Case Work in Social Work: Exploring the use of Reflective Letters in the Intensive Family Support Services

This paper begins by reviewing the current policy context of ‘evidence based interventions’, a term littered in social work literature and more recently working with complex families in Wales. This study demonstrates the application of practice of a range of workers located in the Integrated Family Support Services (IFSS) in Wales in the context of reflective letters utilising motivational interviewing (MI) techniques. As part of the MI method, which is used as a model for practice in the IFSS, the consultant social worker, alongside other practitioners, uses a range of tools including the use of reflective letters and narrative principles. These letters are evidence themselves of the work and therapeutic conversations that happen during sessions within the family home, and with various family members. This paper draws on 14 samples of reflective letters from current practice in Wales and explores and considers their application to practice and areas for further development.     

Mental Health Workforce Change Through Social Work Education: A California Case Study

The 2004 CaliforniaMental Health Services Act requires large-scale system change in the public mental health system through a shift to recovery-oriented services for diverse populations. This article describes an innovative strategy for workforce recruitment and retention to create and sustain these systemic changes. The California Social Work Education Center Mental Health Program provides stipends to master's of social work students at 17 California universities. In return, students must work for 1 year postgraduation in community mental health practice. Results of a 5-year study show that stipend recipients closely mirror the diverse demographics of the state, and 94% have remained in community mental health practice. The article also discusses lessons learned and implications for social work education in California and other states.     

Exploring Perspectives in Narrative Research: An Indonesian Case Study*

Cet article veut examiner le processus par lequel deux chercheures, situées à des endroits très différents, analysent les données d'une étude qu'elles ont menée ensemble. À partir d'un projet de recherche narrative dans un groupe de collaboration, soutenus par un groupe central du programme d'études supérieures en études de la condition féminine à L'Université d'Indonésie (programme Kajian Wanita), les rôles de la chercheure canadienne et de la chercheure indonésienne étaient d'une importance cruciale à la fois dans la conceptualisation et dans L'analyse des données. Les auteures explorent ici quelques‐unes des façons par lesquelles leur position différente influe à la fois sur leur relation en tant que chercheures et sur leur analyse des données. This paper is an attempt to examine the process whereby two researchers, situated very differently, analysed the data arising from a jointly conducted study. The roles of the Canadian and the Indonesian researcher were crucially important in both framing and analysing the data arising from a collaborative group narrative research project, carried out with a core group in the graduate program in Women's Studies at the University of Indonesia (Program Studi Kajian Wanita). In this paper we explore some of the ways in which our different positioning affected both our relationship as researchers and our analyses of the data.     

Systems Theory and Organization Change: A Case Study

A case study of a social welfare agency demonstrates that this organization can control its development as an autonomous system and need not merely shift with the times in response to the changing involvement of the federal government in social welfare programs. A theoretical framework of organizational change utilizes Parson's AGIL for this analysis.     

Gendering the Management of Change in Higher Education: A Case Study

This article reports an investigation into the influence of gender at a pre-1992 UK university. Interviews with Heads of Departments and others defined as occupying ‘middle management’ positions reveal three distinct stances to the new higher education, of ‘collaboration’, ‘resistance’ and ‘transformation’ and the article explores how gender influences these stances. It attempts to move beyond a simple focus on gender differences, towards answering Bacchi's (1990) call for ‘a more useful political analysis (which) would draw attention to the way in which the current economic system encourages certain behaviours and discourages others’. It shows that women academics are taking a transformational stance, but that the stances are not gender-specific. Gender is institutionally embedded with other organizational characteristics, such as academic discipline, departmental size, compatibility with external commercial activity, and the ability or otherwise to generate funds. Questions are raised about the contribution of such stances to the future of the new educational order.     

探索城市转型发展之路——以广州为例

转型发展,是指转变经济社会发展模式,实现又好又快的科学发展。近年来,广州从实际出发,以科学发展观为指导,率先探索转型发展之路,并且取得了积极成就,走在了全省和全国的前列。但是,广州的转型发展仍然是初步的。在建设国家中心城市的进程中,广州仍然面临着许多不容忽视的问题,需要继续探索符合本市实际的转型发展之路。     

Corporate Environmentalism and Organic Agriculture in Australia: The Case of Uncle Tobys1

Abstract Recent expansion in the organic food industry represents an increasing awareness amongst an array of actors of the implications of conventional agriculture. In particular, the organic agriculture movement has been driven by both organic producers and consumers concerned about the environmental implications of food production and the health effects associated with food consumption. The recent institutionalization of the organic movement in organic regulatory bodies and through the involvement of food companies has encapsulated other actors within this network. This paper looks specifically at Uncle Tobys, a producer of breakfast cereals, which joined this network when it decided to produce an organic breakfast cereal called “Organic Vita Brits.” The integration of this company has expanded the range of actors participating within the organic network and altered the relationships between them. The temporary involvement of Uncle Tobys in the organic food industry has also resulted in a shift in the construction of meaning of “organic.” The limited success, despite many efforts to appeal to green consumers, of Uncle Tobys within this network suggests that organic food remains a niche product, consumed by a minority of consumers.     

