Supporting the Well-Being of People with Mobility Disabilities Through Social Work Practice

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this insight generating study was to explore the viewpoints of people with mobility disabilities (PWMD) about ways for social workers to promote their well-being through social work practice. A qualitative participant action style methodology encouraged PWMD to voice their concerns and recommendations. Eighteen PWMD were interviewed, including nine consumers and nine social workers. Participants indicated from their experiences that social workers commonly are not sufficiently cognizant of the personal goals, perspectives, and health potentials of PWMD. Overall, they suggested that the social work practice approach for people with disabilities should become more holistic and proactive. Their recommendations are consistent with current ideas about best practice in the social work and disabilities literature and they reinforce the importance of making these ideas more widely practiced.     

The Effect of Social Work Education and Self-Esteem on Students' Social Discrimination of People with Disabilities

Social work education on disability content has become more important due to political changes in the last two decades. The United States protected people with disabilities from discrimination in community and employment settings with the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. These changes have empowered people with disabilities to become more independent; however, social workers primarily fulfill roles as case managers, and often make decisions for people with disabilities. This is not consistent with the empowerment perspective embedded in the disability movement. Most social work schools have minimal courses covering disability content. Previous research and the Self-Esteem Hypothesis indicate that social work education, social proximity to people with disabilities, self-esteem and other demographic characteristics are associated with social discrimination, or attitudes, toward people with disabilities. Social work students (n = 73) participated in a survey in the last semester of their program to assess how these characteristics were associated with their attitudes towards people with disabilities. A multiple linear regression revealed that social work education preparedness to work with people with disabilities, an MSW education, self-esteem, and having a friend with a disability were significantly associated with students' social discrimination towards people with disabilities.     

School memories of young people with disabilities: an analysis of barriers and aids to inclusion

This article presents a selection of the results gleaned from research analyzing the way social exclusion processes are constructed among young adults between the ages of 18 and 25. The paper focuses on a subset of the population studied: young people with disabilities. Likewise, we limit our study to the dimension of school‐related experiences. Our research methodology – based on individual personal narratives and first hand accounts – allows a dynamic, participative and integrated approach to the study of exclusion. Participants in the study were asked to reflect on their experiences and, thus, were given a voice. Our specific objective in this article was to identify and explain the barriers and aids to inclusion encountered in a variety of educational environments as expressed by interviewees who had experienced them personally.     

A Commentary on the Admission and Retention of Students with Disabilities in Social Work Programs

Abstract

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is the federal law upon which the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is built. Both laws are designed to prevent discrimination against students with disabilities. This commentary offers a comparison of section 504 with the ADA. An analysis of the case law under Section 504 is also presented; this analysis provides guidelines that universities and colleges will have to follow under the ADA. The implications of the ADA are offered for social work programs in the areas of admission and retention of students with disabilities.     

韩国残疾人社会服务现状及进展

韩国残疾人总数约为251万,他们既享有普惠性社会保障政策,也享有残疾人特惠性社会保障政策。特惠性社会保障政策由经济支持、医疗支持、教育支持、就业支持和社会服务提供等政策构成。残疾人社会服务宏观层面主要考察服务制度,包括住宅机构、社区康复机构、职业康复机构、凭单制度等,虽然服务制度从20世纪的保护模式中心漸变为自立生活与残疾人为中心模式,但保护模式、社区培训模式和以残疾人为中心模式共存。     

Enhancing Critical Reflection amongst Social Work Students: The Contribution of an Experiential Learning Group in Care Homes for Older People

As part of a Practice Learning Centre, representing a partnership between an English University social work department and a non-governmental organisation, 12 students were placed in care homes for older people for their first period of assessed practice. The aims of this initiative were to facilitate: development of critical reflection; deployment of social work skills in a care home setting; and opportunities for social work students to work with care home residents. The learning was captured via four Experiential Groups facilitated by the Practice Educator with responsibility for assessing the students' practice. On-site supervisors also participated. Key learning included understanding of: the importance of critical reflection as a key social work skill; the influence of organisational norms and care home culture on the quality of care practice; the complexity and emotion-rich nature of person-centred care; and the pivotal role of relationships in work with people with dementia. Links made in the Groups—between the experiential and theoretical, the emotional and cognitive, and the structural and personal—demonstrate their value as learning platforms. Placements in care homes have considerable potential to enrich practice education; this is especially important in the context of an ageing population.     

Correlates of Voting Participation of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

ABSTRACT

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) vote less frequently than nondisabled people and people with other disabilities. This study explores what factors facilitate and hinder people with IDD’s voting participation. To do so, 1,341 people with IDD were surveyed using the Personal Outcome Measures®. Binary logistic regressions revealed significant relationships between voting participation, and support needs, residence types, guardianship statuses, and organizational supports. Along with the right supports, attention to barriers that might exist can ensure people with IDD are able to make use of their civil rights and participate in this crucial form of civic engagement.     

