Some Problems and Possibilities in the Study of Dynamical Social Processes

The recent challenge of Dynamical Systems Theory (also known as ComplexityTheory or Chaos Theory) to the social sciences, is based largely on the beliefthat processes in the social arena can be considered as analogous to those of the natural world, and that in consequence general theoretical advances in explaining the latter might with advantage be applied to the former. This paper aims to show that claims for Dynamical Systems Theory with respect to the understanding or measurement of social processes would be premature; the reasons for this lying not only in the unfamiliarity and operational difficulties of Dynamical Systems Theory in itself, but also in the problematic nature and history of our usage of the term 'social process'. Reviewing some examples of such usage from Sociology and Social Psychology, it is concluded that Dynamical Systems Theory might serve as a catalyst for a re-examination of existing orthodoxies and major concepts, but that progress would be retarded by the uncritical application of it's terminology, concepts, and techniques of mathematical modelling, without this prior and demanding first step.     

Emotional labour and befriending in family support and child protection in Tower Hamlets

This paper describes the emotional labour and befriending of families in East London by Family Support Workers (FSWs). The study is derived from an evaluation of the Family Welfare Association's Tower Hamlets Family Support Service. A key finding is that engaging the emotions of families enables high quality and effective support in the family home. FSWs win trust and elicit narratives from families, particularly from mothers and children. The narratives of families are a rich source of informing better practice. In line with Government objectives, the participatory work of FSWs helps to balance understanding on family support, health and child protection. According to Government and research, the early identification of child protection issues is particularly important in mitigating their worst effects. FSWs gain trust and early disclosure on child protection cases. This prevents child care problems from deteriorating into child protection issues. FSWs also act as informal advocates and help to balance social service assessments with the views of families. FSWs take a proactive, non‐stigmatizing, non‐intrusive approach to families. FSWs are sensitive and responsive to the emotions, ethnicity and specific needs of families.     

Secure Attachment to Family and Community

ABSTRACT

Disproportionately large numbers of high risk clients from Multiple Problem Families (MPFs) utilize a disproportionately large percentage of Medicaid, Health and Human Services. Clients from these families are involved in domestic violence, addiction, child abuse and neglect. They are over represented on the caseloads of state protective service agencies. The approach outlined in this paper is based on social attachment theory models. It stresses the use of long-term, home-based therapy, and community support agencies to establish and maintain safe secure attachment for these fragile families. The therapeutic goals are to foster attachments that lead to increased mentalisation, and to decrease the crisis-driven behavior that often results in high cost utilization of state services. A placement prevention model, outlined as an alternative “mentalising social system” approach, is proposed for treating disruptive MPF children. Family oriented, in-home, community-based treatment is found to be more cost effective and therapeutically helpful for these children than costly inpatient psychiatric admission followed by residential care.     

社会工作增能视角下失独家庭的分析

增能理论是社会工作研究中一个重要的领域,同时也是服务于弱势群体的一个新视角。失独家庭作为特殊的弱势群体,个人资源与社会资源的缺失致使他们的自我效能感极低,处于一种消权状态。社会工作可以从微观与宏观层面对失独家庭进行增能介入。在微观上,运用个案、小组、社区的工作方法帮助失独家庭摆脱精神困境,增强他们的自我效能感;在宏观上,借鉴国外经验,通过完善社会福利政策、加大社会行政力度提升失独家庭的社会保障水平。利用增能理论介入失独家庭,可以帮助失独家庭恢复基本权能,提高其生存质量,保证其安度晚年。     

Inner and outer worlds: a psychosocial framework for child and family social work

Social workers need a framework for understanding and helping children and families which takes into account the inner world of the self and the outer world of the environment, both in terms of relationships and in terms of practicalities such as housing. It is the capacity of social workers to be aware of and integrate in their practice these different areas of concern which defines the distinctive nature of their professional identity. This paper argues that in order to address both inner and outer worlds, social workers need to use relationship-based practice at all stages of their professional involvement with families. It considers what this psychosocial approach means in relation to individual case examples, where the assessment of need and the offering of help can only be achieved in the context of a relationship. At a time when social work is being defined in terms of case management and service provision, it is necessary to reflect on traditional social work skills and values in order to defend what the professional social worker offers as a service in herself.     

Services to prevent child placing-out for cocaine-affected and non-affected families

This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the'In-Home Family Care' programme of Children's Home Society of California in Alameda County, particularly regarding the emphasis and impact of services for cocaine-affected families. The family characteristics, problems addressed and service provision in cases served over a 3-year period were assessed in terms of their relation to placement outcome for cocaine-affected and non-affected families. This evaluation found that, despite serious and often chronic problems among cocaine-affected families, their child removal rate was no higher than that for non-affected families. Implications for risk assessment and placement decisions are discussed.     

