Exploring the Development of Professional Identity with Newly Qualified Social Workers

This paper discusses the experiences of newly qualified social workers as part of a research project exploring professional identity. Drawing on literature in this area and a subset of data from a larger study involving Australian practitioners, it is argued that while several studies explore experiences of identity, the phenomenon remains under-researched, especially in Australia. Seventeen people participated in three in-depth, semistructured interviews across a 12-month period. A subset of the data explores how participants were actively motivated and benefitted from reflecting on their identities through the research process. Findings indicate newly qualified social workers appreciate meaningful opportunities to critically reflect upon their social work identities. It is concluded that further research is needed, to understand the identities and needs of newly qualified social workers in Australia.     

Social Work and Interprofessional Education in Health Care: A Call for Continued Leadership

A report from the Interprofessional Education Collaborative and another from the Institute of Medicine cite working as part of interdisciplinary teams as a core proficiency area for improving health care. This article discusses the core competencies of interprofessional education and the essential role for social workers as leaders and facilitators of this practice. Educators will learn how to help students discover the knowledge, skills, and attitudes for successful interprofessional work. Specifically, this article has the following objectives:

1. Discuss essential elements of effective interprofessional practice;

2. Present exemplars of interprofessional education involving social work;

3. Identify the roles for social work in leadership, education, and practice in interprofessional education.

     

Beliefs About Parents' Right to Know: Domain Differences and Associations With Change in Concealment

Parent and adolescent (M = 15.7 years) beliefs regarding parents' right to know (RTK) about adolescents' activities were examined in 174 middle‐class U.S. families. Mean differences and associations with latent changes in teens' concealment were assessed. RTK was greatest about risky prudential activities, least for personal activities for parents and romantic activities for teens, and higher for mothers' ratings of girls' than boys' romantic behavior. Adolescents' stronger RTK beliefs predicted lower concealment 6 months later and less increase in concealment over time, although less so for romantic issues. In contrast, mothers' stronger RTK beliefs predicted more concealment over time. For personal issues, greater teen RTK beliefs slowed increases in concealment only when parents' RTK beliefs were low.     

Issues of collaboration,representation, meaning and emotions: utilising participant-led visual diaries to capture the everyday lives of people in mid to later life

In recent years there has been an increasing use of visual methods in ageing research. There are, however, limited reflections and critical explorations of the implications of using visual methods in research with people in mid to later life. This paper examines key methodological complexities when researching the daily lives of people as they grow older and the possibilities and limitations of using participant-generated visual diaries. The paper will draw on our experiences of an empirical study, which included a sample of 62 women and men aged 50 years and over with different daily routines. Participant-led photography was drawn upon as a means to create visual diaries, followed by in-depth, photo-elicitation interviews. The paper will critically reflect on the use of visual methods for researching the daily lives of people in mid to later life, as well as suggesting some wider tensions within visual methods that warrant attention. First, we explore the extent to which photography facilitates a ‘collaborative’ research process; second, complexities around capturing the ‘everydayness’ of daily routines are explored; third, the representation and presentation of ‘self’ by participants within their images and interview narratives is examined; and, finally, we highlight particular emotional considerations in visualising daily life.     

Migrant and asylum-seeker children returned to Kosovo and Albania: predictive factors for social–emotional wellbeing after return

The return of rejected asylum seekers has a high priority on the national agendas of European States. In order to make well-informed asylum decisions involving children, knowledge of how asylum-seeker children fare after their return to their countries of origin is needed. This study aims to gain knowledge about the child-rearing environment and the social–emotional wellbeing of migrant children who have returned to Kosovo and Albania after a stay in a European host country. Based on a sample of 106 returned families, the study investigated the predictive factors for children’s social–emotional wellbeing using regression analyses. The findings show that procedural characteristics and ethnicity predict wellbeing, mediated through the quality of the child-rearing environment. The most vulnerable children did not have a stable resident status in the host country, belonged to a minority ethnic group and were older adolescents. The findings indicate that the wellbeing of returned children is not only dependent on conditions after repatriation, but also on the conditions which the families left in the host country. To enable sustainable return in a child’s best interests, the needs of vulnerable families and children should be thoroughly assessed prior to return, and reintegration support should be tailored to their situation.     

‘Man up!’ bullying and resilience within a neoliberal framework

This study investigates perceptions in relation to bullying, with a particular focus on discussions around resilience, drawing on data from focus group interviews with young people (mean age 14 years old), parents and teachers (N?=?40). We view self-conduct and the governance of human behaviour as situated within a neoliberal framework, locating accountability and responsibility within the individual. Our methodological framework consists of a multi-level ‘synthesised’ discourse analysis. Firstly, drawing on discursive psychology, we focus on the interactive accomplishments of talk, such as managing facts, blame and accountability. The second level of discourse analysis focuses on the wider discourses that participants draw on to make sense of themselves, including common sense discourses and ideologies. In their narratives, the participants construct resilience in relation to bullying in terms of individual empowerment, responsibility and ‘manning up’; a skill that can be taught and acquired. Not only that, long-term implications of bullying are negated in favour of a neoliberal approach towards self-responsibility in the here and now. This has implications for strategies in relation to bullying and supporting young people in building resilience. More research is needed to establish key notions in relation to resilience, and the multidimensionality of protective factors in relation to bullying.