Mental Health Needs and Supportive Services for Elderly and Disabled Residents

Abstract

This study longitudinally assesses the impact that the provision of supportive services has on the mental well-being of the elderly and disabled population living in independent housing developments. The results indicate that the use of supportive services by the mentally ill allowed them to overcome initial lower functional status and achieve a level of mental functioning virtually similar to that of the total resident population. Thus, it is argued that independent living facilities with supportive services can certainly be a successful and cost effective model for a number of frail elderly and mentally ill residents.     

EDITORIAL

Abstract

Hope is a key construct for successful community adjustment among those with severe mental illnesses, particularly given the strengths-based recovery model increasingly prevalent in mental health services and in social work. Consumer-run mental health self-help agencies (SHAs) are well suited to fostering hope via their supportive program environments. This study examines factors associated with hope among members of four self-help agencies via a two-stage least squares regression model (N =310). Findings provide evidence of both individual and program-level associations with hope. These findings mirror social work ethical values of focusing on consumer strengths and self-determination, which are primary goals of SHAs.     

From the ‘Double Nature’ of Cooperation to the Social Economy: Fifty Years of Associationalism1

The past 50 years or so have witnessed significant changes in the way of conceiving and practising cooperation. Three major shifts are presented here: (1) from the single to the multi-stakeholder cooperative; (2) from internal to extended mutuality in cooperatives and (3) from the historical ‘double nature’ of cooperation to the social economy. It is argued that these shifts testify of the capability of the cooperative system to adapt to such global trends as privatization, deregulation and ‘tertiarization’ that came in the wake of globalization. Moving from the traditional model of the single stakeholder cooperative based on internal homogeneity and on the identification of the notion of member and user, to a new model of multi-stakeholder organization, broadened the scope of cooperatives yet, at the same time, sharpened the socio-economic tension at the inter-cooperative level. Hence, the need, for cooperatives, to strengthen their links with similar nonprofit organizations as partners in the social economy. Our approach is grounded on a Western European interpretation of cooperatives, although the social economy is recently making strides outside Europe, especially in Canada and Latin America.     

Concern for Community: A Case Study of Cooperatives in Costa Rica

ABSTRACT

Through enacting the principle concern for community, cooperatives hold promise in promoting social welfare. This article builds on the literature about the intersections of cooperatives and community practice by using empirical evidence gathered through intensive case-study immersion. The data suggest that cooperatives bolster the well-being of their associates and the entire community along economic, social, and political axes. The evidence suggests that ideological, contextual, and social factors provide the rationale for cooperatives’ community engagement. Given the congruence between cooperatives’ community practices and social work aims, the article ends by raising questions about opportunities for collaborations between cooperatives and social workers.     

Cooperatives and Community Development: A Perspective on the Use of Cooperatives in Development

Community developers have long understood the importance of local participation in the events and processes that shape communities. Effective, democratic, and people-and-place-centered development strategies have the potential to achieve such participation. This article suggests that cooperatives can be an effective participatory strategy to bootstrap low-income people into the socio-economic mainstream. Woolcock and Narayan's (2000) social capital and poverty transition model is adapted to demonstrate the development potential of cooperative businesses. We hope to stimulate discussion among community development scholars and practitioners, policymakers, and the public on the potential of cooperative business as a community development strategy, particularly in resource limited communities.     

e-Tools and Organization Transformation Techniques for Collaborative Case Management

SUMMARY

Welfare and workforce development reforms propel individual agencies into formal partnerships with one another. Collaborative Case Management is the cooperative delivery of social services to common clients. This paper describes technological tools and organization transformation issues for collaborative case management. A road map for a successful transition includes a shared vision, business/technology requirements, an information management strategy, redesigned jobs and processes, and a change management strategy.     

Social work online: a recognition of experiences and practices in Italy

ABSTRACT

‘The Internet is the fabric or our lives’ [Castells, M. (2001). The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 1] – but which are the weaves that nowadays connect Italian social workers into such a fabric? Herein we aim at answering this question through a survey of on-line resources, nodes and practices of e-Social Work in Italy. We shall be discussing ICT impact on the Italian context, and the utilization of ICT by Italian social workers, in order to build up the internal and external factors that determine the current utilization levels of these emerging tools within the professional community. A review of the major on-line social work portals will identify their key features and peculiarities and aim to provide an overview of the substance and current on-line functions of Italian social work, with a summing-up of criticalities and opportunities that might prompt reflection on possible future developments.     

