'Living for the Brethren': Idealism, Social Work's Lost Enlightenment Strain

Correspondence to Ken Moffatt, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, York University, Kinsmen Building, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3. E-mail: kmoffatt{at}yorku.ca and allan.irving{at}widener.edu Summary In this article we define British idealism, a thread of Enlightenmentthought. We draw upon historical British writings and Canadianarchival material to reveal key concepts central to idealismand social work. The article begins by discussing social responsibilitybased on the idealist premise of Christian immanence. We thendiscuss the spiritual rationality of the new liberalism. Thethought of E.J. Urwick, a key philosopher of British and Canadiansocial work, illustrates that both British and Platonic idealismcontinued to influence the field of modern social work. Theconcepts of engaged participation and reciprocity are congruentwith Christian immanence and spiritual rationality. We arguethat social work can benefit from recovering its lost pastssuch as idealism as an aid in prefiguring an uncertain future.     

Street Gangs,Migration and Ethnicity by van Gemert,F., Peterson,D., & Lien,I.-L. (Eds.)

This article describes two convergent group programs for children in care that aimed to develop resilience. Both preventative-type programs reflected the current focus on strengths-based approaches and resilience within child protection/welfare. They used arts-based and experiential methods to facilitate the learning of a variety of skills including social and coping skills, mindfulness, and emotional awareness. The programs were suitable and feasible and appeared to have benefits, could accommodate diversity, were cost effective, and could be facilitated by a wide variety of practitioners. Too many children in care are falling between the cracks. Communities should consider how relevant and meaningful services can feasibly be offered to children in care.     

Letters to the Editor

Quantitative graphics have been central to the development of science, and statistical graphics date from the earliest attempts to analyze data. Many familiar forms, including bivariate plots, statistical maps, bar charts, and coordinate paper, were used in the 18th century. Statistical graphics developed through attention to four problems: spatial organization (17th and 18th centuries), discrete comparison (18th and early 19th centuries), continuous distribution (19th century), and multivariate distribution and correlation (late 19th and early 20th centuries). Today, statistical graphics appear to be reemerging as an important analytic tool, with recent innovations exploiting computer graphics and related technologies.     

Organized planning in major U.K. companies

Corporate Long Range Planning began to be fashionable in Britain in the 1960's. Now it should be possible for the managers which pioneered this development to analyse their experience for the benefit of others. This article reports the results and conclusions from a detailed study of corporate planning in 27 major British companies, each with 2–8 years experience. The aim was to discover why organized planning was introduced; what factors affected its development and what results were achieved.     

Co‐producing Approaches to the Management of Dementia through Social Prescribing

A promising approach to the management of dementia is ‘social prescribing’. Social prescribing is a form of ‘co‐production’ that involves linking patients with non‐clinical activities, typically delivered by voluntary and community groups, in an effort to improve their sense of well‐being. The success of social prescribing depends upon the ability of boundary‐spanning individuals within service delivery organizations to develop referral pathways and collaborative relationships through ‘networks’. This article examines the operation of a pilot social prescribing programme in the North East of England, targeted at older people with early onset dementia and depression, at risk of social isolation. It is argued that the scheme was not sustained, in part, because the institutional logics that governed the actions of key boundary‐spanning individuals militated against the collaboration necessary to support co‐production.