scholarly journals Rising Above the Flood: Emergency Management and Gerontological Social Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 65-66
Author(s):  
Susanny Beltran ◽  
Paola Luigi ◽  
Nancy Kusmaul
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Emergency Management ◽  
Natural Disasters ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Adult Population ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
The Body

Abstract Older adults, particularly those from low-income communities, are disproportionately negatively affected by natural disasters. As the older adult population grows and natural disasters increase in frequency and intensity, social workers must consider their role in supporting the needs and safety of this population. Social workers practice in varied roles including policy advocate, service broker, and educator, all of which are crucial in disaster management. This systematic review summarizes the literature on the social work profession’s involvement with emergency management with older adults, and identifies gaps. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, authors searched AgeLine, CINAHL Complete, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Social Work Abstracts for peer-reviewed publications between January 1, 2009 and March 1, 2020. Examples of the terms searched include social work*, respon*, prepar*, disaster, crisis, emergency, geriatrics and older adults. The initial searches yielded 298 publications. After removing duplicates and screening articles for relevance based on titles and abstracts, 21 publications were retained for full review. A total of 11 articles met inclusion criteria. The body of literature identified was small. The majority of the publications constituted conceptual papers, textbook reviews, and letters to editors requesting greater emphasis on emergency management. Only three empirical studies were identified. Broadly, the publications discussed: (1) policies and resources; (2) needs; (3) capacity across practice settings; and (4) interventions. Findings reveal an underdeveloped area of social work practice, and highlight opportunities for researchers and practitioners to define gerontological social workers’ role in emergency management and detail best practice guidelines.

scholarly journals Risk Assessment and Strengths Based Case Management in Elderly Care– Scope of Social Work Practice

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
K Minimol
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Case Management ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Independent Living ◽  
Elderly Care ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Helping Process

Social workers have a significant role in ensuring the wellbeing of older people. Social work brings a range of specialized skills and methods of interventions in improving the quality of life of older adults. Conducting proper assessment is an important task of social workers while engaging in the provision of support services. In contrast to the ubiquitous deficit-based assessments, strengths-based assessments provide social work practitioners with methods to assess strengths and abilities and thereby develop strengths-based interventions. Though risk-assessment is necessary to prevent problems occurring, understanding clients’ strengths is an integral resource in the helping process. Assessments giving equal importance to risks and strengths are inevitable in formulating and implementing specific activities to facilitate their independent living in the community. This paper highlights the significance of biopsychosocial assessment, risks/strengths assessment and strengths-based case management of older adults. This paper also presents an inventory of risks and strengths reported by older adults who attended case work and counselling sessions with the author during her role as a social worker in a multidisciplinary community health care setting in Australia.

The Affordable Care Act, Substance Use Disorders, and Low-Income Clients: Implications for Social Work

Social Work ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather A. McCabe ◽  
Elizabeth A. Wahler
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Substance Use ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Social workers are leaders in the substance abuse services field and may often work in substance use disorder (SUD) education, prevention, assessment, treatment, or resource coordination and case management roles. As the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) (2010) drives changes in the fields of health and behavioral health, social workers have an opportunity to lead structural changes at the micro and macro levels that will have a positive impact on low-income clients with SUDs. In this article, authors examine the current state of SUDs and health care access, the impact of the ACA on the field, and implications for social work practice and education. Social workers should seek specialized education and credentialing in SUD services, know how to help clients apply for health care coverage, and advocate for integrated substance abuse treatment and health care programs and an expansion of Medicaid in their local communities. Social workers are well positioned to be a voice for clients to ensure that the current structural changes result in a better, integrated system of care that is able to respond to the needs of low-income clients with SUDs.

