Measuring children's needs: how are we doing?

Children's services in England and Wales are legally required to determine the nature and extent of children's needs in their areas as a precursor to providing needs-led services. However, few needs assessments are ever published. This article analyses 83 such reports conducted between 1999 and 2007 in two local authorities in England (one urban, one rural), focusing on their quality and usefulness. It makes recommendations for improving practice in this important area, both in terms of the type of needs assessment required and how best to produce and use them.     

Prenatal development in rural South Africa: relationship between birth weight and access to fathers and grandparents

Birth weight is an indicator of prenatal development associated with health in infancy and childhood, and may be affected by the family environment experienced by the mother during pregnancy. Using data from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, we explore the importance of the mother's access to the father and grandparents of the child during pregnancy. Controlling for household socio-economic indicators and maternal characteristics, the survival and residence of the biological father with the mother are positively associated with birth weight. The type of relationship seems to matter: married women have the heaviest newborns, but co-residence with a non-marital partner is also associated with higher birth weight. Access to the maternal grandmother may also be important: women whose mothers are alive have heavier newborns, but no additional benefit is observed from residing together. Co-residence with any grandparent is not associated with birth weight after controlling for the mother's partnership.     

Protest,Cyberactivism and New Social Movements: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9/11

This paper examines ways in which the Internet and alternative forms of media have enhanced the global, yet grassroots, political mobilization in the anti-war effort in the post 9/11 environment. An examination of the role of cyberactivism in the peace movement enhances our understanding of social movements and contentious politics by analyzing how contemporary social movements are using advanced forms of technology and mass communication as a mobilizing tool and a conduit to alternative forms of media. These serve as both a means and target of protest action and have played a critical role in the organization and success of internal political mobilizing.     

The Immigration Dilemma: The Role of Perceived Group Competition, Ethnic Prejudice, and National Identity

In this article, we discuss the role of perceived competition for resources in determining negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in North America. We first provide background information on immigration policies and levels of immigration to Canada and the United States. Following an overview of our theoretical perspective, we then describe the research we have conducted in Canada and the United States indicating that perceived zero-sum competition between groups, whether situationally induced or a function of chronic belief in zero-sum relations among groups, is strongly implicated in negative immigration attitudes. In addition, we describe our recent attempts to improve attitudes toward immigrants and immigration through the targeting of zero-sum beliefs and through manipulations of the inclusiveness of national identity.     

General beliefs about the world as defensive mechanisms against death anxiety

Death ideation and death anxiety represent the cognitive and affective dimensions of death attitudes, respectively. General beliefs about the world are proposed to be useful defensive mechanisms protecting persons against the death anxiety provoked by death ideation. SEM is employed to test the proposed mediation model, using a sample of 133 Hong Kong Chinese university students. Results showed that death ideation was significantly and inversely linked to belief in social cynicism, reward for application, and fate control. Moreover, higher levels of belief in fate control and lower levels of religiosity predicted greater death anxiety. Only belief in fate control partially mediated the relationship between death ideation and death anxiety. Discussion focused on how social axioms serve as useful defensive mechanisms against death anxiety.     

Challenges to and Strategies for Formal Service Utilization among Caregivers in an Underserved Community

Family caregivers face enormous challenges when attempting to oversee the medical, legal, financial, and daily affairs of loved ones with chronic or life-limiting illness. While formal services and agencies exist to assist caregivers with some of these tasks, caregivers in underserved communities do not utilize these services, or utilize them with unsatisfactory results. This study used focus groups (N = 5 groups) with underserved, minority caregivers (N = 22) to explore their experiences related to care provision, including barriers to support service use and challenges navigating systems related to the broad spectrum of caregiving demands. Thematic content analysis revealed three main themes: (1) prior difficulties with formal service use, (2) difficulties navigating financial, legal, and medical systems, and (3) caregivers’ personal strategies to address challenges associated with formal service use and systems navigation. Findings from this study identify underserved caregivers’ challenges in utilizing formal services, as well as caregiver-identified strategies for supporting their caregiving activities.     

Getting behind the closed door of care leavers: understanding the role of emotional support for young people leaving care

There have been significant changes in the legislative frameworks and guidance that surround social work practice with young people leaving the care system over the recent years. However, care leavers continue to face a range of challenges, achieve poor outcomes and research has consistently highlighted the insufficient attention paid to sources of emotional support. This paper provides empirical data from a small number of care leavers reflecting on their experiences of transitioning to independence. The findings provide further evidence of the lack of attention paid to emotional support by professionals and highlight the impact that this had on the young people's experiences. The young people identify their changing perceptions and needs as their experiences post‐care change, the complex reasons for why they may have rejected offers of support and make key recommendations for practice. This paper provides valuable insight into the process of leaving the care system from the perspective of care leavers themselves and raises key questions that challenge the structure of the current support systems, the nature of the professional relationship with young people in care and the priorities of current policy initiatives.     

What Adolescents Can Tell Us: Technology and the Future of Social Work Education

The use and usefulness of Information Technology (IT) is rapidly growing around the world, especially among the youth. IT has been shown to impact learning styles, communication, and social relationships in many ways. Recently, significant discussion has arisen around the importance of IT in higher education and more specifically, social work education. This study qualitatively assesses 128 youth aged 13–14 years to understand their access to and use of IT as well as the way it impacts their psychosocial development to provide clues that will help inform the design of social work education for the future. Youth in four school districts reported unanimous access to computers and television and a majority of students used other technologies. Adolescents reported increased ease of communication and ability to get information as well as enhanced social relationships connected to their use of IT. Discussion and implications suggest that in the future, social work education will have to implement IT into its curriculum in order to attract students and provide the best possible learning environment for the next generation, which has included technology in every aspect of their lives.     

The Place of Place in Social Work: Rethinking the Person-in-Environment Model in Social Work Education and Practice

ABSTRACT

Social work’s traditional emphasis on the individual in the context of social environments has resulted in a neglect of the person in the context of physical environments. This conceptual article addresses this oversight by presenting three subconcepts of place—place attachment, place identity, and territoriality—and draws on research examples with marginalized populations to illustrate the possibilities for understanding and integrating these concepts into social work. We ultimately argue for a shift toward an emphasis on place as a fresh avenue of inquiry to broaden and enhance social work education and practice.