Social inclusion in research: reflecting on a research project involving young mothers in care

This article considers social inclusion in research by reflecting upon a project involving young mothers in care, which used grounded theory methodology (GTM) to theorise their situations and emphasise their voice, a key issue in inclusion, and yielded mixed outcomes. GTM dealt poorly with inclusivity and was supplemented by a feminist orientation. This also failed young mothers. They were included by sitting on an Advisory Com-mittee, being paid an honorarium and assisting in disseminating results. These efforts were unable to overturn power dynamics that privileged researchers' ownership of the findings, and enabled them to benefit from doing research and their rela-tionship with funders. The attempt to change policies and practices that served clients badly was thwarted by an election that brought in a régime with different goals. The young women authored their own stories and spoke authoritatively of their experiences. However, inclusion was not fully secured in and by the research process. Their positioning as research subjects curtailed their potential in this regard.     

The impact of globalization on social work in the UK

Since the late 1980s social work in the UK has undergone a period of unremitting change affecting its organizational structure, value-base, and service users. There has been a regrettable narrowness of scope in the social work literature on such changes, as analysis has been limited to policy and service delivery issues, which treat such changes as if they were simply new technical responses to the problems of reorganizing social services. We argue that such analyses do not engage sufficiently with the complex dynamics driving these changes and that there is a need to contextualize change in social work against the wider political and economic context. The transformative nature of the contemporary period is posited with reference to the impact of global macro-level forces and the ways that these interact with national and political variables on micro-level forms of social work practice. This paper reviews selective literature on globalization and draws linkages with changes in social services at the agency and practitioner level in the UK.     

A green social work perspective on social work during the time of COVID‐19

COVID‐19 has challenged social workers to engage with health pandemics and provide essential services in conditions of uncertainty and high risk. They have safeguarded children, older adults and diverse adults in ‘at risk’ groups under tough conditions mediated by digital technologies, adhered to government injunctions, maintained social and physical distancing under lockdown and worked from home remotely. Social workers and social care workers have risen to the challenges, providing services with inadequate personal protective equipment and limited supervision and support. This article highlights the degraded physical environments, socio‐economic and political contexts that intensify precariousness and constraints that neoliberalism imposed on professional capacity before and during this health pandemic. It provides guidelines to protect practitioners and service users. It concludes that practitioners ought to understand zoonotic diseases, environmental concerns, acquire disaster expertise and training, widen their practice portfolio and value their contributions to this pandemic. Key Practitioner Message: ? Develop technological skills and innovate to support stressed individuals, safeguard children, adolescents and elders and deal with poverty and unemployment; ? Use digital technologies involving peers to explore tricky situations, examine ethical dilemmas through scenario building exercises, and tips for self‐care; ? Contribute to environmental protections that prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases like COVID‐19; ? Seek supervision and support for disaster‐based training from your line manager.     

Social Media and Social Work: The Challenges of a New Ethical Space

ABSTRACT

Social media and other online technologies have transformed communication between social workers and service users, with many practitioners engaging and working with clients through social networking sites. While there are numerous ethical issues associated with online practice related to con?dentiality, dual relationships, and boundary crossing, there is lack of clarity about how to deal with such issues. This article uses a case example to develop a nuanced understanding of ethical issues and ethical behaviour in online spaces. We argue that social workers need to link their knowledge of the complex interplay between discourses that underpin daily practice like those related to power, permanency, authorship, audience, embodiment, and professionalism to social media created spaces. In doing this, social workers must retain their commitment to ethical values and critical reflective practice. We conclude with recommendations for education, research, and practice.     

The power of the powerless: prostitution and the reinforcement of submissive femininity

Deviancy has been explored in terms of its potential to challenge the existing power structure. However, the implications of gender for power relationships, even in discussions of women deviants have been largely ingnored by crimonologists. Using Liazos’paradigm of power as its starting point, the interaction between power and gender is explored by examining prostitution and the efforts of prostitutes to organise collectively in PROS to decriminalize prostitution. The significance of the gender base of power for social work intervention with‘deviant’groups is also considered. It concludes that women deviants can become more powerful by organising collectively, though their organisation ultimately fails to challenge existing social relationships and the distribution of power between men and women Female subordination is reinforced despite their protest.     

Working with Me,Working at Me: Fathers' Narratives of Child Welfare

This article examines the experiences of fathers involved in the child welfare system. Fathers who were interviewed as part of a multiyear Canadian project were atypical in that they were actively engaged with the child welfare system. Their stories show how, although not always physically present, child welfare's ghostly form is still very much a part of the daily lives of fathers and their families. These fathers had to be resourceful and resilient as they endeavored to look “promising” to the child welfare system. The critical analysis offers insights into a more father-inclusive approach to child welfare that has implications for policy and practice development.     

Mind the Gap: Built Infrastructures,Sustainable Caring Relations,and Resilient Communities in Extreme Weather Events

Abstract

Climate change debates seldom link the insights derived from the physical sciences to the concerns of social scientists. Understanding how failures in built infrastructures increase the caring burden on women is one of these instances. This article draws on a pilot study on climate change and older people to demonstrate that women who provide informal care services are called upon to fill the gap between declining levels of formal care provisions and care needs when the infrastructures serving a community fail. This research challenges policymakers, emergency planners, and practitioners to think about the increased care burdens that women are expected to undertake during disasters involving extreme weather events like heat waves, cold snaps, and flooding, and reconsider policies that pass this responsibility down to the level of community without the necessary support services and built infrastructures being in place. This issue acquires additional urgency in the context of declining levels of care being publicly funded through the age of austerity as public expenditure cuts begin to bite.     

Climate change: social workers' roles and contributions to policy debates and interventions1

Dominelli L. Climate change: social workers' roles and contributions to policy debates and interventions Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 430–438 © 2011 The Author(s), International Journal of Social Welfare © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Climate change is seldom discussed in mainstream social work. Its first presentations on the world stage occurred in Copenhagen during the Conference of the Parties (COP15). This article argues that the profession has an important role to play in: helping people understand the issues; promoting sustainable energy production and consumption; mobilising people to protect their futures through community social work; and proposing solutions to greenhouse gas emissions as indicated in two case studies, one based on a community initiative in the Global South, and the other in the Global North. The article also demonstrates that social workers can foster climate change endeavours that are equitable for all, for example the Equitable Carbon Sharing Scheme.     

Endangered Children: Experiencing and Surviving the State as Failed Parent and Grandparent

The state removes children from ‘failed’ parentsto give them a better experience of parenting. This articleexamines the role that the state plays as parent to young mothersin care and grandparent to their children, drawing on a small-scalestudy undertaken in western Canada using grounded theory methodology.The findings were bleak: the state as parent and grandparentalso fails these children. We consider why this is the caseand make suggestions for ways forward by critiquing the ideologyof familialism that underpins the state’s punitive approachto these young mothers and their children. We also call forpolicies and a practice that enable practitioners to addressstructural inequalities such as poverty and racism alongsidethe capacity to respond to the personal needs of the young womenand their children as young people with dignity and rights.