Gerontology as a Graduate Social Work Concentration

Abstract

Gerontology education in one graduate school of social work is advancing across a life course. From its origins of three students, now over 100 graduates serve elders and significant others. Grounding, growing, and sustaining gerontology as a “concentration” comes with challenge and reward. This article denotes the origins of a gerontology concentration, describing “community as impetus” and “outreach to students.” It proceeds to concentration outcomes, presenting “alumni as partners” and “community as beneficiary.” Sustainment of gerontology as a concentration is attributed to internal and external investment in a gerontologically- and geriatrically-sophisticated social work force.     

Changes in Life Satisfaction Among Participants of Adult Day Care and Their Informal Caregivers

This paper examines changes in life satisfaction among participants of Adult Day Care (ADC) in Manitoba, Canada, and their informal caregivers (where applicable). ADC participants (N = 112) and their informal caregivers (N = 34) were interviewed at two points in time. Data analyses reveal that, during attendance at the program, the life satisfaction of both the participant and the informal caregiver tend to improve. Attempts to predict which participants are most likely to improve, remain stable, or deteriorate in life satisfaction were largely unsuccessful. A smaller group of participants in Winnipeg programs were matched on age, sex, functional disability and illness with two control groups. Analyses reveal improvements in life satisfaction among ADC participants appear to be program effects.     

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?.     

Spiritual Assessment in Aging

Summary

Older adults may benefit from clinical conversations about the role of spirituality in their lives, but social workers and other helping professionals often do not have an understanding of where to proceed beyond initial questions of whether spirituality and/or religion are important and if so, what religious preference is held. Much has been written about definitions of spirituality and religion, but the literature has not yet provided a clear focus on ways to assess whether these are integrated positively or negatively in the lives of older adults. This article identifies eleven domains in spirituality that might be assessed. Within each domain an explanation is provided as well as a brief discussion of the rationale for including it in the classification. Sample interview questions and an illustrative vignette are included. Together these eleven domains build an important framework and resource for spiritual assessment with older adults.     

Remembering Katy: A Reflection on Social Work with Groups’ Founding Coeditor Catherine P. Papell (1916–2013)

This article reflects on the remarkable career of one of the founders and first coeditors of Social Work with Groups. Catherine (Katy) Papell made outstanding contributions to social work—especially to social work with groups for which she was a passionate advocate. In addition to editing this journal, she was a group worker, educator, activist, historian, writer/theorist, mentor, and role model. In the process she became a beloved friend to many and will be greatly missed.     

Social Work Practitioner Knowledge and Assessment of Late-Life Depression

Late-life depression has attracted considerable attention in the social work literature. This study examined levels of knowledge and self-efficacy (confidence) in evaluation of depression in late life among a random sample of social workers (N = 168) from the National Association of Social Workers. Relationships among knowledge on aging, job-related variables, and predictors of knowledge of geriatric depression were examined. Participants ranked depression as one of the most frequent clinical problems seen in practice, scored at the lower end on knowledge about aging, and experienced great difficulty on the items pertaining to suicide in the older adults.     

Enhancing Student Gerocompetencies: Evaluation of an Intergenerational Service Learning Course

This article describes the development and evaluation of an intergenerational service-learning course designed to promote social work gerocompetencies. Service-learning opportunities were structured into the course, including an optional evidence-based falls prevention program, for older adults, entitled A Matter of Balance (MOB). Significant differences between pre- and posttest scores on the Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale (GSWCS) were noted for students in the service learning course (n = 13). Once MOB was introduced as an independent variable, the MOB participants scored the highest mean posttest scores for 2 GSWCS domains: values, ethics, and theoretical perspectives; and intervention. The benefits of utilizing social work gerocompetencies to guide course objectives, content, and student outcomes are discussed.     

