Examining the Association Between Resilience and Risk Behaviors Among South Asian Minority Students in Hong Kong: A Quantitative Study

The relationship between risk behaviors and resilience among South Asian minority youth identifying themselves as Pakistani, Indian, Pakistani-Hong Konger, or Indian-Hong Konger (N?=?405) in a Hong Kong school setting was investigated using hierarchical linear regression analysis. Lower neighborhood disorganization, higher neighborhood characteristics, and higher individual resilience predicted lower likelihood of substance use in all ethnic groups. Stronger relationship with caregivers was associated with lower levels of substance use in all ethnic groups except for Pakistani-Hong Kongers (p?>?.05). Stronger multigroup ethnic identity predicted lower likelihood of substance use in Indians (p?=?.021) and Indian-Hong Kongers (p?=?.039). Resilience-based research, practical, and social policy implications are discussed.     

Multicultural Social Work and Ethnic Identity Positioning

The recent trend in postmodern social work discourses in Australia espouses anti-essentialist views of identity for social work subjects and deconstructs the uniformity of self into hybrid and changeable identities. However, there are few studies that focus on the problem of anti- essentialism in social work theories in relation to the analysis of neoliberal discourses in actual social welfare fields for middle-class migrants like the Japanese community in Australia. This paper explores the perceptions toward ethnic identity positioning among ethnic community leaders in social welfare activities. The research also attempts to examine the relationship between social welfare activities by ethnic minorities and ethnic identity discourses in social work. The case studies revealed that the essentialist practices of Japanese community organizations aimed at keeping their Japanese ethnicity could co-exist with the production of an anti-essential, hybrid culture in Australian society. It is important to consider cultural complexity in the ethnic identification processes that emerge through social welfare practices by ethnic minorities.     

Adoption in South Africa: trends and patterns in social work practice

This paper reports findings from a research study on adoption in South Africa conducted in 2009. The research included secondary data analysis of the South African National Adoption Register to establish trends and patterns of adoption in South Africa between 2004 and 2009, and primary data collection through qualitative interviews with key informants in public and private social welfare services to explore attitudes, knowledge and experiences of social work practice related to adoption. The quantitative findings report the number of national and international adoptions along with trends and socio‐demographic patterns of national adoptions. Qualitative findings report on social work practice, systemic barriers and social worker attitudes as barriers to improved social work practice around national adoptions. The paper highlights comparisons to adoption literature in the USA, a country with a similar legislative framework and cultural complexities, but significantly more resources for implementation. Recommendations are offered for social work practice, national data collection and policy implementation efforts to support efforts to increase adoption.     

Applying critical social work in direct practice with families

This paper seeks to further discourse concerning the implications of critical social work for direct practice with families and children. It presents and discusses a hypothetical example of how a social worker in a social care agency in Israel can incorporate critical social work notions into an official social work report. The paper begins by presenting key concepts in critical social work, their manifestations in practice and their implications for official social work reports. It then presents a mock report informed by critical social work ideas and discusses its structure and contents. The mock report provides an example of how abstract notions central to critical social work can be actualized. The paper thus offers practitioners the opportunity for a richer discourse on the contribution of critical social work to direct practice with families and children.     

The post-1994 transformation of social work in South Africa

This article examines the transformation of social work in South Africa in response to the transition to a developmental welfare approach. Always moulding and shaping itself in response to its social context, social work in South Africa, as elsewhere, is a reflection of the broader political landscape. In South Africa the social work profession has struggled to assert its independence and become self-regulating. It is unique in the Western world in that since 1978 it has been regulated by a legislatively constituted statutory council. While the profession has tried to transform itself in the new democracy, outside pressures have found it wanting and deeply divided. Thus, despite progress in other areas social workers have not yet been successful in forming a strong, united professional association and this severely limits its ability to lobby politicians and advocate on behalf of clients. It seems, however, that the tide is turning and social workers are gaining recognition but, once again, the challenge remains deciding on the extent to which the profession cooperates with the government's agenda for change. Social work educators took the lead in setting education standards in response to higher education policy and are also playing a part in devising practice standards through their involvement in the social work board which falls under the umbrella of the Council for Social Service Professions. However, education and practice are somewhat out of step and professional unity remains a pressing issue on social work's transformation agenda.     

Class-competent social work: a preliminary definition

The article seeks to present a theoretical framework for defining class-competence in social work practice. Social work has made significant progress in enhancing practice competence with respect to contextual factors that transcend social class such as gender, culture, race and ethnicity. But this positive development in overcoming the rigid view, which framed class as the sole explanation of diversity, has obscured the current impact of social class differences in social work practice. This article takes a critical look at the historical approach of the profession to class issues, extends the boundaries of the social class concept beyond its narrow economic dimensions, discusses the relevance of addressing class issues in light of current challenges in social work practice and, lastly, proposes a preliminary definition of class-competent social work practice.     