Prediction and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

A high-risk population was successfully identified by the use of perinatal screening procedures. These children encountered significantly different parenting practices than the low-risk "control" group. There were also significant differences between "High-Risk" and "Low-Risk" families on issues concerning social adjustment and mother/infant attachment. Five children in a "High-Risk Nonintervene" group required hospitalization for serious injuries thought to be secondary to abnormal parenting practices. There were no such hospitalizations in either a High Risk Intervene group or a Low Risk group. Labordelivery observations, and postpartum interviews and observations provided the most accurate predictive information; prenatal interviews and questionnaires did not add significantly. Perinatal assessment and simple intervention with families at high risk for abnormal parenting practices significantly improves the infants' chances for escaping serious hospitalized physical injury.     

Foster Families for Adolescents: the healing potential of time-limited placements

Correspondence to Dr Celia Downes, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD Summary This paper describes a research project which explored how familyplacements may function reparatively. It identified and analysedthe dynamic processes at work within foster families who havedifficult adolescents placed with them for time-limited periods. The conceptual framework which was developed from the findingselaborated upon the idea of some of the psychosocial tasks ofparticular concern to these adolescents. Understandings drawnfrom Attachment Theory and Family Systems Theory were then integratedto provide a framework for considering patterns of interactionbetween adolescents and foster-parents. It is argued that what needs repairing is the adolescent's capacityfor attachment. This is manifested in several ways, includingtheir capacity for emotional and physical distance regulationbetween themselves and significant others. Negotiations betweenadolescent and foster-parents across the boundary between thefamily and the world outside provide a promising arena for change.These critical negotiations often occur in connection with thepsychosocial tasks of concern to the adolescent.     

Some Characteristics of Abusing Families Referred to the NSPCC

Summary The results from 85 social work schedules completed at a numberof NSPCC units for the treatment of non-accidental injury showthat there is a decreasing trend in the seriousness of recentreferral injuries and confirms the prevalence of facial bruising.Children under four were those most at risk, the mean age ofchildren being 20 months. Early parenthood appears to be a characteristicof these and other families with the likelihood of larger thanaverage families by the time the family is completed. Maternalill-health, especially psychological ill-health, is a confirmedfinding and general family violence rather than the scapegoatingof a single child was frequent. Family disruption was high withseparation, housing and employment changes, and previous criminalityoccurring in a disproportionate number of families.     

Vulnerability to Violence: A Contextually-Sensitive, Developmental Perspective on African American Adolescents

Spencer's Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) is presented as a theoretical framework to analyze potential effects of being a victim or co-victim of a violent crime. Data are presented from a sample of African American adolescents residing in a Southeastern metropolitan area. Victims (n = 20) and non-victims (n = 332) are compared on their self-reporting of clinical symptoms normally associated with violent or traumatic experience during middle childhood and early adolescence. Results suggest that observed symptomatology may not be solely attributable to actual victimization. Discussion includes possible mechanisms by which factors such as cognitive developmental status, physical and social context, and previous victimization of the adolescent or a family member of the adolescent can influence symptomatology.     

Exploring the 'Need' for Family Centres: The Perceptions of Social Workers and Their Importance for Planning

Correspondence to Ms J. R. Fells, Wooster Arms, The Walk, Islip, Oxon OX5 2SD. Summary This article follows Gilbert Smith in questioning the usefulnessof some traditional ways of regarding need, which rely mainlyon surveying potential client populations in order to decidewhat provision a social services department ought to make. Itdescribes a small study which examined in detail what socialworkers meant when they said that certain families ‘needed’a Family Centre, and which also looked at the subsequent historyof the department's contact with those families in the absenceof such a resource. It is, therefore, based on looking at whathappened to families when the Centre was not provided, and onanalysing social workers' perceptions of the need they encountered. It is argued that, despite its limitations, such an approachcan give useful indications, not only of what services shouldbe provided but as to the specific way they should be offered.In view of the role played by social workers in assessment for,and allocation of, services, it is suggested that a clearerunderstanding of their perceptions is essential to achieve effectiveservice utilization.     