社会工作督导反思:学习成为有效的社会工作督导老师

有效的社会工作督导老师是社会工作实习教育成败的关键,但也成为内地社会工作实习教育发展的一大瓶颈。本文从这一历史现实问题出发,综合考察了有效的社会工作督导老师的职责、角色、素质要求及其发展基要,从成为有效实习督导的发展阶段的视角,着重从承担督导职责、澄清督导目标、建立督导关系、发展督导模式以及勇于督导反思五个方面探索了如何做一名新的专业实习督导老师及其持续发展。     

Social work education: state of the art

In assessing the appropriateness of contemporary social work education to its context, the article assumes that social work practice and education must relate to its social reality. The article argues that, since the 1970s, that reality has changed in relation to the role of the welfare state, perceptions of economic growth and the independence of the state. As a result, the roles of civil society, the community and welfare personnel have changed, with implications for social work. At the same time, the earlier tendency of social work to avoid the major social issues of the day is no longer appropriate, and the article outlines five major issues needing to be addressed by social work. In conclusion, the article presents four options that social work education should, as a total profession, address, if the profession is to play the roles demanded of it by its contemporary social reality.     

Embedding Social Justice within Micro Social Work Curricula

Social work struggles with the dichotomy between social and economic justice and micro practice. A large percentage of United States social workers (65%) practice in micro practice settings, yet the profession is challenged to commit to its social justice roots. This article reviews the history of social and economic justice within the social work profession, examines the role of distributive justice, and outlines strategies to integrate social and economic justice into micro social work courses. The article details implications for strengthening a social and economic justice perspective in micro curricula.     

The Productive Aging Concept and Social Work Students’ Perceptions Toward an Older Population

Social work curriculum that offers an optimistic perspective on aging has the potential to help social work students go on to practice in a nondiscriminatory way with older adults. This study introduces social work students to the productive aging concept, an optimistic view to social potential in later life, in lecture format and assesses postlecture changes in their perceptions of older adults. Seventy-two students (16 BSW; 56 MSW) were recruited from a large university in the southeast United States to participate in a lecture on productive aging. A one-group pretest–posttest design was used, and a paired samples t test (n = 72) was used to analyze changes in social work students’ perceptions toward older adults. Negative attitudes toward older adults decreased and positive attitudes toward older adults increased among students following their participation in the lecture on productive aging. This finding suggests the productive aging concept may favorably influence student perceptions of older adults. Future research should aim to investigate ways in which these changes in perception at the college level can translate and self-sustain in social work practice for social work students postgraduation.     

Learning and development journeys towards effective communication with children

There are continuing concerns about the quality of social workers' communication and engagement with children. This has led to a focus in England on whether qualifying courses prepare students sufficiently for practice. Although research has uncovered the capabilities social workers need to engage and communicate effectively with children, there has continued to be limited evidence in relation to which pedagogical approaches might best enable students to develop capability. This paper attempts to address some of this deficit by reporting in‐depth case study findings from a larger longitudinal study into the factors that supported a cohort of students in England in learning to communicate with children. Case analyses are presented in respect of two participants whose learning journeys were emblematic of many in the cohort. Their trajectories draw attention to the significant role that pre‐course experience with children can play in the development of students' self‐efficacy and in providing a rich source of experiential learning that can be built upon. Suggestions are made for how qualifying courses might provide alternative experiential learning opportunities, including role play, child observation and opportunities for reflection on pre‐course experience with adults to help students establish the transferability of their learning.     

Raising awareness of transformative ecosocial work: Participatory action research with Australian practitioners

This article reports on Participatory Action Research with social work practitioners who collaboratively explored the effects on professional practice when practitioners raise their awareness of an ecosocial work approach. Although contemporary research in the profession has contributed to the ongoing development of ecosocial work, there is a notable lack of collaboration with social work practitioners. Using a transformative ecosocial work model of practice, researchers together with social workers from a range of practice contexts met as co‐inquirers to plan, implement and evaluate ecosocial work interventions. As part of a larger international study, this article reports on research outcomes within the Australian context. Overall, results indicate that practitioners incorporated interventions across personal, individual, group and organisational levels of practice, but were constrained by structural elements at broader levels. Continuing the development of ecosocial work requires further collaborative exploration with practitioners, which takes into consideration communities and broader social and political systems. Key Practitioner Messages: ? This research endeavours to contribute to the evidence‐base for progressing transformative ecosocial work in professional practice; ? Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), this research was done in collaboration with social work practitioners as co‐inquirers to develop ecosocial work interventions; ? A range of ecosocial work interventions were implemented at the personal, individual, group and organisational levels.     