Community-based approaches to social exclusion among rural-to-urban migrants in China

Rural-to-urban migrants in China face numerous forms of social exclusion. This article argues that community-based approaches offer innovative ways with which to tackle the problems of social exclusion for rural-to-urban migrants, yet these approaches have been neglected. This article first provides an overview of the concept of social exclusion, as developed by Western European scholarship and policy discourse. Next, it examines the ways in which these concepts are relevant to the context of rural-to-urban migrants within China. Finally, this article conceptualizes the social exclusion paradigm from a community practice perspective and offers the implications of this paradigm for community-level interventions.     

Poverty‐aware social work practice: service users' perspectives

In recent years, there has been an increase in scholarly writing on the theory and practice of critical social work with people living in poverty. Yet there is a lack of research on the experiences and perspectives of service users regarding this kind of practice. This paper presents a qualitative study that explored the practice of a special poverty‐aware social work programme in Israel, through the experiences of women who took part in it. Using an interpretative interactionist approach, in‐depth interviews with nine women were held three times over a 2‐year period. Findings reveal a high degree of satisfaction with the programme on the part of the women. The satisfaction was derived from four main experiences: the experience of visibility, the experience of the active partnership in the fight against poverty, the experience of close, hierarchy‐challenging relationships, and the experience of responsiveness to material and emotional needs. The findings are discussed in terms of three principles of practice: intervention in a real‐life context, relationship‐based intervention and the focus on both the material and emotional needs and their fulfilment.     

The Emperor's new clothes: South Africa's attempted transition to developmental social welfare and social work

This article critically interrogates the depth and quality of change of post‐apartheid welfare policy and social work practice towards a social development paradigm against the background of inequality and poverty in South Africa. It asks several questions: what kind of welfare system has the current welfare dispensation created? How far has it moved from a residual, ameliorative system to an institutional developmental system, in keeping with the developmental welfare paradigm? To what extent can residual provisions be transformed into developmental processes? What conditions are necessary for this to happen? The answers to questions such as these provide the basis for assessing South Africa's new developmental processes. The article highlights the fundamental contradictions in social development policy imperatives, which call for a marriage of economic and social considerations, and the internal contradictions across and within various welfare policies. Further, it argues that the government does not have the political will to bear the costs of the substantive change that the move towards developmental social work requires, choosing instead limited, individually targeted and ameliorative measures, such as increased social security spending. Thus, it suggests that ideological critique, consciousness raising and participation in public policy debates remain crucial for those who seek long‐term solutions to inequality and poverty in South Africa.     

Aetiology of anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong: a social work qualitative inquiry

This paper reports the results of a qualitative inquiry into the aetiology of anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong. These results are part of our main research project about family treatment and families with a daughter suffering from anorexia nervosa. This present qualitative study adopts a multiple case study approach (n = 8) and employs a multiple‐source data collection method, involving pre‐ and post‐family treatment interviews, clinical observations of the participants during the treatment sessions and home visits, as well as detailed field notes. The findings indicate that there are biological, psychological, socio‐cultural and familial interpretations of the aetiology of anorexia nervosa. This study challenges the dominant discourse on anorexia nervosa in Hong Kong, which states that the root of the disease lies in a desire for slenderness and beauty, and suggests instead that the aetiology of anorexia nervosa can be discovered only if approached from the systems level. Implications for social work practice are highlighted.     

A study of social distance in the implementation of the national minority social work in Xinjiang

Abstract

As a subfield of social work studies, social work for ethnic minorities has drawn the attention of academics and practitioners in recent years. In Mainland China, hardly anyone is involved in social work concerning ethnic minorities, and barely a handful of practical research papers on ethnic minority social work are available. This paper seeks to study practical social work for ethnic minorities from the perspective of social distance. It describes the major social distance scales and the main causes behind the formation of social distance, as well as several strategies in response to the social distance in ethnic minority social work.     

Family‐centered kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong: A pilot project

Social work services at schools in Hong Kong will begin a new chapter in kindergartens in 2018–2019 school year. Early childhood professionals have long considered family‐centered service delivery best practice. This paper reports a pioneer project on a family‐centered approach in kindergarten social work services in Hong Kong. The project was illustrated according to the following family‐centered principles: (a) The family as the unit of attention, (b) Linking families with community resources, (c) Flexible and individualized service provision, and (d) Creating partnerships and supportive relationships. The value and contributions of family‐centered social work services in kindergartens and implications for social work training in Hong Kong are discussed.     