Non-traditional Student Retention: Exploring Perceptions of Support in a Social Work Graduate Program

This study examines non-traditional student perceptions of social support in the context of a group intervention offered by a graduate program at a predominantly white university in the southern United States of America. The goal of the group intervention was to enhance perceptions of social support, as measured by a standardized instrument administered pre and post the group intervention. Data analysis showed no significant differences in pre–post changes in perceptions of social support between intervention and comparison groups. A follow-up survey questionnaire administered to group intervention participants provided feedback that shed light on these unanticipated results: it is recommended that future interventions for improving non-traditional student retention focus on supporting the development of social support networks among incoming and first-year graduate students.     

Exploring the Potential of a Collaborative Web-based E-portfolio in Social Work Field Education

ABSTRACT

In most Australian workplaces that provide placement opportunities, social workers are unlikely to receive reductions in their workload for supervising students and completing the administrative requirements of field education subjects. Associated time costs lead to reluctance to supervise social work students. This article investigates the potential for a web-based e-portfolio tool to support and streamline social work field education and assessment processes. Social work students, field educators, and university-appointed liaison staff (N = 110) from a large Australian university completed an online survey administered at the end of placement. The majority of participants reported that the e-portfolio provided a useful framework for recording evidence of student learning; was simple to use; saved time; and had the capacity to enhance the quality and immediacy of communication between parties. We argue that e-portfolios can efficiently capture evidence of student learning and provide a robust mode of supporting social work students on placement.     

The Role of Philanthropic Funding in Building Research Evidence to Support an Aging Population: A Case Study from Ireland

This case study examines the role of philanthropic funding in building capacity for aging research in Ireland, and how this investment has addressed the lack of evidence to support planning for an aging population. The funding has supported a range of initiatives including the national longitudinal study on aging (TILDA), the creation of three professorships/chairs, and the establishment of four new research centers. Important potential outcomes are emerging across other domains including research-informed policy development and the generation of health benefits. The efforts of academic researchers to ensure that their findings are readily accessible to end users and to forge robust working relationships with all stakeholders have helped to enhance the use of research findings. Overall, philanthropy has played a pivotal role in building capacity, infrastructure, and expertise in academic settings in Ireland. Moreover, this work provides an excellent example of how such efforts can begin to inform effective planning and service provision.     

Environmental Sustainability and Social Work: A Rural Australian Evaluation of Incorporating Eco-Social Work in Field Education

Climate change poses significant threat to the wellbeing of global society. Addressing this change has as yet generated no fixed blueprint for social work practice and education. This paper reports on a formative evaluation of one Australian initiative to address this transformative opening in social work field education. Prompted by service users' and workers' experience of the impact of drought, a rurally located social work course team amended the field education curriculum to include a focus on Environment and Sustainability. This learning goal was added to the existing learning goals derived from the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards. Students and field supervisors were surveyed on their experience of meeting this new learning goal. While most expressed confidence in understanding the concepts involved, they clearly lacked assurance in interpreting these in practice encounters. Considering their qualitative input suggests that this topic is making a transition from being on the margins of social work to becoming mainstream. Their open-ended responses indicate that the incorporation of environmental sustainability into practice is at a threshold stage of development. Further enactment of eco-social work at the local level is concluded to be supported by using a transformative learning framework in facilitating critical reflection and collaborative dialogue for effective change.     

Power and Social Work: A Change in Direction

This article examines the elite model of conceptualizing poverty. The authors contend that elites frame the discussions about employment and poverty; consequently, they prevent any meaningful examination of the root causes of poverty and circumvent any proposals that shift the balance of power. The challenge for social work is that the elite model considers the profession as an agent responsible for executing social policy that supports the status quo. Thus, social workers have unwittingly become part of the problem.

The authors argue that the way to address this problem is to transform the profession of social work from within. Among the ways to create this transformation are to focus social work education on the function of politics; strengthen field education; promote action-based research; and integrate a global perspective into practice and policy initiatives.     

Offering Social Support via the Internet: A Case Study of an Online Support Group for Social Workers

SUMMARY

Human service professionals have begun to explore the Internet's potential as a therapeutic medium for individuals, families and groups, but we still know very little about the ways that Internet-mediated communication affects interventions. This paper uses examples from a recent study of a short-term, listserv-based support group that helps social workers cope with job stress to discuss issues related to the use of online support groups.     