Historical development and characteristics of social work in today's China

Social work education has experienced three stages since its introduction to China in the 1920s: introduction, abolishment and reinstatement. Theoretically, there are four types of social work in China: official–educational, official–practical, voluntary–educational and voluntary–practical. In practice, all four types of social work have not necessarily been embodied in each developmental stage, and the order of their historical development is not the same as the order of their logical development; i.e. some types are lacking in some of the stages. Each type of social work has its own characteristics, which are integrated into each development stage. Today, Chinese social work faces two major interrelated tasks: the professionalisation and the institutionalisation of social work. The former refers to the development of standardisation in Chinese social work; the latter has to do with the development of the social welfare institution in general and the development of institutional welfare in particular. In general, the dramatic development in Chinese social work largely depends on the accomplishment of the two tasks.     

Integrating the teaching,learning and assessment of communication with children within the qualifying social work curriculum

Qualifying social work education must provide students with a variety of experiential, personalized, participatory, didactic and critically reflective learning opportunities across both the taught curriculum and in practice placements if deep learning of the capabilities needed for effective communication with children and young people is to be ensured. At present, programmes in England are not consistent in the curriculum structures, content and pedagogical approaches they are employing to teach and assess this topic. This paper discusses first how current proposals for the reform of qualifying education in England do not address the ambiguities and discretion in regulatory guidance, which have meant that the place and relevance of this topic within the curriculum remain uncertain and contested. It then draws on a model of the sequencing of students' learning and development in qualifying training, developed through the author's recent empirical research, to present an integrated and coherent approach to the teaching, learning and assessment of this topic. It is proposed that this strategy will enable students to develop the generic, ‘child‐focused’ and ‘applied child‐specialist’ capabilities they need for the ‘knowing’, ‘being’ and ‘doing’ of effective communication with children.     

“The Wisdom of Age”: Perspectives on Aging and Growth among Lesbian Older Adults

Older lesbian-identified women are a health disparate yet resilient population about whom knowledge is limited and emerging. Among the areas in need of research are older lesbians’ experiences of later life and stress-related growth. This article presents the findings from a qualitative study that investigated older lesbians’ experiences of adversity and adaptation as they age. In-depth, exploratory interviews were conducted with 12 lesbian-identified women who were between the ages of 65–80. This study applied grounded theory methodology to identify respondents sources of stress and fear, their strengths and coping strategies and how those relate to each other and to their growth in later life. We advance a model of adaptive change that shows how spirituality, social support, and resistance to cultural norms help older lesbian adults cope with loss, illness, and discrimination and develop wisdom in later life. Knowledgeable practitioners can help older lesbian women identify and maintain sources of social support, explore spirituality, and facilitate continuous growth through the end of life. Social workers can advocate for services that are welcoming and affirmative so as to reduce fears of isolation and dependence associated with health decline.     

Optimizing Geriatric Social Work Education: Program and Individual Characteristics That Promote Competencies

Since 1998, the Hartford Partnership Program in Aging Education (HPPAE) has been implemented in over 70 graduate social work programs. This study examined whether program and individual student characteristics are associated with students' knowledge, skills, and values in aging. We conducted a secondary analysis of national program evaluation data. Results from hierarchical linear models indicated greater gains in knowledge of aging among full-time students, as well as students in programs that had defined field rotation models and/or that made greater use of geriatric social work competencies. Implications for efforts to enhance graduate social work education in aging are discussed.     

Revisiting Eight Decades of Social Work Education in India

Social work education commenced in India in 1936 with the establishment of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This paper examines the historical evolution of professional social work education in India. It also critically examines the growth of social work education, fieldwork practice, and social work as a profession in India to discern its limitations. Various alarming situations have hampered the growth of social work in India and as such the profession suffers a credibility problem. We offer recommendations for the growth and success of social work education in India.     

Leadership in Social Work: A Case of Caveat Emptor?

This article examines the current interest in leadership ingeneral and the growing interest in leadership in social work,in particular. It highlights the lack of a generalized definitionof the word and the different ways it is interpreted in socialwork. The implicit assumptions on which much leadership writingappears to be founded are noted. Leadership can be seen as afurther development of the managerial agenda, from one perspective,or as a countervailing factor maintaining professional autonomy,from another. In considering some of the components of leadershipas identified by some in the field, the paper considers theextent to which these skills are exclusive to leadership andasks whether they might already be present but overlooked inthe profession. The paper concludes that expectations of leadershipwithin social work would benefit from debate and clarificationif this is to be a useful future theme.