Inside the Interdisciplinary Team Experiences of Hospice Social Workers

Abstract

Interdisciplinary teamwork is the foundation for the delivery of hospice care. This project interviewed 23 hospice social workers by telephone to explore their experiences with hospice team collaboration. Two research questions were explored: (1) What do social workers perceive as the strengths of interdisciplinary collaboration and (2) What are the challenges for social workers on interdisciplinary hospice teams? Participants identified issues related to team process, administrative processes, and barriers to effective team collaboration. Collaboration was said to be fostered by good communication, trust, roles, joint visitation, respect, team building activities, and administrative interest and support. Challenges to collaboration included large caseloads, a focus on the medical model, limited visits, personality and team conflict. Opportunities for improved collaboration between social workers and hospice team members exist through active evaluation of collaboration and strategic initiatives aimed at improving collaboration.     

Group Work and Social Justice: Designing Pedagogy for Social Change

In this article the authors explore the gap between education and action in putting the social work core value of social justice into practice. Describing how their School of Social Work has taken up this challenge, the authors analyze how a new social action course helps bridge this gap and draw on student reflection on their experiences and assignments in the course to show how students concretize and interiorize the meaning of social action and social justice. Learning by doing social action through a case study, group work becomes the vehicle through which students act on social issues and work for social change.     

Socratic Dialogue and Self-Directed Group Work: Strengthening Ethical Practice in Social Work

Socratic dialogue is a practical method of philosophical inquiry used to develop ethical and critical thinking among participants. On the other hand, self-directed group work is a practical intervention model based on social justice principles aimed at empowering service users and clients in social work and community work contexts. This conceptual article aims to reflect on a combination of the two models, arguing that group work interventions inspired by Socratic dialogue and self-directed group work may represent a way for social workers to develop a better ethical stance in their practice.     

Social work and social problems: A contribution from systems theory and constructionism

Social work builds its identity on social problems. The goal is to generate knowledge about causes, consequences and solutions. However, there is a lack of theory of social problems. We suggest that research on social problems can benefit by ‘bringing the observer in’: Loseke's constructionist framework and Luhmann's systems theory. According to Loseke, social problems appear differently when constructed by different observers. Constructions vary in terms of morality, conditions, victims/villains and solutions. From Luhmann we learn that modern society consists of a multitude of social systems (e.g. politics, science, economy etc.), each operating with their own communicative codes. Combining both approaches, we hypothesise that any social system constructs its own (version of) social problems. Illustrating with the empirical case ‘suicide among mentally ill people’, we examine how a phenomenon is constructed differently as a social problem by four different social systems: the disability movement, politics, medicine and social work.     

History of the Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups: A Partial View

This article provides a historical and first-person narrative about the development of the IASWG Standards for Social Work with Groups by someone intimately involved in their germination and development. Beginning with review of early roots of standards for social work with groups, this article presents a journey through the formation of the Committee for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups in 1979, framing ideas that found their way into the first edition of the AASWG Standards of 1998, and the process of developing the second, current edition. It provides a rare look into how a professional organization struggled to create a seminal document.     

An Exploratory Study of Social Work with Older Persons in Cuba

Abstract

Assuring a satisfactory quality of life for Cuba's large and fast growing older population is a national challenge. Social work plays an important part in addressing this challenge through its role in Cuba's National Program for the Care of Older Persons. This article explores the role of social work in Cuba's programs for the elderly and its implications for social work practice in the US. The information was obtained from 25 qualitative interviews with policy makers, social work practitioners, and community members in Havana, Cuba in 2003. The community oriented and interdisciplinary nature of Cuban social work with older persons distinguishes it from social work in the US and has implications for social work in this country. Despite the differences between Cuba and the US, the Cuban social work model provides important insights for social work in this country.     

An Interpersonal Dialogue Group for Students With and Without Disabilities

This narrative documents my experience cofacilitating a group of 17 undergraduate students. One half of the students and the cofacilitator of the group had disabilities. The purpose was to foster understanding between students with disabilities and students who were able bodied. The group members learned about people with diverse disabilities and the discrimination and difficulties they experienced. Students with disabilities learned about perceptions of the students who were able bodied and their differences and commonalities. Group members experienced mutual aid. The author learned important lessons about herself as a group worker and social work educator.     

社会史与思想史互动研究的典范——侯外庐《中国古代社会史论》研究特色简析

侯外庐《中国古代社会史论》一书有一鲜明的研究特色,即社会史与思想史互动研究。“社会史”与“思想史”概念在侯氏眼中与它们的现代意义不同,概而言之,侯氏的“社会史”范畴比现代意义的要小,而他的“思想史”概念却比现代含义广泛得多。社会史与思想史互动研究,既包括以社会史为基础来研究思想史,又包括以思想史为基础来研究社会史,这是由其理论依据社会存在与社会意识的辩证关系所决定的。侯氏《中国古代社会史论》一书有许多具体研究都鲜明地体现出社会史与思想史互动研究的治史特色。     

Transforming Social Group Work Learning into Competencies for Interprofessional Teams

This article describes how social work and social group work strategies are used to enhance social work student participation in an interprofessional education program (IPE) that includes social work and five health care disciplines. Concurrently, social work students take part in a small group to assist them in the application of their social group knowledge to their IPE experience. Interprofessional collaborations between social work and health care can work toward alleviating health inequalities and poor access to health services. Social work has a crucial and significant role within these teams because of the profession’s focus on individual well-being, within the context of their social environment and support systems.     