Seven Rules to Live by: Accommodations in Social Work Education and the Field

Students with disabilities are a growing population in higher education (National Center for Education Statistics, 2009 National Center for Education Statistics . ( 2009 ). Number and percentage distribution of students enrolled in post-secondary institutions, by level, disability status, and selected student characteristics: 2003–04 and 2007–08 . Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_231.asp  [Google Scholar]). Providing accommodations for students with disabilities can raise ethical and social justice questions and pose challenges for social work faculty, administrators, and field instructors. Social work educators must balance the legal mandates for nondiscrimination and reasonable accommodation against ethical obligations around protection of clients and preparation for practice. This article presents case examples in the context of legal analysis to help social work educators make difficult decisions about student academic performance.     

疫情之下对残疾人保护的实践与思考

新冠肺炎疫情危机为观察残疾人保护和相关领域社会治理打开了一扇窗口。文章总结了疫情防控期间各级政府、残联和社会组织加强残疾人保护的政策创新和服务实践,反思了疫情发生后残疾人安全防护、兜底保障及应急管理面临的突出问题,提出了做好当前防控阶段残疾人防护和建立疫情灾情之下残疾人保护长效机制的政策建议。文章坚持人道主义的基本立场,认为疫情让我们进一步了解残疾人的脆弱和特别保护的必要性,进一步了解在奔向残疾人全面发展和共同富裕更高目标的出发点上扎牢底线、补好短板的紧迫性,进一步了解无论在危机时期还是常规阶段,残疾人工作都不能偏离国家发展的整体布局,不能背离“政府主导、社会参与”的治理方向。     

Social Work Education without Walls: Ethnography as a Lens for Transformative Learning

A call for innovation in social work has been put forth to address our society’s greatest problems. This call applies to social work education, which encompasses multiple functions including teaching, research, and practice. Yet, innovation in social work is constrained by the limits of current social work approaches and methods. Increasing social work’s impact in the real world requires illuminating the complexities of reciprocal forces between human lives and the environment. Understanding such complexities incorporates spatial and interdisciplinary approaches, such as ethnography. Ethnography, as method and metaphor, is a lens for transformative learning in social work education: It is the message. Ethnography illuminates real-world complexities and deepens social work education through its core contributions: methodological holism, methodological engagement, and methodological comparison. In deepening social work education, ethnography renders visible salient links in social work’s field of dialectics, invoking the systems perspective. Yet, ethnography extends beyond and expands on the systems perspective, emphasizing engaged integration. Engaged integration of social work’s dialectics forwards the discourse about the profession’s identity. Thus, ethnography is a tool for advancing knowledge and promoting transformative learning in social work education.     

Promises and Pitfalls: Involving Service Users and Carers in Social Work Manager Education

Partnership working occupies an increasing amount of social work managers' time and budget, requiring skills and abilities not always developed previously within social work programmes. Much discussion around partnership working centres on building collaborative inter-agency and inter-professional relationships with less emphasis on the need to ensure good working relationships with service users and carers, despite their being the ultimate recipients of the process. This article explores efforts to develop a focus on service users and carers within a module for social work managers as part of post-qualifying (PQ) social work education. It documents a process where, initially, service users and carers provided personal testimonies of being recipients of services and then subsequently occupied more authoritative roles within teaching, to the current position when they are again less actively involved.

In describing these developments it explores possible reasons why involving service users and carers within this module has proved challenging. The article acknowledges that there is relatively limited literature about the involvement of service users and carers in PQ education. It suggests that lessons learned from involving service users and carers in qualifying social work training cannot directly be transposed to the post-qualifying context.     

Domestic Violence and Children with Disabilities: Working Towards Enhancing Social Work Practice

Abstract

Globally, domestic violence, where a family member, partner or ex-partner attempts to physically, sexually or psychologically dominate or harm the other, is now recognised as one of the most entrenched and pervasive forms of violence in society. Nevertheless, internationally and in Australia, the occurrence of domestic and other forms of violence in families affecting children with a disability is poorly understood. The present article examines the information available on domestic violence and children with a disability. Through the use of case studies drawn from a large disability organisation in New South Wales, Australia, practice issues with families where domestic violence affects a child with a disability are drawn out for social workers to consider. These considerations are designed to enhance practice in this field.     

