The Meaningful Involvement of Service Users in Social Work Education: Examples from Belgium and The Netherlands

This article links the development of service user involvement championed in the United Kingdom to two examples in Dutch-speaking qualifying social work programmes: one from Belgium and one from the Netherlands. In both projects, a longer lasting cooperation with more marginalised service users was established. The Belgium project highlights social work lecturers and service users living in poverty, working in tandem to deliver a module to social work and socio-educational care work students. The example from the Netherlands involves young people from a homeless shelter as peer-researchers, working together with social work students.

Both projects, one focusing on social work education and on social work research, highlight striking similarities in the positives and challenges of working with service users including how this challenges both groups preconceptions of the other, deepens learning but also creates greater potential for confrontations which need to be managed creatively. The article also identifies the pre-requisites for this to be effective including appropriate resourcing, training, facilitative skills and acknowledges that collaborations can be extremely fragile. However, such projects need further investment, experimentation and implementation on an international scale to share learning and promote creative approaches for the development and learning of social work students.     

The Subjectivity of Fairness: Managerial Discretion and Work–Life Balance

We use organizational justice theory to examine how perceptions of fairness affect the decision‐making process of line managers. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 35 Irish managers to explore how managers make organizational allocation decisions in cases where it is impractical to offer work–life balance accommodations to all employees. The findings suggest that firstly, managers construct the ‘life’ aspect of work–life balance within a heteronormative framework, where the emphasis is on caregiving and most usually parenting. Secondly, managers actively use their decision‐making powers around both formal and informal work–life balance supports to minimize injustice within their departments. By bringing together ideas about organizational justice and managerial decision‐making, we indicate how managers determine fairness through a decision‐making process narrowed by embedded gender role beliefs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Promoting Financial Capability of Incarcerated Women for Community Reentry: A Call to Social Workers

ABSTRACT

Female incarceration rates are increasing at unprecedented rates. The majority of women are poor single mothers, serving sentences for nonviolent drug-related and property offenses. Among challenges faced when transitioning back into society are a history of interpersonal violence and financial instability. This study examines literature with regard to the barriers women experience with an emphasis on financial struggles and explores outcomes of one initiative to begin addressing the financial capability of women in a minimum security prison. Findings reveal women benefited from the class experience. Social workers are called upon for additional financial capability programming and research in this area.     

Attitudes toward poverty among exit students of undergraduate social work programs in eight Latin American countries

What is the attitude of Latin American undergraduate social work students toward poverty? An earlier study from Europe and other countries worldwide found that most graduating social work students who participated in the research were clear about the socio-structural causes of social problems such as poverty. Still, no data on this topic is available for Latin American countries. The aims of this study were: (1) to describe and to compare eight Latin American graduating undergraduate social work student groups regarding their attitudes toward poverty, as measured by two scales: Causes of poverty scale and Ways of dealing with poverty; and (2) to discuss some of the implications of the study for social work education and practice. Using a quantitative transnational-comparative design, a total sample of 525 nonrandomly selected, graduating undergraduate social work students from eight Latin American countries responded to a self-administered questionnaire. An individualistic attitude to understanding and to dealing with poverty emerged in the majority of the student groups. Multivariate procedures and inferential analyses demonstrated variations across the student groups. Implications for social work education and practice are discussed.     

Standing up to complexity: researching moral panics in social work

Moral panics are central to social work policy and practice. Voluntary agencies and statutory bodies (including governments) create and sustain moral panics in order to raise awareness of, and win support for, their own understandings of social issues and problems. This is not a neutral enterprise; on the contrary, moral panics often have consequences that are negative, whether intended or unintended. Far from leading to greater social justice and a more equal society, they may reinforce stereotypes and lead to fearful, risk-averse practice. This paper discusses one such moral panic in 2013 that centred on the story of ‘Maria’, a Bulgarian Roma child living in Greece. The paper explores the meaning and use of the concept of moral panic before unpacking this case-study example in more detail. We argue that the moral panic over ‘Maria’ has much to tell us about ideas of welfare and protection, institutional racism and children and childhood, as well as the connections between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’. We conclude that social work as a profession must stand up to complexity, and in doing so, be aware of its own role in relation to moral panics.     

论司法中的程序公正

司法公正包括实体公正和程序公正两个方面,其中程序公正是司法公正的核心。罗尔斯将程序正义区分为纯粹的程序正义、完善的程序正义和不完善的程序正义三种类型。根据罗尔斯的程序正义理论,程序公正可以被视为纯粹的程序正义。程序公正的衡量标准包括法官中立、当事人平等、程序公开、司法效率这四方面的基本原则。     

中国行业协会法的价值目标

制定行业协会专门法已经成为业内人士的共识,但关于行业协会法的价值目标问题,尚有许多值得探讨的地方。行业协会法的公平价值目标,彰显了形式公平与实质公平的统一;行业协会法的效益(率)价值目标,是促进公平目标的前提和基础。行业协会法的价值目标是公平价值目标与效(益)率价值目标的统一。     

论政府制度正义

政府制度有其基本原则,这一基本原则就是"正义"。政府制度正义包含了两个方面的内容:一是指政府制度的正义性,强调政府制度本身具有道德上的合理性与正当性,具有正义的根据;二是指政府正义理念的制度化,强调政府正义的理念与要求应当具体化为政府制度。政府制度正义,需要具有正义感的每个公务员来共同维持,因此,实现政府制度正义离不开公务员个人正义。     

刑事司法沉默权刍议

沉默权是刑事诉讼中,犯罪嫌疑人、被告人享有的一项自然权利,是无罪推定原则的延伸。西方大多数国家在刑事诉讼中采取了沉默权制度,中国目前尚未有关于沉默权的明确规定。我国应借鉴国外的经验,加强立法确立沉默权制度,以完善我国刑事司法制度。     

未成年被害人转为犯罪人的原因及被害预防

我国未成年人犯罪形势严峻,已引起全社会的广泛重视。而未成年犯罪人有很大的比例是由被害人转化而来,这种转化令我们痛心,也应引起我们的高度重视。文章尝试探讨了未成年被害人向犯罪人转化的心理原因以及预防被害的措施,以期在犯罪预防上有一个不同的视点,防患与未然,减少未成年人的被害,从而减少未成年人的犯罪案件发生。