements, Social Justice and Social Work

Correspondence to: Neil Thompson, Avenue Consulting Ltd, PO Box 2060, Wrexham LL13 OZG, Wales, UK. Summary This paper explores the relationship between social movements,social justice and social work. It examines the role of socialmovements in promoting social justice and considers the influencesof such movements in the development of emancipatory forms ofsocial work practice. It also considers the question of whethersocial work can be viewed as a form of social movement in itsown right. A central theme of the paper is the fundamental tensionbetween social work as a force for social regulation and asa force for social development and emancipation.     

Work Satisfaction in Probation and Social Work

Correspondence to Professor Martin Davies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ. Summary The design and preliminary development of a research instrumentintended to provide comparable measures of work satisfactionwithin different social work settings is described. The resultsof administering it to two separate samples of social workersand probation officers are presented. It appears that probation officers feel themselves more highlyregarded by members of the general public and are less likelyto say they are badly paid; they enjoy more job autonomy; rathermore social workers tend to feel alienated at work, but mostbelieve that they have better chances of career advancementthan is the case in the probation service. There are broad similarities between the two work settings sofar as work with clients and attitudes towards colleagues areconcerned; it is argued that the emergence of these similaritiesis methodologically reassuring because it suggests the stabilityof the data overall, and therefore increases the likelihoodthat the findings regarding agency differences are a valid reflectionof social reality in each setting.     

Social Work and Self-determination

Correspondence to Department of Political Science and Social Policy, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN. Summary Self-determination is a curious concept, related to, but notquite the same as, freedom and autonomy. As an ethical principle,the principle of self-determination bears little relationshipto the way social workers behave. It is used as if clients werebeing allowed a free, independent choice; but clients are subjectto pressure, and the social work relationship is often conceivedwithin a structure of authority. As a guide to practice, theconcept of self-determination ignores the cases where directionis legitimate or desirable. Self-determination can be seen as a professional ideology—aninter-related set of values and ideas. The concept is derivedfrom a number of ideas and values outside social work, but itappears to have little direct relevance to social work in practice.The paper suggests that the concept of freedom may be more usefuland less remote from the realities than ‘self-detemination’is.     

Probation and Social Work

The paper considers the representation of probation themes inthe British Journal of Social Work (BJSW) since the early 1990s,and reviews developments in probation policy and practice sincethen, with a focus on the relationship between probation practiceand social work. It argues that emerging research evidence supportsthe view that effective probation practice is likely to be informedby values and skills that are recognizably within the traditionof social work, and concludes that despite pressures to abandonsocial work as a basis for probation practice, it is not obviouswhat the alternative could be.     

Social Work and AJSI

AJSI had its genesis in the Department of Social Work at the University of Sydney in 1961. Since that time both social work and the AJSI have developed and drifted apart. This paper charts this journey and points to a future where social work and AJSI will function as partners in critiquing social policy and social issues.     

社会政策与社会工作的议题

社会政策与社会工作的研究共同点在于其目的是解决社会问题,从而改善和提高社会福利,一般的研究基于中国背景,更注重实务性;而本文则基于国外发展状况,旨在从理论层面探析影响二者发展的因素。     

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?.     

社会工作职业化与社会政策

社会工作职业化目前在中国存在社会认同度不高、专业服务组织机构欠缺、社会工作职业制度不健全、高校人才培养与实际部门不衔接以及本土化的社会工作理论亟待建立等问题。社会政策作为支持弱势群体、解决社会问题、促进社会公正的制度化模式,从政府的政策性角色和社会立法这两个维度出发来解决社会工作职业化过程中面临的问题,在推进社会工作职业化进程中起着举足轻重的作用。