Video conferencing applications in social work: Work locally,think globally

Abstract

Video conferencing is a technology that facilitates the provision of high quality education, health-care and consultation to clients and families served by rural area health professionals via visual and audio transmissions. It also plays an important role in the education, and training of rural health professionals and the development of a multidisciplinary team dialogue between rural and metropolitan partners. This paper describes our experience of a video conferencing program conducted at the Goulburn Valley Mental Health Service and St George's Older Persons Mental Health Service. We have found a number of benefits of this technology for clients, their families and for health professionals themselves. The development of expertise in the use of video conferencing technology has empowered social workers in their work places. Video conferencing has been extended to other aspects of social work practice. A pertinent example of this is the use of video conferencing in Guardianship and Administration hearings for patients who would otherwise be unable to attend because of health problems (physical, mental and mobility).     

Russian Jews in exile from Bolshevik Russia: the case of Lev Shestov as an example of Russian‐Jewish existential compromise

Lev Shestov (born Leib Jehuda Shvartsman in Kiev in 1866) was a product of his times and entangled cultural roots. His destiny became closely related to the Russian Diaspora in Europe (he fled Bolshevik Russia in 1920). He was also linked to the local (especially French and German) intellectual life. However, being a Jew made Shestov stand out from the purely Russian emigration, for although he connected himself first and foremost with Russian culture, he could not be integrated without reservations into the purely Russian Diaspora. On the other hand mapping him in relation to the diverse Russian‐Jewish émigré milieu in Europe is not a straightforward task because his attitude to his Jewish roots was rather ambivalent. The case of self‐identification, in varying degrees, was similarly ambiguous with many Russian Jews who left Russia after the revolution. Shestov’s activities in emigration were diverse. Apart from teaching he published regularly in the outlets of the émigré press as well as in major French literary journals and gave lectures in Germany (in particular, addressing such different audiences as the Union of Russian Jews and the Nietzschean Society). In brief, his way of coping with the experience of exile was to become a multicultural conductor of sorts. This article aims to analyse Shestov’s life path in the framework of the Russian‐Jewish Diaspora in Europe at the time in the context of both cultural and ethnic repudiation and appropriation. This in turn should shed some new light on the cultural life of this Diaspora.     

EXTREME TEMPERATURE AND EXTREME VIOLENCE: EVIDENCE FROM RUSSIA

We study the relationship between extreme temperatures and violent mortality, employing novel regional panel data from Russia. We find that extremely hot temperatures increase violent mortality, while extremely cold temperatures have no effect. The impact of hot temperature on violence is unequal across gender and age groups, rises noticeably during weekends, and leads to considerable social costs. Our findings also suggest that better job opportunities and lower vodka consumption may decrease this impact. The results underscore that economic policies need to target vulnerable population groups to mitigate the adverse impact of extreme temperatures. (JEL Q54, I14, K42)     

Between Literary and Subliterary Paradigms: Skaz and Contemporary Russian Estrada Comedy

The present article contends that literary skaz has significantly influenced the narrative framework of contemporary Russian estrada comedy. Skaz’s “theatricality,” “orality,” ambiguous authorship, spontaneity, and “folksiness” have the potential to add a rich, conversation-like complexity to the generally non-improvisational Russian comedy performance. Skaz’s allocutional projection of the audience into a comedian’s performance also creates an illusion of mutual communication between performer and public. While relying on Bakhtin’s treatment of skazas a double-voiced narrative, I argue that skaz allows the comedian to deliver sharp social commentary through a provincial or uneducated persona. Of particular interest for this study is the practical motivation for Russian comedians to resort to the mask of skaz narrators in the 1990s, an era of seemingly open public discourse. I argue that the continuing appropriation of a written, literary text (skaz) by an oral, popular performance (estrada comedy) suggests the versatility of the literary form, while simultaneously testifying to the on-going health of the written and spoken word in contemporary Russia.     

Immigrant Assimilation, Canada 1971–2006: Has the Tide Turned?

Based on the micro files of the Canadian Census we document an increasing earnings penalty for cohorts of immigrants arriving after the late-1970s, especially for the most recent cohort. We also find much quicker assimilation rates for these cohorts, especially for the most recent cohort. Since the late-1970s, the increasing earnings penalty dominated their more rapid assimilation, so that immigrants exhibited ever-deteriorating patterns of integration into the Canadian labour market. For the most recent cohort (2002–2006), this reversed itself, suggesting that the tide may have turned. We find this for both men and women. Our findings are robust across alternative regression specifications, as well as a sample that only considers full-time and full-year workers.     

Responsive Persistence Part I: Therapist Influence in Postmodern Practice

Feminist and social constructionist developments in family therapy highlighted the importance of attending to therapist–client power relations and incorporating clients' understandings and preferences as a part of therapy. Significantly, less attention has been given to how postmodern therapists do use their power and influence. This is an important topic because it is therapists who have the major responsibility for guiding the interaction with clients and persisting in this so that change is facilitated. Therapist persistence in various forms and across dimensions of therapy process is examined to expand understanding of therapist influence in postmodern and collaborative work. An analysis of responsive persistence in a session with Karl Tomm as the therapist is presented to illustrate this conceptual framing.     

Measuring the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics—evidence from Spain

Accounting for the time individuals spend below the poverty line is an important dimension in order to design social policies to fight against poverty. The literature is currently aiming to construct a consistent aggregate measure of poverty over time that takes into account individual income lifetime profiles. It is however, far from clear which aspects of the specific patterns of poverty spells should be included. Using longitudinal data for Spain, this paper shows that the effect of spell recurrence on poverty dynamics is relevant. Poverty exit and re-entry rates vary not only with personal or household characteristics but also with spell accumulation and the duration of current and past spells. In general, our main findings support that an aggregate intertemporal poverty index should incorporate full individual poverty lifetime trajectories accounting for both poverty and non-poverty spell durations.     

‘If I was a different ethnicity,would she treat me the same?’: Latino parents’ experiences obtaining autism services

This article reports on an ethnographic study with 12 Latino families of children on the autism spectrum related to obtaining autism services in Los Angeles County. Using critical discourse analysis of interviews, observations, and records, we consider the experiences of the Latino families in relation to: a discursively constructed ‘autism parent’ subject position that mandates ‘fighting’ service systems to ‘win’ autism services for children, originating from White middle-class parents’ socioeconomic resources and social capital; a neoliberal social services climate that assumes scarcity of available resources and prioritizes austerity in their authorization; and a media and institutional ‘cultural deficit’ discourse that attributes disparities in autism services for Latino children to their parents’ presumed culturally-based ‘passivity.’ We argue that parental discourse about fighting, or not fighting, for autism services is engendered by a tension between a parental logic of care, and the logic of competition of the economic market.