Progress of the social service professions in South Africa's developmental social welfare system: Social work,and child and youth care work

This paper examines the progress of the social service professions delivering developmental social welfare in South Africa, a subject we have followed closely over the last 20 years. Being policy-driven, developmental social welfare stemmed from expert social analyses that resulted in technically oriented solutions, including the broadening of social service professions. Twenty years on, it is hard to see developmental social welfare, as envisaged in government policy, in action, since the practice reality does not differ drastically from the prior apartheid system with the government's heavy reliance on social security as a poverty-alleviation measure. The expanded social security budget has led to underfunded services and a crisis for social service professionals. This paper focuses on the regulated professions of social workers, and child and youth care workers. Our examination of critical issues for these occupational groups revealed that South Africa still has a long way to go in building a strong social service workforce.     

An exploratory study of different approaches between social work practice and correctional services in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region

This paper tries to explore the differences between social work and correctional services from the aspects of professional boundaries, concept, content, construct, context, approach, function, professional identity and relationship with service users. Through these, social workers will be informed what are the limitations of their service in a correctional environment, whilst for correctional officers, a better understanding of the philosophical stance of social services which may be helpful for them in discharging their dual role of law enforcer and social worker under the contemporary correctional policy stressing rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders.     

Avoidance and confrontation: social work practice in relation to domestic violence and child abuse

Action on the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse has been slow to emerge in mainstream child protection agencies. This paper reports a qualitative study of child protection files. Particular attention was given to the issues for Asian families. Initially the numerous strategies which social workers and other professionals at child protection conferences used to avoid the issue of domestic violence are explored. However, there was also a small, but emerging, pattern of child abuse in the context of domestic violence being taken seriously. In each of these cases strong expectations were placed on women to separate from or remain separated from men who were violent. These expectations were backed by 'threats' or the actual accommodation of children often with little interagency support for women undertaking this difficult and dangerous task, or before women were ready to undertake this separation. Suggestions are made about aspects of the organizational context which need to change if good child protection is also to include appropriate protection and support for the child's mother.     

Social work students and social change: on the link between views on poverty, social work goals and policy practice

This article seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the factors that are associated with social work students' willingness to engage in policy practice. It examines a model according to which the willingness to engage in policy practice is linked to the importance that students attribute to the goals of social work and to their views on poverty. The sample consisted of 138 social work students in one of Israel's leading universities. The measures consisted of four questionnaires developed specifically for this study. The findings revealed strong relationships between students' views regarding the causes of poverty and their attitudes towards the preferred ways to deal with poverty. In addition, strong relationships were found between the importance that students attributed to the goals of social work and their willingness to engage in policy practice. However, no significant relationships were found between students' views on poverty and their willingness to engage in policy practice. Different explanations for these findings are advanced in the article.     

The impact of social transformation on the non-government welfare sector and the social work profession

This article examines changes to non-government social welfare, their impact on service delivery and on the social work profession. To redress the legacy of the past and the consequent inequalities in social welfare, in the first decade of democracy the government allocated the bulk of its welfare resources to transforming the social security system at the expense of social service delivery. As a result, South Africa has a costly social security budget with social services on the brink of collapse, leaving social workers and other social service professionals with low morale in the face of the huge challenge of providing welfare services with scarce resources, especially in the non-government sector. Nevertheless, social work remains an important role player in social development. From its marginalised position in the first decade of democracy, in the second decade it is repositioning itself as a recognised contributor to reconstruction and development in South Africa.     

Critical reflection in social work: a response to globalisation?1

This article presents a reflective theoretical deconstruction of my practice with disempowered human service workers. Specifically, it presents a case study of how critical reflection was fostered amongst a group of practitioners in Geelong, a regional Victorian town in Australia. This models how a critical postmodern analysis provided a framework for overcoming entrenched power dynamics and structural barriers in a particular context and at a particular point in time. It describes and analyses the content of this work in terms of its significance and implications for responding to the impact of globalisation on this group, which was undermining the effectiveness of their social work practice.     

Pacific epistemologies in professional social work practice,policy and research

Utilising traditional cultural perspectives is an important lens towards developing a platform to create effective social work practice, policy and research. Through this relevant and realistic cultural context, social work as a profession may strive to interface more appropriately with individuals, families and the community. This article examines Pacific epistemologies, and the experiences of eight Western Sydney University social work students who have completed a three-month placement within the islands of Fiji and Samoa; and their reflections on the differences between Western and Pacific epistemologies and respective methods of intervention.     

社会工作专业实践教学模式的反思与探索

社会工作是一门应用性学科,但是我国现有的专业人才培养方案明显地忽视了实践教学的重要性,这直接导致了专业学生缺乏基本的助人能力,间接上也阻碍着社会工作职业化发展。本文在分析当前专业实践教学模式存在的局限性的基础上,并结合实际,提出一个包含实验、实习和实训在内的"三位一体"模式。