The social worker-client relationship -- a Sartrean approach

Several theorists argue that a close and mutual relationship between social worker and client is the 'core' of social work practice. However, this relationship is not examined in a profound way. In the article, the assumption of the essential relationship between social worker and client is scrutinized, using Jean-Paul Sartre's phenomenological, existential philosophy. The aim is to see what Sartre's theory can bring to the discourse about this relationship as a central aspect of social work as a field of knowledge. Ultimately this is of importance for intervention as well as evaluation.     

Policy Goals for Health and Safety

Health management and safety regulation are separate disciplines but share the aim to extend expectancy of life in good health. The need to improve cost-effectiveness calls for their co-ordinated management according to a unified rationale. Three guiding principles of accountability, demonstrable net benefit and a uniform measure of performance, have been laid out in Canada by the Joint Committee on Health and Safety. They call for open accounting in terms of (health-related quality-adjusted) life expectancy. The principles are utilitarian in format but, it is argued, inequity is naturally diminished in the process of optimizing cost-effectiveness through maximum marginal returns. Comments are made on practical implementation. The need for public consent in practice calls for two additional principles reflecting fair procedure and sovereignty of the citizens. It is concluded that public health and safety measures should be surveyed, documented for cost-effectiveness and prioritized for improvement.     

Residential Concentration Among Immigrants in Oslo

On the basis of register data, this article outlines the development ofresidential concentrations among immigrants in Oslo from the early 1970suntil 1996.
It is argued that a phase characterized by concentrated immigrant housing inthe inner city was superseded by a phase of dispersal which, in turn, was replaced by a period of new concentration. Western and non-Western immigrants live in different parts of the city and the degree of residential concentration varies according to the national background of the immigrants.
Between 1988 and 1993 there was a net flux of non-Western immigrantsfrom the inner city east to the old and new suburban dormitory towns on theoutskirts of the city. This is interpreted as a tendency over time to conformto mainstream Norwegian residential patterns.
The relevance of the term "ghetto" as a designation of areas in Oslo characterized by a high proportion of immigrants is refuted.
Empirical evidence supports the notion that economic resources is the mostimportant factor in creating and maintaining immigrant residential concentrations in the inner city east, while cultural phenomena also appear to play a major causal role.