Imagined interactions of social workers in social work with families: how and why the practitioners talk to themselves?

Author(s):  
Kateřina Glumbíková ◽  
Marek Mikulec ◽  
Jelena Petrucijová ◽  
Ivana Kowaliková ◽  
Veronika Zegzulková ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
Halyna Mykhailyshyn ◽  
Oksana Protas

For effective forming of creative competence in future social work experts, we suggested using the creative approach to organization of educational process in a higher educational establishment, using the potential of different disciplines in the process of professional training. We clarified the main aspects of shaping of creative competence in future social workers in classroom and outside classroom, as well as main forms of the methodology of such training. The use of the mentioned approaches will give an opportunity to shape creative competence in future social workers for work with gifted children.


Author(s):  
Yoosun Park

Social workers were involved in all aspects of the removal, incarceration, and resettlement of the Nikkei, a history that has been forgotten by social work. This study is an effort to address this lacuna. Social work equivocated. While it did not fully endorse mass removal and incarceration, neither did it protest, oppose, or explicitly critique government actions. The past should not be judged by today’s standards; the actions and motivations described here occurred in a period rife with fear and propaganda. Undergoing a major shift from its private charity roots into its public sector future, social work bounded with the rest of society into “a patriotic fervor.” While policies of a government at war, intractable bureaucratic structures, tangled political alliances, and complex professional obligations all may have mandated compliance, it is, nevertheless, difficult to deny that social work and social workers were also willing participants in the events, informed about and aware of the implications of that compliance. In social work’s unwillingness to take a resolute stand against removal and incarceration, the well-intentioned profession, doing its conscious best to do good, enforced the existing social order and did its level best to keep the Nikkei from disrupting it.


Author(s):  
Michael S. Kelly ◽  
Rami Benbenishty ◽  
Gordon Capp ◽  
Kate Watson ◽  
Ron Astor

In March 2020, as American PreK-12 schools shut down and moved into online learning in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, there was little information about how school social workers (SSWs) were responding to the crisis. This study used a national online survey to understand how SSWs ( N = 1,275) adapted their school practice during the initial 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Findings from this study indicate that SSWs made swift and (relatively) smooth adaptations of their traditional practice role to the new context, though not without reporting considerable professional stress and personal challenges doing so. SSWs reported significant concerns about their ability to deliver effective virtual school social work services given their students’ low motivation and lack of engagement with online learning, as well as significant worries about how their students were faring during the first months of the pandemic. Implications for school social work practice, policy, and research are discussed.


Author(s):  
Kateřina Glumbíková

Abstract Discourse on the normative use of reflexivity predominates in the professional literature. Expert articles on the topic of non-normative use of reflexivity, which is based on the presumption that social workers do not use reflexivity to improve their work quality, but rather its functions for themselves to fulfil specific purposes, is missing, with some exceptions in the literature. The presented article therefore aims to understand the use of reflexivity in the practice of social work with families in its non-normative concept and to determine the implications for social work. Using the abduction method (in which Schechtman’s narrative identity theory was applied to data analysis), the following four categories of the use of reflexivity in a non-normative way were saturated with data obtained from initial interviews, field observations and subsequent reflection of field observations with social workers: personal interest, survival, moral responsibility and compensation. The non-normative concept of reflexivity is further discussed in the context of specific implications for education and practice of social work.


Author(s):  
Sarah Gorin ◽  
Mary Baginsky ◽  
Jo Moriarty ◽  
Jill Manthorpe

Abstract Recent years have seen a re-emergence of international interest in relationship-based social work. This article uses children’s accounts of their relationships with social workers to build on previous research to promote children’s safety and well-being. Interviews were undertaken with 111 children aged six- to eighteen-years old across ten different local authorities in England, as part of the evaluation of Munro, Turnell and Murphy’s Signs of Safety pilots within the Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme. The interviews reveal four key findings: that children look for care and reciprocity in their relationships with social workers and this can be achieved through listening and small acts of kindness; that they are adept at recognising aspects of social workers’ verbal and non-verbal communications which indicate to the child whether they are listening and interested in them; that there are times in which children are particularly vulnerable especially if parents are resistant to engagement or children’s trust is broken; and that children actively use their agency to control their communication and engagement. The article concludes by highlighting children’s relational resilience and the importance of ensuring opportunities for children to develop new relationships with social workers when previous relationships have broken down.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 131-137
Author(s):  
Mim Fox ◽  
Joanna McIlveen ◽  
Elisabeth Murphy

Bereavement support and conducting viewings for grieving family members are commonplace activities for social workers in the acute hospital setting, however the risks that COVID-19 has brought to the social work role in bereavement care has necessitated the exploration of creative alternatives. Social workers are acutely aware of the complicating factors when bereavement support is inadequately provided, let alone absent, and with the aid of technology and both individual advocacy, social workers have been able to continue to focus on the needs of the most vulnerable in the hospital system. By drawing on reflective journaling and verbal reflective discussions amongst the authors, this article discusses bereavement support and the facilitation of viewings as clinical areas in which hospital social work has been observed adapting practice creatively throughout the pandemic.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147332502110247
Author(s):  
Mari D Herland

Social workers often experience higher levels of burnout compared with other healthcare professionals. The capacity to manage one’s own emotional reactions efficiently, frequently in complex care settings, is central to the role of social workers. This article highlights the complexity of emotions in social work research and practice by exploring the perspective of emotional intelligence. The article is both theoretical and empirical, based on reflections from a qualitative longitudinal study interviewing fathers with behavioural and criminal backgrounds, all in their 40 s. The analysis contains an exploration of the researcher position that illuminates the reflective, emotional aspects that took place within this interview process. Three overall themes emerged – first: Recognising emotional complexity; second: Reflecting on emotional themes; and third: Exploring my own prejudices and preconceptions. The findings apply to both theoretical and practical social work, addressing the need to understand emotions as a central part of critical reflection and reflexivity. The argument is that emotions have the potential to expand awareness of one’s own preconceptions, related to normative societal views. This form of analytical awareness entails identifying and paying attention to one’s own, sometimes embodied, emotional triggers.


Author(s):  
Hagit Sinai-Glazer ◽  
Boris H J M Brummans

Abstract How do welfare-reliant mothers enact their agency in relationships with social workers and social services? The present article addresses this question by investigating how twenty Israeli welfare-reliant mothers expressed different modes of human agency in in-depth interviews. Results show how research participants enact agency through (i) expressing anger, (ii) seeking help, (iii) resisting and (iv) engaging in non-action. By highlighting the multidimensional and situational nature of agency, this article offers a new relational lens for conceptualising and empirically studying human agency in social work.


Author(s):  
Charlotte Bailey ◽  
Debbie Plath ◽  
Alankaar Sharma

Abstract The international policy trend towards personalised budgets, which is designed to offer people with disabilities purchasing power to choose services that suit them, is exemplified in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This article examines how the ‘purchasing power’ afforded to service users through individualised budgets impacts on social work practice and the choice and self-determination of NDIS service users. Social workers’ views were sought on the alignment between the NDIS principles of choice and control and social work principles of participation and self-determination and how their social work practice has changed in order to facilitate client access to supports through NDIS budgets and meaningful participation in decision-making. A survey was completed by forty-five social workers, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with five of these participants. The findings identify how social workers have responded to the shortfalls of the NDIS by the following: interpreting information for clients; assisting service users to navigate complex service provision systems; supporting clients through goal setting, decision-making and implementation of action plans; and adopting case management approaches. The incorporation of social work services into the NDIS service model is proposed in order to facilitate meaningful choice and self-determination associated with purchasing power.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document