Women with Disabilities and Experiences of Abuse

Abstract

A qualitative study of disabled and non-disabled professionals and survivors of abuse revealed a range of types of abuse endured by disabled women, some of which were unique to that population. Two major themes emerged from data analysis: vulnerable beginnings and complexity of abuse. Three sub-themes are encompassed within complexity of abuse: active abuse, abuse through image, and contextual abuse by social service/legislative systems. The authors present data essential to an informed assessment and analysis of abuse that considers the person-in-environment circumstances of women with disabilities. Implications for future research and the human behavior in the social environment curriculum are discussed.     

Bottom-up childcare in a top-down welfare state: explaining cooperative organization among Swedish parents

Almost all children in Sweden spend at least some part of their early childhood in organized childcare, primarily in the form of preschools. About 10% of all preschools in Sweden are parent cooperatives, which make the childcare area an anomaly in the Swedish welfare state; no other service area has such a significant proportion of cooperative service providers. The parent cooperatives are initiated by the parents themselves, they are social enterprises created from the bottom-up. Why do parents decide to start a parent cooperative preschool in a welfare state where childcare is considered a social right and a responsibility for the state? This article will explore several different motives for starting parent cooperatives in Sweden, with special attention to the role of the public sector and political decisions. The findings are based on an extensive empiric study performed between the years 2003 and 2007.     

Caring for Persons with Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

This article places evidenced-based knowledge of practice within the social context of care and proposes five policy objectives and specific policy and program changes to address care needs of people with serious mental illness. In spite of demonstration programs that provide the basis for proposed policy initiatives throughout the United States, treatment provision for this population remains inadequate and their safety and well-being continues to be at risk. The authors suggest that treatment initiatives need to be tied to stable policies protecting the mentally ill from adverse social context changes. The authors conclude that policies are needed that will enhance housing assistance, independent social functioning, personal empowerment, and treatment engagement. In addition, efforts are needed to make better use of inpatient hospital care, to better understand the role of assisted treatment, and to better develop consistent long-term fiscal support for the seriously mentally ill. They offer specific policy recommendations for changes in HUD programs, Medicaid and Medicare funding, and treatment programming that address these needs.     

Trust,Social Capital,and the Coordination of Relationships Between the Members of Cooperatives: A Comparison Between Member-Focused Cooperatives and Third-Party-Focused Cooperatives

In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic of “economization”, but this time on the other end of the organizational spectrum. This paper aims at developing a fine-grained conceptual understanding of how this organizational dynamic is shaped in terms of member coordination, thus contributing to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of different organizational forms of cooperatives. Specifically, to highlight the difference to traditional member-focused cooperatives, the paper introduces the term third-party-focused cooperatives for those social enterprises which emphasize economic goals as well as control and ownership by a particular community (typically place-based). The key result of the paper is that with the shift from member- to community-focus in cooperatives, the main coordination mechanism becomes one of norm-based trust on the basis of generalized reciprocity. In contrast to traditional maxim-based trust member coordination on the basis of relation-specific reciprocity, this enables third-party-focused cooperatives to mobilize bridging and linking social capital, facilitating collective action aimed towards the community interest. The findings suggest that this identity shift requires a mutual re-positioning between the cooperative and the nonprofit sector, in terms of umbrellas as well as regulatory and legislative bodies.     

Cooperative Membership and Community Engagement: Findings From a Latin American Survey

Cooperatives as organization have mainly been explored in the field of business and management due to their operation in the business sector, and studies of nonprofit organizations have given little attention to them. Consequently, cooperatives studies have tended to examine economic outcomes, such as productivity and job security, comparing them to conventional business firms. Nevertheless, cooperatives are membership associations and have organizational characteristics in common with other types of voluntary associations. Furthermore, one explicit organizational principle of cooperatives is concern for community, and their contributions to the community have been covered frequently by media. Therefore, it is imperative to examine cooperative members’ community engagement, and compare it to other types of association members. Using a national sample of Venezuelans, the relationships between association memberships and community involvement were compared across different types of associations. The results showed that cooperative members had a higher likelihood of being involved in community matters than those from other types of associations. Although the Venezuelan cooperatives have received vast support from the Chavez government for community development, this result can have an implication on the cooperatives’ organizational identity as those who provide members with resources necessary for civic engagement beyond the organizations.     

Aging,Disability, and Disabled Older People in India

Summary

India is witnessing a demographic revolution, leading to a considerable increase in the proportion of older people in the population. Similarly, life expectancy of both the mentally and physically disabled has improved considerably. About 5% of Indian older people have problems with physical mobility. Aging has become a gender issue in India not only because more women are surviving into old age; they are also vulnerable and disadvantaged in many ways. In most cases they are the only caregivers available for the old and disabled. Older Indians are considered a high-risk group for multiple morbidity. It is estimated that nearly four million Indians suffer from mental problems. India has around 12 million people designated as “handicapped.” However, little information is available about disabled people who grow older. The National Policy on Older Persons, which has been recently formulated, aims at providing an improved quality of life for millions of older Indians. However, the concerns of older disabled and of the disabled who grow old are still treated separately in both policy and practice.     