Social Capital,Organic Agriculture,and Sustainable Livelihood Security: Rethinking Agrarian Change in Mexico*

Abstract This paper explores the relevance of extra local market linkages and local‐level social capital to sustainable livelihood outcomes in two agrarian communities on Mexico's Baja Peninsula. Contextualized by the specificity of Mexico's transition from state‐directed rural development to neoliberally‐guided rural development in the 1990s, findings suggest that market linkages can intersect with pre‐existing social capital to both create new and destroy preexisting social capital, thus shaping the direction of development and inequality outcomes. The nature of a community's social fabric is often a result of long‐standing historical legacies. In the communities presented, the quantity and quality of social capital was intricately connected to their history of state‐sponsored or market agriculture; the nature of local institutions, with particular emphasis on the formation and evolution of the ejido; and the access to and availability of natural resources, namely land and water, which are both intricately connected to market access options. Moving beyond a simple demonstration that social capital matters, this analysis explores the complex and dynamic interaction between local‐level social capital and extralocal market linkages. In doing so, it contributes to the larger debate on how the historical legacy of populist reforms and the social and political institutions created during state populism have nuanced the trajectory of neoliberal development in Mexico.     

Racism, Rational Choice, and White Opposition to Racial Change: A Case Study of Busing

Despite significant declines in traditional prejudice, whiteresistance to desegregation and affirmative action has led someto argue that a new symbolic racism has emerged as the principalimpediment to racial change in America. Studies of oppositionto busing, however, suggest a nonracial or rational choice explanation;whites oppose busing because it is believed to have too manycosts and not enough benefits. Using data from a medium-sizedmidwestem city, this study estimates a multiple indicator modelfor the effects of traditional prejudice, symbolic racism, andrational choice on four types of opposition to busing—attitudestoward two-way busing, one-way busing, protest, and white flight.Traditional prejudice and symbolic racism are found to be partiallyindependent dimensions whose effects on busing opposition areentirely mediated by certain expected costs of busing. Thus,the findings support both racism and rational choice explanations.There is, however, no support for the notion that symbolic racismis a more important source of opposition to racial change thanis traditional prejudice.     

A Case Study Using Photovoice to Explore Racial and Social Identity Among Young Black Men: Implications for Social Work Research and Practice

This article describes an exploratory qualitative case study using a research method novel to social work known as Photovoice. This case study of the Photovoice process assesses its value as a community-based participatory research (CBPR) method with marginalized communities within social work research. Photovoice was used to engage young Black men as researchers into their own lived experience. Through a photographic and group participatory project, participants discussed how intersections of race, gender, and sexuality affect their lives and health. While this methodology has proliferated within public health literature, little research exists within social work. Photovoice represents a research well-aligned with core social work values of empowerment and social justice. This method offers our profession a participatory, action-oriented tool to inform practice and policy and does so in the voices of communities who often go unheard.     

Integrating the Natural Environment in Social Work Education: Sustainability and Scenario-based Learning

This article presents an approach to curriculum design that incorporates natural environmental content into social work education using sustainability principles. The curriculum development project outlined here used scenario-based learning (SBL) to integrate sustainability themes into contemporary social work practice challenges. SBL offers a flexible pedagogical strategy to integrate environmental content and explore social complexity. Importantly, it presents eco-social concerns as a central consideration of all contemporary social work practice.     

Work Values in the Second Generation of Gender Equality Pioneers: A Case Study from Norway

This article explores work values in a generational context. Sons and daughters of couples that made untraditional choices in sharing the provider role in Norway in the 1970s were interviewed about work–family adaptation, work motivation and working time preferences. These issues are discussed theoretically in relation to gender socialization in the family as well as to opportunity structures created by welfare state policies. The findings lend support to the generational transmission thesis in that those whose parents made the most radical choices concerning gender equality were more inclined than the others to opt for unconventional solutions. However, the atypical pattern of husband and wife both working part time was reproduced only exceptionally. Irrespective of family background, nearly all interviewees adapted to the pattern of work–family articulation that welfare state policies encourage in working full time or close to full time. Men and women were found to hold similar values with respect to careers. Nearly all would prefer to work fewer hours while work motivation and preferences about the structure of working time differed according to gender.     

Advocacy Coalitions and Policy Change in China: A Case Study of Anti-incinerator Protest in Guangzhou

This study examines the anti-incinerator protest in Guangzhou in China. It uses the advocacy coalition framework to analyze the dynamics between Guangzhou Municipal Government and the protesters. The research covers the establishment of a Public Consultative and Supervision Committee for Urban Waste Management in Guangzhou, a public consultative mechanism for waste management, which is a new development in the policy-making process in socialist China. The ultimate plan will be to demonstrate how policy adjustment is not determined solely by the outcome of protests but is also affected by both a decentralized political structure and the socio-cultural foundation. Consequently, the discussion also explores the gradual transformation of public participation in China’s environmental policy.