“It just crept in”: The Digital Age and Implications for Social Work Practice

Today’s generation of youth and adults relies on communication technologies for entertainment, information, and social connections and more and more, for personal help and advice. With cyber technology having permeated the ways in which individuals seek support for a wide range of issues, the purpose of this paper is to report on a study that examined practitioners’ experiences and views of whether and how online communication has entered their face-to-face practice and of the implication for the therapeutic work. Using qualitative methodology, 15 social work practitioners participated in focus groups and interviews exploring their perspectives about the impact of cyber technology on their traditional face-to-face social work practice. The prevailing finding was that cyber communication has dramatically changed the nature of professional relationships. This key finding was supported by four major inter-related themes arising from the data: (1) client driven practice; (2) Pandora’s box; (3) ethical grey zone; and (4) permeable boundaries. Implications for practice are provided.     

Women Attending High-Risk Substance Abuse Clinics Versus General Obstetrics Clinics

Substance-abusing women experience burdens making attending high-risk prenatal care critical for a healthy pregnancy. Many face barriers that compromise their health by reducing access to care, delaying their first prenatal appointment. One hundred forty-one women attending a high-risk prenatal clinic were compared to a matched group from the hospital’s general obstetrics clinic. Analyses revealed that substance-abusing women with a mental illness attended prenatal care earlier than those without a mental illness. This is important because psychiatric illnesses might precipitate poor reproductive behaviors. Women with HIV also entered prenatal care earlier, which improves reproductive health. Clinicians’ roles are discussed.     

“We are not weak,we just experience domestic violence”—Immigrant women's experiences of encounters with service providers as a result of domestic violence

Domestic violence continues to be a serious social problem and represents a challenge for those who are exposed to it and those in public services. In Norway, a variety of services are provided to help victims of domestic violence and improve knowledge among professionals who meet with adults and children exposed to domestic violence. Studies in Norway show that families with immigrant backgrounds are overrepresented among social service users as a result of domestic violence. However, contextualized knowledge to provide background information about this overrepresentation is limited. This paper explores women's need for support and their experience with service providers when faced with difficult and unpredictable situations, namely, escaping from violence and leaving home with no financial resources or limited supportive network and turning to service providers for support. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 18 women who were staying in or were in touch with shelters with their children or alone. Five central themes emerged in the analysis of these interviews: (a) help becoming a burden; (b) timely economic measures; (c) economic support and domestic violence; (d) displaced focus; and (e) flexibility and the victim's background.     

Preschool Children's Negative Emotionality and Peer Acceptance: The Moderating Role of Sleep

Preschool children's sleep was examined as a moderator of the association between negative emotionality and both peer acceptance and peer rejection. Participants were 115 children (47 percent girls, M age = 4.29 years, SD = .63). Preschool teachers reported on children's negative emotionality (anger/frustration, sadness, and fear). Sleep was measured objectively using actigraphy in the child's home for seven consecutive nights. Peer acceptance and rejection were assessed using children's choices in sociometric interviews. Controlling for potential confounds, moderation analyses revealed that negative emotionality predicted peer acceptance and rejection only among children with poorer sleep quality (lower sleep efficiency, more frequent wake episodes, longer sleep latency), but not better sleep quality. Findings suggest that sleep is important not only for predicting child functioning but also for moderating the adverse effects of negative emotionality on a salient indicator of interpersonal functioning for preschool age children.     

Perception of time in relation to work and private life among Swedish social workers – the temporal clash between the organisation and the individual

Time, or rather lack of time, is currently an issue to many involved in social work, in Sweden and elsewhere. Stress at work is presently one of the most common reasons social workers state for leaving their profession or their workplace. This article examines how time is perceived in relation to work and private life by employees in the social services. The investigation was conducted as a qualitative interview study with six social workers. An abductive approach was adopted in the analysis. The results indicate a general experience of lack of time and an individual perception of time among the interviewees. What they say about time indicates that they have a monochronic perspective on time. It is also shown that the respondents use different curbing strategies to recuperate. At work, strategies take the form of creating recovery arenas allowing for micropauses such as eating an apple or having a cup of coffee. After work, exercising or strolling in the woods are common strategies. In relation to the employer and the organisation individuals also assume responsibility for organisational shortcomings that they cannot influence.     

Relationship Between College Women's Occupational Interests and a Single-Sex Environment

This study investigated whether the gender composition of the home and high-school environment in which a woman was reared has an influence upon her occupational interests. Results indicated that college women who reported attending a single-sex high school and who also had brothers demonstrated interest in non-traditional careers significantly more often than did their counterparts who attended coed schools. Those women from single-sex high schools reporting having sisters only did not differ significantly from the other three groups. These results were interpreted as being useful in explaining some of the discrepant findings in the previous literature concerning the overall effect of single-sex secondary education.     

Children's responses to angry adult behavior as a function of experimentally manipulated exposure to resolved and unresolved conflict

Children's past experiences with anger between adults are likely to affect their reactions to ongoing conflict episodes. Four- to ten-year-olds' responses to interadult anger were examined as a function of experimentally manipulated exposures to resolved and unresolved anger. To manipulate exposure histories, children were first presented with videotaped segments of both resolved and unresolved angry interactions. They were then presented with arguments between the two couples that were interrupted in progress; children were interviewed next. At the point of argument interruption, the couple with a history of unresolved anger was perceived by girls as more sad, expected by children to be more sad in the future, and expected to be less likely to either have a positive future outcome or to resolve their disputes, in comparison to the couple with a resolved anger history. Similarly, children tended to expect to feel sad themselves in the future, in response to the discordant versus the harmonious couple. Several age differences in affective responding were found.     

The presence of the absent father: how lone mothers with sons construct and animate the absent father through narratives

This article builds upon results from an empirical study of nine cases where single mothers and their teenage sons have reflected on the relationship to the absent father and on his significance for the family. The results have led us to reflect further on how the construction of a father figure is shaped. The cases are selected from ongoing interventions from the social services. The child's age at the start of the father's absence varied from birth to seven years old or more. Through analysis of the different cases of mother–son dyad, their narratives and their joint construction of a father figure, the dyad transforms into a triad with the presence of the absent father. Also discussed is the question of which underlying conditions contribute to the need for a joint construction of the father. Further, doubt is cast on the one-sided gender perspective that presupposes young men's need for an adult man as a model of masculinity. The analysis is related to Swedish legislation, emphasising the importance of ascribed biological parenthood, meaning that fathers’ right to joint custody and to visit the child have been strengthened. Along with the biological relationship, the welfare state also regulates the content of fatherhood, i.e. a state-controlled fatherhood.