Do disabled people need a stronger social model: a social model of human rights?

Abstract

We introduce the social model of disability by reflecting on its origins and legacy, with particular reference to the work of the Union of the Physically Impaired against Segregation. We argue that there has been a gradual rolling back of the rights and entitlements associated with the social model of disability. Yet no alternative for the social model has been proposed in response to such threats to disabled people’s human rights. Disabled people need a stronger social model that acts as a means to a society which enables and ensures their rights; the right to live a dignified life, as well as to live in an environment that enables people to flourish with disability.     

Innovativeness of social economy entities in Poland. An empirical study from the perspective of Positive Organizational Scholarship

The Polish system of tackling social exclusion is based on social economy entities, such as social integration centers and social cooperatives. The aim of the article is to define the essence and conditions of their innovativeness while answering the question to what extent the organizations can make use of management theories created for business entities. The empirical basis for the article are 3 focus group interviews with representatives of social integration centers and social cooperatives operating in Poland. The results suggest that low innovativeness of the entities is, among others, the effect of an authoritarian management style and a lack of care about positive relationships among employees.     

Planned Change in the Disability Community

Abstract

Planned change with people, who are physically or mentally disabled, as with other special populations, requires a range of skills and knowledge; several specific aspects of the change process are identified and discussed in this article: the characteristics of the change agent, the timing of the change event, and creating a vision for change. These aspects are illustrated through the writer's own experiences as a change agent working a long-range change event to improve access¹ to mental health services in the US with and for people who are deaf and hard of hearing.     

The Rise of Social Cooperatives in Italy

This paper reports how a new model of social enterprise—the social cooperative (SCs)—has become instrumental, in the Italian context, in the expansion of the social economy. It underlines the contribution these associations have made toward broadening the concept and standard parameters of volunteer organizations, providing basic social welfare services, and integrating the disadvantaged into the mainstream of society. The paper focuses on some SCs organizational aspects, highlighting the many traditional and advantageous business features, the ease with which they have access to financial instruments, and their ability to activate wider social projects. Given their recent spreading in Italy, where the Third Sector is less developed than in other Western countries, SCs incorporate working modalities that could also be of interest and relevance to other countries. To adopt this type of organization, however, calls for adequate competencies and protection under specific laws because they are, on the whole, still small-sized and somewhat fragile.     

Adjustment to Disability

Abstract

This article will focus on the biopsychosocial challenges encountered when an individual is disabled at an early age as well as when an individual acquires a disability later in life. Two case examples will focus on the adaptations/life choices that are necessary to adequately meet psycho/social/developmental needs and enhance individual self esteem. The case of Rita, a woman who lost her hearing at age two, highlights the importance of integrating a biopsychosocial approach to understand the multiple challenges and adaptations of individuals who are disabled at an early age. Laureen, a woman who acquired a spinal cord injury during her late teen years, described her struggles as a young adult adapting to a physical disability. Both cases highlight the importance of integrating an ecological/systems framework focusing on a biopsychosocial perspective, emphasizing the interrelationship between biological, psychological, social, technological, cultural and political factors.     

School contextual factors and race differences in adolescent sexual behaviors

Abstract

Although there exist a voluminous number of studies examining predictors of adolescent sexual behavior, few studies have explored the role of the school social context in influencing teen sexual activity generally and specifically, the role that school contextual factors play in helping understand race differences in risky sexual behaviors. Using data from a nationally representative school-based survey of American youth in Grades 7–12, we find support for our core hypothesis that school contextual factors are associated with risky sexual behavior, number of sexual partners, and ever having sex, albeit it nuanced ways and that such factors cannot account for much of the race gap in adolescent sexual behavior. We interpret these findings to be more supportive of a social contagion model (versus a school climate model).     

Korean disabled artists’ experiences of creativity and the environmental barriers they face

This study explores the essence of disabled artists’ creative endeavours and investigates what constitutes the environmental barriers that hinder their creative activities. For the research 12 disabled artists were chosen from a list of renowned disabled artists. The study found that creativity is the same for both disabled people and non-disabled people, but for disabled people their surroundings often make it difficult for them to establish their identities. These findings clearly illustrate that the empowerment of disabled artists through art education is crucial. They also show that social attitudes toward disability need to change, since negative views regarding disability art are underpinned by negative views of disabled people. In addition, relevant policies to advance disability art should be instituted and supportive measures to solve the financial problems faced by disabled artists must be taken.