Positive enough? A content analysis of settlement service organizations' inclusivity of LGBTQ immigrants

Little is known about how effective Canadian settlement organizations are in meeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) immigrants. The authors conducted a two-stage content analysis of the inclusion of LGBTQ immigrants in 34 settlement organizations in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, and on the delivery of services by nine settlement organizations that self-described as LGBTQ-positive spaces. Stage 1 deductive content analysis findings revealed poor inclusion and support for LGBTQ immigrants. Stage 2 inductive content analysis findings revealed four service priority areas: health/well-being, community connections, advocacy/education, and disability. Recommendations for best practices are discussed.     

Assessing Service Providers at LGBTQ-Affirming Community Agencies on Their Perceptions of Training Needs and Barriers to Service

Service providers (N = 109) at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ)-affirming social service agencies were surveyed on their perceived training needs, experiences, and barriers to service access experienced by their clients. Hierarchical regression analysis identified that training experiences significantly influenced self-perceived competence, controlling for agency-related factors including the extent of perceived barriers to service. Findings are discussed with implications for training, practice, and future research.     

Military,Masculinity, and Citizenship: Tensions and Contradictions in the Experience of Blue-Collar Soldiers

This article seeks to problematize the relationship between military service, masculinity, and citizenship, from the perspective of lower-class soldiers who serve in blue-collar roles in the Israeli military. Introducing class and ethnicity into the “taken for granted” equation of men, military, and the state reveals counter-hegemonic conceptions of masculinity and citizenship, and exposes tense and often contradictory relationships between them.

Based on in-depth interviews, I argue that blue-collar Israeli soldiers simultaneously accept and challenge the hegemonic Zionist conceptions of both masculinity and citizenship. Unlike the combat soldiers, blue-collar soldiers demonstrate gender and national identities that are not anchored in military life. Rather, these soldiers present an alternative version of “home-based masculinity,” which grants the family superiority over the military and the state. This masculinity is expressed through two recurring themes: ongoing resistance to military discipline and authority, and an emphasis on the role of the provider over the role of the soldier. Through these daily military practices, the soldiers express their rejection of the republican “principle of contribution” as a criterion to one's belonging to the collective. However, their conception of citizenship emphasizes a militant ethno-national discourse. The discrepancy between their antimilitaristic practices and their militant patriotism reflects their ambivalent socio-political location in Israeli society between their preferred location as Jews and their marginal location as Mizrachim of lower classes. These ambivalent identities reveal that a mutual affirming connection between the military, masculinity, and the state exists only for hegemonic groups. For non-hegemonic groups, the relationship between masculinity, military, and citizenship is ridden with conflicts and inner contradictions.     

Rebuilding Community Organizing Education in Social Work

Although the campaign and election of Barack Obama as the nation's first President with a background in community organizing (CO) has boosted the visibility and popularity of the field, graduate social work programs have not taken full advantage of the opportunity. This article, therefore, presents a three-fold argument regarding the future of CO education. There is an increasing demand and need for trained organizers and community organizing education. This historical moment holds significant potential for CO education in social work. Graduate schools of social work with CO programs should broaden their outreach to attract potential students and activists to careers as social change agents.     

Introducing Asset-Based Models of Social Justice into Service Learning: A Social Work Approach

Increased attention is being given to university–community partnerships. Among such partnerships is service learning, a pedagogical model that integrates experiential community service activities and academic learning. Traditional service learning models often diverge from social work methods that embrace strengths, empowerment, antioppressive principles, and citizen-driven approaches. This article presents the integration of a progressive service learning model into a graduate-level social work macro practice course. The model gives explicit attention to respecting the dignity and worth of the individual by sharing power and developing collaborative relationships between students and community residents where both are serving and learning together.     