The Transformative Potential of Social Work's Evolving Practice in Dementia Care

Social workers in diverse service systems throughout the United States encounter many opportunities for improving quality of life for people with dementia and their families. Yet practice with this population is unclearly defined and a core set of competencies for such practice does not yet exist. Instead, it is shaped by roles within aging and health systems. These roles are informed by a biomedical disease model of dementia. This article examines social work practice and its connection to evolving views on aging and senility throughout the 20th century. New directions for practice are recommended to improve services for individuals with dementia.     

Mobilizing Women's Strengths for Social Change

Group work aims both at helping individuals cope with personal difficulties and at eliminating social problems through collective action. Women's groups have made a unique contribution to linking personal and social change through their explicit dual focus. This paper deals with the different ways women use groups to mobilize their strengths towards social change. It begins by explaining why women chose all-female groups as the primary tool for building both individual strengths and a social movement. Key features of different group types are presented, including those focused primarily on social change and those in which social action is a secondary goal. The paper ends with a discussion of obstacles to social change and some ways women's groups can overcome them.     

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。     

Interdisciplinary Co-Facilitation of Support Groups for Parents of Children with Autism: An Opportunity for Professional Preparation

Skillful cofacilitation of groups provides group members with shared leadership, combined knowledge, and broadened problem-solving capability. Interdisciplinary cofacilitation offers group members different points of view and diverse professional expertise. This article presents a support group approach for parents of children diagnosed with autism and describes the benefits of interdisciplinary cofacilitation by social workers and early childhood special educators. The advantages and challenges of interdisciplinary cofacilitation are discussed.     

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.     

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?.     

Reflective Debriefing: A Social Work Intervention Addressing Moral Distress among ICU Nurses

ABSTRACT

Health-care workers may experience moral distress when they are unable to act as they believe is ethically appropriate in their clinical work. A social worker-facilitated protocol called Reflective Debriefing was developed and tested for alleviating moral distress through regular debriefings with nursing staff on an intensive care unit (ICU). Forty-two ICU nurses completed a Moral Distress Scale-Revised (MDS-R) at the beginning and end of a 6-month period, during which time regular debriefings were offered. The overall level of moral distress on the ICU surveyed was found to be low to moderate. The top three most frequent situations causing moral distress reported by most nurses in this study were related to the provision of nonbeneficial care in the ICU. Participants reported gaining the most benefit from feeling empowered to constructively confront other staff members about truth-telling in giving a prognosis. Nurses’ overall response to the intervention was positive, with 100% of participants requesting to continue the Reflective Debriefing sessions either on a monthly or on an as-needed basis. The response to the intervention emphasized the importance of interprofessional collaboration to successfully combat moral distress among health-care workers and may protect them from burnout, detachment, and even quitting their profession.     

The environment and social work: An overview and introduction

Coates J, Gray M. The environment and social work: An overview and introduction This article provides an overview and analysis of social work's engagement with the modern environmental movement. Major trends and themes in environmental social work scholarship and the significance of interdisciplinarity are discussed. Attention is drawn to the importance of a broad knowledge base and of working in unison with other professions in order to respond effectively to the many dimensions of climate change and environmental degradation. Responding to the challenges of environmental destruction has opened opportunities for the profession to review its foundational knowledge and obligations to people and environments. The articles in this Special Issue are introduced and include theoretical frameworks, examples and case studies of what social workers are doing, or might do, in relation to environmental and educational initiatives.     

Globalization and Social Work: International and Local Implications

Globalization can seem a remote process, related only to theeconomic and commercial world. However, it impacts (differentially)on the work opportunities and living conditions of populationsaround the world and has also influenced thinking about welfarepolicies, including through state provision. It thus has implicationsfor the practice and education of social and community workersin both affluent and poverty stricken states. In addition tosocial professionals who seek opportunities to work internationally,globalization is also affecting the practices of those who wouldpreviously have seen their work as essentially rooted in localconditions and community needs. This paper therefore gives someexamples of the ways in which local practice may have cross-borderand international dimensions, drawing on experiences in thechild-care field, particularly in the UK and European context.The author indicates how international social work courses areaiming to equip specialist international social workers, whilealso arguing for the development of educational programmes whichprepare ‘local’ social workers for practice in aninterdependent world.     

The Faculty Meeting: Practicing Social Justice-Oriented Group Work

Social group work scholars and practitioners have begun to locate and recognize important sites for thinking about and practicing social group work as increasing evidence demonstrates its diminishing importance. This article identifies faculty meetings as a significant site for integrating social group work more fully into departments and schools of social work and helping to achieve the profession's social justice mission. Challenging the meaning of the faculty meeting and thinking of it as a faculty group is a necessary prerequisite to realize this goal. A set of principles is presented and next steps explored to reclaim and reinsert the value of social group work for the profession today.