Integrating a Family-Centered Approach into Social Work Practice with Families of Children and Adolescents with Disabilities

Abstract

This article identifies a family-centered practice construct for working with children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. The experiences of these families have shifted considerably over the past 30 years. A legislative and historical context provides the basis for an understanding of present policies and practices that influence current approaches to service delivery. Though family-centered practice is emphasized in various practice settings, there is still a need to integrate this philosophy into social work practice with children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. In order to enhance the ability of the social worker to integrate this construct into practice, a framework for exploring the experiences of children, adolescents and families is provided. This framework provides an overview of factors related to the individual child, the family and siblings for the social worker to consider when working with these families. The social worker's role as collaborator, advocate, team member and family resource is highlighted.     

Shape-shifter and Agenda Setter: The Influence of Emotion in Social Work Practice and Practice Education

As an interpersonal profession, operating within and between a myriad of nebulous psycho-social worlds, a significant proportion of social work’s currency resides in emotion, providing impetus for action or omission. This paper asserts that due diligence must be exercised towards emotion within social work training and practice, giving consideration to the journey towards qualification, fraught as it can be; emphasising the need to bring emotion out of the shadows and into the light. This is not simply a ‘how did that make you feel?’ task, rather one of acknowledgement and acceptance, which lends itself to an exploration of the layered interface where emotion comes into being, prodded and poked, twisted and contorted, by the powerful forces of politics, sensationalism and reductionism, which seek to orchestrate simplicity and control.     

Orienting Social Workers to the Disability Movement in Egypt: Implications for Practice

As the literature on the disability movement in Africa is quite limited, this paper sheds some light on its current status in one particular African country: Egypt. Due to its history and location within North Africa, Egypt's culture is a mixture of Middle Eastern/Arab and indigenous African elements and influences. The following literature-based overview is designed to highlight such issues as societal attitudes, disability laws, and governmental control and management in the context of a service delivery system designed for disabled people. In conclusion, implications for social work practice are mentioned, and some recommendations to close the existing service gaps are suggested.     

精神残疾群体的社会保障需求与供给:现状、问题与发展建议

精神残疾人多生活困难,构成社会最为弱势的群体。本文采用实地研究与文献研究的方法,对精神残疾人的社会保障需求与供给进行专门考察。研究发现,精神残疾群体的主要需求包括治疗、基本生活支持、康复、长期照护与监管以及社会参与。对此,我国政府已通过多项社会保障制度安排予以回应,基本满足了精神残疾人的基本生活与治疗需求,但还存在社区康复服务匮乏、替代性照护服务供给不足、就学、就业难等问题。基于以上发现,本文认为精神残疾人的基本生存权虽得到较好保障,但是对其发展权和参与权依然关注不足。原因在于当前精神残疾人社会保障存在三个不平衡:经济保障与服务保障发展的不平衡,医疗服务与社会服务发展的不平衡,以及卫健、民政、残联不同部门能力与投入的不平衡。针对这些问题,笔者对未来政策的完善提出了参考建议。     

Toward a Holistic View of Health and Health Promotion in Social Work with People with Disabilities

Abstract

The individual medically oriented model of disability suggests that people with disabilities seldom achieve health and wellness because of their impairments and disabilities. This paper provides an alternative to the tendency in social work to focus on the medicalization of disability without a due consideration of the social context. It draws insights from the social model that asserts disability is a form of social restriction encountered by people with disabilities and that social barriers of disability must be removed through collective action. Also, this model posits that people with disabilities can be healthy if the barriers preventing good health are removed. However, medical aspects of a person with a disability should not be forsaken entirely. Therefore, this article proposes a holistic view that converges insights of the individual and social models toward a better understanding of health issues for people with disabilities. It shows the implications for social work that follow from the convergence.     

The unemployment of women with physical disabilities in Ghana: issues and recommendations

Unemployment among persons with disabilities is high. The situation is worse for women with disabilities as they experience multiple disadvantages on account of gender and disability. The condition for women with disabilities in Ghana could be more complicated, given the intersection of disability, gender, poverty, cultural beliefs and practices. As employment provides not only income for women with disabilities but opportunities for social participation and increases psychological well-being as well as self-esteem, it is imperative to remove barriers that hinder their employment. The current study examines issues associted with the unemployment of women with physical disabilities in Tamale, Ghana, and makes recommendations to policy-makers and practitioners in order to improve the condition of persons with disabilities in general, and particularly women with disabilities.     

Globalization and Social Work Education: Evaluation of Student Learning in a Macro Practice Class

This paper presents a model for infusing content on economic globalization into macro social work practice classes and assesses student learning in a class on social movements and social action. The analysis of student papers and survey data indicates that students increased their understanding of globalization processes and developed an enhanced commitment to addressing global social problems. The infusion approach adopted, however, was limited in the extent to which it helped students feel prepared for internationally oriented careers. Implications for addressing international content in social work education are discussed.