Ethical leadership,intrapreneurship, service innovation performance and work engagement in chambers of commerce and industry

ABSTRACT

The main purpose of this study which examines how it can be more effective in terms of organizational and managerial aspects with chambers of commerce and industry affiliated to The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey is to analyze the relationships between ethical leadership, work engagement, intrapreneurship, and service innovation behavior. In addition, it is to determine the role of mediation of work engagement effecting on intrapreneurship and service innovation behavior. For this purpose, quantitative analysis methods have been adopted. The data collected from 568 employees who were employed in chambers of commerce and industry operating in Turkey were analyzed. For the validity and reliability of the measurement tools, confirmatory factor analysis, the model’s good fit values and the AMOS Structural Equation Model were used. It was found that ethical leadership had statistically significant effect on employee engagement, intrapreneurship and the subscales of service innovation behavior (employee service innovation behavior and new service development). The results showed that work engagement partially mediated with ethical leadership effecting on intrapreneurship, ethical leadership effecting on the subscales of service innovation behavior. It is thought that the study is important in terms of providing empirical contributions to the ethical leadership, service innovation, intrapreneurship and work engagement literature. Finally, there are some limitations of the study and some suggestions are offered for future studies.     

Managing moods and parenting: Perspectives of former system youth who struggle with emotional challenges

Young adults who were served in public systems of care as children are much more likely than their peers to be parenting in adolescence and young adulthood. They are also more likely than their counterparts to have a history of mental health problems. This study examined the perspectives of young adult parents with mood problems who had been involved in public systems of care before age 18. Qualitative interviews with twenty-eight participants were analyzed to examine the experience of managing moods and parenting. Young parents described how their symptoms impact their parenting and how parenting impacts their coping. They also described the strengths and challenges of using mental health services while parenting. Findings highlight the need to provide interventions that include supports for both parenting and symptom management and for providers to include both tangible and emotional support in their interventions.     

“Making a plan”: responses amongst the wealthy to declining socioeconomic conditions in suburban Harare

Although the term “crisis” is often used to describe politico-economic conditions in post-2000 Zimbabwe, the period of hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was also accompanied by creative responses to declining socioeconomic conditions. In this paper, I consider the ways in which wealthy suburban Zimbabweans resident in Harare during this period dealt with the withdrawal of the state from some aspects of daily life: most notably, experienced through a decline in municipal services such as the provision of water and electricity. I argue that whilst poor urbanites experienced socioeconomic conditions as a decline in modernity even while they engaged in creative responses to those conditions, for wealthier (Black and White) urbanites the withdrawal of local government services led to a revival of ideas of innovation (“making a plan”) that were similar to a pre-Independence discourse of self-reliance in the face of economic sanctions imposed in the 1970s. Ideas of self-sufficiency and innovation in the present day were invoked by both Black and White respondents, and can be read as partly rhetorical, given the realities of complex engagements and negotiations that occurred in Harare between residents and the municipality and state services. The innovation required to “make a plan” was always complexly social: although people could no longer rely on local government for services, they were forced by the erratic nature of service delivery to rely upon one another, and to engage with municipal institutions and local government structures in ways that had previously been unnecessary. Attempts to maintain a “proper” life in Harare involved creating forms of community amongst the wealthy, and connections between the wealthy and the state, that had not necessarily existed before the so-called crisis.     

Integrating Services for Older People in Aging Communities in The Netherlands: A Comparison of Urban and Rural Approaches

ABSTRACT

The aim of this article is to discuss approaches to services integration for older people in urban and rural aging environments in The Netherlands, and the preliminary effects of these approaches on local aging conditions. In urban areas, services integration revolves around the creation of functional spatial hierarchy. In rural areas, the emphasis is on forging links between service providers. Outcomes for health and use of professional care services are similar. Out-comes for housing, informal care, and accessibility of services differ between urban and rural areas in ways that can be traced back to local aging conditions and elements of the specific approach to services integration used. In both urban and rural areas, much more could be done to connect formal programs to the lifeworlds of older dwellers.     

珠三角制造业专业镇发展服务业的基础、优势与挑战——以南海大沥镇为例

珠三角地区必须改变过去依靠要素投入和资本驱动的增长方式,转向依靠创新驱动的经济发展方式,构建现代服务业和先进制造业双轮驱动的产业群．随着产业、城市、管理的转型升级取得显著成效,在认识自身发展服务业的基础条件、比较优势、正确评估即将遇到的严峻挑战基础上,大沥加快发展服务业特别生产性服务业,对于推进大沥产业结构调整、转变经济增长方式,增强城市功能、提升城市竞争力具有重要战略意义．