The surprisingly weak evidence base for supervision: Findings from a systematic review of research in child welfare practice (2000–2012)

Objective

The objective of this study is to ascertain what is known about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of supervision in child welfare in relation to outcomes for consumers/service users, staff and organizations.

Method

This is a systematic review of the English language literature (2000–2012). Scoping study is followed by database searches of indexes and abstracts including Campbell Collaboration, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, Medline, PsycInfo and Social Work Abstracts, journal hosts (EBSCO and IngentaConnect) plus specialist journals. Inclusion criteria: studies that reported on the associations between the provision of supervision and outcomes for service users/consumers, workers and organizations as well as intervention studies. Potentially relevant studies were independently screened by two reviewers (Stage 1) and if meeting the eligibility criteria proceed to full text review and data extraction (Stage 2). Studies were subject to critical appraisal by three reviewers using the Weight of Evidence approach (Stage 3). An analysis of included study characteristics is followed by a narrative synthesis of findings structured to answer the research objective.

Results

690 unique studies were identified at Stage 1, 35 proceeded to Stage 2 and, following quality appraisal, 21 were included in the review. Almost all of the studies were cross-sectional, providing evidence of associations between the provision of supervision and a variety of outcomes for workers, including job satisfaction, self-efficacy and stress and for organizations, including workload management, case analysis and retention. There was only one, poorly reported, intervention study and no studies of outcomes for consumers. No economic evaluations were found.

Conclusions

The evidence base for the effectiveness of supervision in child welfare is surprisingly weak. An agenda for research based on a framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions is proposed.     

Managing Meaning: the constitutive contradictions of institutional culture

Abstract

This essay seeks to defamiliarise the currently dominant sense of institutional culture in South Africa. It does so first by examining the history of the emergence of the term in U.S. business studies in the late 1970s, and second, its translation/transposition into higher educational discourse in the 1980s. A third section examines the developing scepticism around the term in the 1990s, and the essay as a whole argues that the idea of institutional culture is based on a constitutive contradiction between instrumental and constitutive understandings of social process. The essay frames the debate around the ways in which the creation of new vocabulary responds either openly or in concealed ways to larger social trends and tensions, and notes the ways in which the current emphasis on institutional culture in South Africa curiously works to marginalise the dominant elements in the neo-liberal transformation of higher education.     

Resisting the Restoration: response to Premesh Lalu

This paper questions Wassenaar's analysis of the ‘financial crisis in South Africa’. It examines the important differences which Wassenaar ignores between 1972–1974 when government revenue rose substantially relative to government expenditure and the period after that when the fiscal deficit rose so substantially. The review considers that Wassenaar has failed to provide any convincing explanation of why government has grown in South Africa. An alternative explanation is offered that draws on the emerging economic analysis of political action. The review then goes on to examine the recent South African Insurance Commission report to see how well opinion in Dr. Wassenaar's own industry accords with the principles of free enterprise. It finds that even in his own industry attachment to competitive principles is highly ambiguous.     

Policy-practice in social work and social work education in Israel

Policy-practice is a form of social work intervention that is intended to influence social policy. It is linked to an understanding of the role of social workers which places the struggle for social justice at the forefront of social work activity. However, this form of social work intervention has remained on the sidelines of social work practice and education in most welfare states. This paper seeks to understand the role that policy-practice and social policy play, and have played, in social work and social work education in Israel. The findings indicate that, despite a growth in interest in the political role of social workers in Israel during the 1970s, policy-practice has remained a mode of practice adopted by a minority of members of the profession in Israel. An empirical study of the curriculums of the schools of social work in Israel indicates that this is the case for the study program in most of the schools. The reasons for this can be linked primarily to the overwhelming influence of American social work upon the development of the Israeli profession and to the process of liberalization and privatization of the Israeli welfare state in the last two decades.     

SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGION,EMOTIONAL COPING,AND CRIMINAL DESISTANCE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF MEN UNDERGOING CHANGE

Retrospective narratives of change consistently emphasize the importance of religious devotion and spirituality in initiating sustained behavioral change, but little is known about the process by which religion and spirituality promote desistance from crime. The current project is designed to add to the knowledge of the relationship between religion/spirituality and behavioral change by systematically investigating the ways that men residing in a halfway house define the role of religion/spirituality as an emotion-coping mechanism in their desistance efforts. The qualitative data reveal that religion/spirituality is primarily used by these men currently undergoing behavioral change as a form of emotional comfort, a distraction from current stressors, and as factor demarcating the transition from deviance to a more conventional life. Suggestions for religious programming designed to stimulate behavioral changes are discussed.     

THE IMPACT OF RACE ON DENOMINATIONAL VARIATIONS IN SOCIAL ATTITUDES: THE ISSUE AND ITS DIMENSIONS

Although the impact of religious affiliation on social attitudes is a popular research topic in the sociology of religion, few scholars have examined the role that race plays in this relationship. Moreover, studies that do explore the interplay of race and religious affiliation seldom move beyond the general categories of conservative, moderate, and liberal denominational families. Our research uses recent data from the General Social Surveys to compare the social attitudes of African Americans and their white counterparts within established designations of religious affiliation. Along with control variables, we include attitude measures for political tolerance, legalized abortion, gender equality, premarital sex, homosexual lifestyles, and extramarital sexual relations. Our analysis isolates levels of support for these attitudes within categories of race and religious affiliation to determine whether variations emerge and whether they are nested within specific issues, religious denominations, or reflect more general patterns of race differences.     

FEMALE TACTICS AND STRATEGIES OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: A STUDY OF INCIDENT REPORTS

Researchers have debated the extent to which females pursue violence against their male partners for purposes of enforcing or resisting control. In an effort to shed light on this important topic, we examined 43 incident reports of women who were court-referred to a batterer intervention program to explore how and why they engaged in intimate partner violence. Our analysis of the reports revealed that the most common tactic of physical violence was pushing and the most common tactic of psychological violence was intimidation. The motive to enforce was observed in the majority of the incident reports, while attempts to resist, retaliate, and punish occurred in about one third of the reports. We also found that female violence typically occurred in the contexts of anger and fear. The implications of our research for violence intervention programs are discussed.     

Medicaid Funding for Assisted Living Care: A Five-State Examination

Medicaid waiver programs financing assisted living care are examined in five states to gain insights about program implementation, accomplishments, and challenges. Documents, augmented with stakeholder interviews, are used to describe income eligibility, options for supplementing payments to facilities, risk adjustment payment levels, and participation. Needs determination and waiver-based payments are in place. Eligibility and funding levels are complicated by room and board allocations that are linked to the federal benefit rate for Supplemental Security Income. Provider participation may be diminishing. Many recipients have to accept shared occupancy as program payments are insufficient for single units.     

Whatever happened to “bureaucracy”: Empirical studies of the 1970s

Problems with defining the structure of the organization are the topic of this research. At the beginning of the seventies Hage and Aiken wrote: “Characteristics of organizations do not occur randomly; they are found together in definite patterns.” The purpose of this paper is to begin to make these non‐random patterns explicit. Such a task involves three steps: (1) defining “the” characteristics of organizations, (2) examining the empirical relationships of these characteristics, and (3) summarizing the findings. This paper focuses on step one. The structural elements of organizations as they appeared in the empirical studies of the 1970s as published in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Pacific Sociological Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, and The Academy of Management Journal are presented. Based upon these findings implications for steps two and three above are suggested.     

A routine activities approach to suburban arson rates

Cohen and Felson's theory of “routine activities” is evaluated using 1980 arson rate data for 676 American suburbs. Influences of criminal motivation (percent poor, percent unemployed, percent black and percent youth), criminal opportunities (percent old housing, percent multiple housing and the number of commercial/industrial establishments), guardianship (police employment, police expenditure and female labor force participation) and ecological niche (employment concentration and median house value) on suburban arson rates for 1980 are estimated using maximum likelihood (LISREL) techniques. Consistent with the routine activities model, a multiplicative effect of the pre‐conditions for crime on crime rates are also estimated. Motivation, opportunities and guardianship were found to have direct and/or indirect additive effects on arson rates, thus supporting the “routine activities” model. A multiplicative effect of the preconditions of crime was also found.