类单亲家庭教育问题探究

类单亲家庭教育问题因其隐性存在结果可能更为严重。家庭社会学校应该加强合作减少类单亲家庭的不良影响。针对比较常见的教育问题,可以从举办家长学校、净化社会文化、教会孩子交往等方面入手,培养身心健康的孩子,尽量不让家长的职业因素和生活状态影响到孩子的发展。     

Personal Construct Theory and Psychological Changes Related to Social Work Training

Summary This paper summarizes Personal Construct Theory and its mostdeveloped experimental investigating technique, the Role ConstructRepertory Grid. Issues in professional training in adjacentprofessions are examined for relevant parallels to social workin ‘personal change’. The specific notion of emotionas change in the mode of information processing is introducedthrough the neuropsychological model put forward by Pribramand Melges. Personal Construct Theory is presented as congruentwith that model for dealing with uncertainty, and as particularlysuitable for examining personal change in social work training.Studies comparing the Personal Construct Systems of social workstudents through training, with professionally qualified socialworkers are reviewed in some detail. It is concluded that theprocesses involved in social work education are corrigible and,because of the nature of their characteristics, may lead a personto develop desirable, sensitive, articulate and imaginativeways of construing people and personal problems, or to oversimple,rigid, impersonal and finally incompetent modes of construing,Suggestions are made as to how an understanding of PersonalConstruct Theory can help social workers involved in training,to deal with this problem.     

Measuring Child Care

Three comprehensive child welfare assessment measures, which utilize the method of behavioral observation, were examined for reliability, construct validity and sensitivity to change in functioning over time. These measures are the Family Assessment Checklist, the Childhood Level of Living Scale, and the Maternal Characteristics Scale. The correlations between the measures tended to be fairly high, especially for the major scale dimensions (r = -.56 to -.84). Two of the measures recorded significant pretest/posttest change. These assessment tools appear to be practical, economical and potentially useful for identifying families at risk and for treatment outcome evaluation.     

Poor Hemodialysis Outcome Identifying Social Risk Factors in Elderly and Non-elderly Patients in Singapore

Little is known about the social determinants that predispose hemodialysis patients to poor treatment outcome. Using a clinical data mining method, this study aims to identify differences in social risk factors for hospitalization between elderly and non-elderly patients. The sample consists of 100 elderly and 219 non-elderly patients who started hemodialysis at the National Kidney Foundation from October 2007 to September 2008 and were followed through up to one year of hemodialysis to examine their hospitalization status then. Bivariate analysis revealed differences in the risk profiles between the two groups. The study has implications for funding policy and also draws attention to how clinical interventions ought to be tailored between the two age groups.     

Reflections on risk in child protection: is it time for a shift in paradigms?

Approaches to risk assessment and management in child protection have been developed largely within an objectivist paradigm and this has led to an emphasis on prediction, control and culpability. This paper argues that the objectivist paradigm has failed to provide valid and reliable measures of risk and has replaced a focus on the subject (the individual) with a one-sided focus on objectified risk factors. Because of these limitations, it is argued that risk should be explored from an alternative, subjectivist paradigm. The paper outlines the implications of this shift for social work practice with children and their families, by advocating the re-instatement of the subject and a return to 'relationship' as the guiding rationale for social work intervention.     

FACTORS AFFECTING THE POST-HOSPITAL CARE PLANNING OF ELDERLY PATIENTS IN AN ACUTE CARE SETTING

Post hospital care decision making is an issue for a vast number of elder persons and yet has received little attention from social work professionals. This paper reviews literature regarding attitudes of professionals, family members and patients themselves toward decision making in a hospital context. Furthermore, an exploratory study involving 40 hospitalized elderly patients highlights the potential risk in limiting patient involvement and identifies implications for practice with the elderly.     

A practice framework to guide screening and assessment in the Australian Family Relationship Centres and Advice Line

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the reactive way in which policy is translated into practice on the front lines of child and family welfare organizations, particularly in how risk is assessed and responded to by staff at all levels in these organizations. Major reforms to family law in Australia and programmes set up to complement the existing Commonwealth-Funded Family Relationship Services Program provide an opportunity to rethink how staff can be provided with a systematic and research-based set of guidelines for screening and assessment. This paper examines the role of practice frameworks in general and the Australian family relationships screening and assessment practice framework in particular to demonstrate not only how this broader evidence-based approach encourages well-informed, professional and ethical practice but also how it leaves room for creativity and local, place-based responsiveness.     

补救预防并举 促进家庭和谐——构建和谐社会过程中社会工作的应尽职责

家庭和谐是社会和谐的基础。当前我国婚姻家庭发展过程中存在诸多不和谐因素,给家庭和社会带来了消极影响。婚姻家庭问题的解决,需要专业社会工作的积极介入。社会工作的介入主要可分为两个大的方面:补救型的介入和预防型的介入。在预防和消除婚姻家庭问题、构建和谐家庭乃至和谐社会的过程中,专业社会工作可以发挥重要作用。