Reporting Volunteer Labour at the Organizational Level: A Study of Canadian Nonprofits

Volunteer contributions in the production of services are an important resource internationally. However, few countries include volunteer contributions in their national accounts, even though many encourage their populations to engage in volunteering. At the organizational level, many nonprofit organizations using volunteers often limit their input to a footnote in annual reports acknowledging their contribution; few estimate their value in financial terms. As a result, their financial accounts lack information upon which to base decisions affecting the organizations and the communities they serve. Additional information is required to assess the impact of volunteers in individual nonprofits as well as the sector as a whole. This study focuses on Canada, one of the few countries that include volunteers in the national accounts, to examine to what extent nonprofit organizations estimate a financial value for these contributions and include this in their financial statements. This paper reports the results of an online survey of 661 nonprofits from across Canada. In order to understand why some organizations keep records for volunteer contributions and quantify them, two sets of explanatory factors are explored: organizational characteristics and the attitude of the executive director. We find larger organizations were more likely to engage in record keeping and estimating volunteer value, as were organizations with a relatively large group of volunteers and volunteer programs. The attitude of the executive director is important in determining which organizations engage in these practices.     

Social Return on Investment Analysis

This article uses a social return on investment (SROI) methodology to analyze the social impact of a social enterprise offering a job and skills training program to an unemployed, largely female population. The social enterprise is based in Toronto (Canada) and run by a nonprofit agency dedicated to the advancement and empowerment of women, primarily immigrants, through access to employment. We focus our analysis on a job and skills training program that provides clients with the skills and tools that they need to successfully seek employment in their efforts to (re‐)enter the Canadian labor market. Our goal is to determine the tangible and intangible program outcomes by applying and testing the SROI methodology.     

Measuring a Nonprofit’s Civic Footprint

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - It is widely recognized that nonprofit organizations provide benefits to society such as goods and services that promote...     

THE SYSTEMIC TREATMENT OF SHAME IN COUPLES

Shame remains largely a hidden phenomenon in the treatment of couples. It can manifest itself as a determining factor in events ranging from entrenched blaming to missed appointments. Although there is a growing body of literature on individual shame dynamics and, to a lesser extent, on couple and family shame dynamics, there is little written on how to incorporate these theories into treatment. This paper offers working definitions of shame, proposes a systemic definition of shame as seen in couples, reviews the literature on coule shame dynamics, and explores issues of therapeutic stance and treatment techniques in working with shame in couples therapy.     

Episiotomy practice in the Middle East: A Lebanese teaching tertiary care centre experience

Problem

There is lack of data on the rate of episiotomy in Lebanon and the study’s hospital.

Research in practice: Promoting the dialogue

This paper describes and discusses a research dissemination project undertaken by participants in the Leicester University School of Social Work Child Protection Studies programme. The initiative was designed to enable experienced social workers to share with others findings from their recently completed research projects, to encourage other health and social care practitioners to engage in research activities, and to promote links with employers. Past and current students worked with staff to mount a successful national conference attended by eighty people which promoted discussion of a number of important child protection topics. It encouraged participants to continue with further research and dissemination activities. It also promoted the setting up of a partnership between the course team and local employers to run a programme of day events to bring relevant recent research findings to the attention of social work practitioners and first line managers.     

Quiet please, there's a lady on stage: : Centering the person with dementia in life story narrative

This paper is drawn from a larger study based on traditional qualitative thematic methods, which explored the use of secondary biographical stories as a strategy in conversation with an older person who has dementia. The aim of this paper is to re-examine the data to facilitate further discussion in gerontology about the ways in which the ideals of Kitwood's (1997) personhood and narrative inquiry can be used keep life story of the person with dementia intact. By drawing upon narrative writers such as Mishler (1986), Gee (1991), Ramanathan (1995) and Riessman (2004, 2007), we describe a methodological approach utilising structural and thematic forms of narrative analysis to keep the person with dementia ‘centre stage’ in their own life story narrative. This paper demonstrates that by integrating a person-centred approach to interpretative and structural narrative analysis, people living with dementia can be the centre of their own story and communicate with their community what is important and why it is worth telling.     

Preparing for Elite Political Participation Simulations and the Political Socialization of Adolescents

Objective. We ask: How do socialization experiences shape adolescent perceptions of and the performance of gender in political leadership roles? We examine a political simulation, Model United Nations, which attracts academically motivated students aspiring to elite roles in politics and government. Methods. Using observational and survey data, we explore adolescent behavior in the simulation as both a learning experience and as a reflection of students' perceptions of leadership behavior. Results. Three critical observations emerge. First, the Model United Nations is a domain in which young women do not play an equal part. Female delegates take far fewer speaking turns. However, contextual factors, including membership on a committee that deals with less masculine issues and on a committee with a female chair, increase the likelihood of female turn‐taking. Second, though participants come to the event with very similar motivations, young women leave less satisfied with their personal effectiveness than do young men. Finally, female delegates are judged less favorably by themselves and others and thus as less successful in the simulation. Conclusions. These findings have normative implications for the recruitment of young women to politics.