The Computer Social Worker: Regulatory practices, regulated bodies and science

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 443-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine R Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Clinical Judgment ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
The Body ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Bodily Contact ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

Social work assessments, and in turn clinical judgment and intervention practices, are increasingly framed by standardised tools and technologies that are digitised. These tools and technologies mediate social workers’ relationships with services users, while also privileging, and in turn reiterating, particular identities and particular forms of knowledge. In this article, I am interested in how standardised tools and technologies, like computers, operate to mediate the relationship between social workers and services users. I work with an autoethnographic narrative in order to examine standardised social work practice. Methodologically, autoethnography rests within a reflexive frame of qualitative research, allowing us to excavate our experiences in order to understand how our lives are ordered and knowledge is socially constitutive. In mining this narrative, I am interested in the body, and in particular, the corporeal dimension of standardised practices. I historically locate these practices, and use the work of Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault to examine how tools and technologies function in relation to the body, even when there is no direct physical, bodily contact. Ultimately I argue that there is a scientific discourse underpinning current clinical practice and I use the framings of Donna Haraway to understand the implications of this for social workers.

Contemporary challanges of social work in Ohio, USA

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Jaroslaw R. Romaniuk ◽  
Kathleen J. Farkas
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Low Income ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Psychiatric Rehabilitation ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Social Work Practice

Social work deals with problems of individuals, families, organizations and communities. However, an evolving set of challenges continues to shape the future of social work theory, research and interventions. Social work is a profession with its own code and follows a set of standards and ethics rules at the federal level, but the licensing processes are controlled at the state level and the professional policies are set at the national and local level. Social workers, therefore, are trained to think in a systemic way and to work with a person-in-environment perspective at the individual and the community level. This text shows how the challenges of the twenty-first century impact the education of social workers as well as social work practice. The economy and globalization present a number of challenges – all of which contribute to creation of new social problems and need for social innovation. New technologies have opened the door for educational and clinical opportunities to connect and engage people in need, however, the digitalization excluded a group of people with a low income. Social work education must keep up with the pressures of the economic aspects influencing the education market and the growing evidence base to support trauma-informed care, the use of psychiatric rehabilitation, prevent bullying at schools and cyberspace, care for elderly and the constant changes ushered in by modernization and globalization. The implications of these challenges are reviewed and provide guidance for social work educators, social work students and social work practitioners.

How social workers understand and use their emotions in practice: A thematic synthesis literature review

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 645-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise O’Connor
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Professional Relationships ◽  
Inclusion Criteria ◽  
Thematic Synthesis ◽  
The People

Emotions are intrinsic to social work. Social workers engage with people at points of crisis or need. The emotions of both practitioners and the people they interact with are central to the lived experience of practice. This paper presents a thematic synthesis of empirical studies which illuminate how social workers understand and use their emotions in practice. A search of electronic databases and reference harvesting located 28 papers which were screened against inclusion criteria and appraisal tools. Four analytic themes were identified: emotions as a dynamic relational resource; patterns of organisational and professional relationships; ambivalence, dissonance and distance and the place of emotions in professionalism and identity. Patterns and themes were found in diverse settings. This review brings together a small but valuable knowledge base. Findings suggest that emotions constitute a paradox for social work and are potentially a constructive resource. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research into the situated emotions of social work practice.

scholarly journals Practice in a Pandemic: School Social Workers’ Adaptations and Experiences During the 2020 COVID-19 School Disruptions

2021 ◽  
pp. 104438942110098
Author(s):  
Michael S. Kelly ◽  
Rami Benbenishty ◽  
Gordon Capp ◽  
Kate Watson ◽  
Ron Astor
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
School Social Work ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Virtual School ◽  
School Social Workers ◽  
Traditional Practice

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.

scholarly journals Death, dying and bereavement care during COVID-19: Creativity in hospital social work practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 131-137
Author(s):  
Mim Fox ◽  
Joanna McIlveen ◽  
Elisabeth Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Hospital Setting ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Bereavement Support ◽  
Hospital System ◽  
Hospital Social Work ◽  
Complicating Factors ◽  
Bereavement Care

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.

scholarly journals Emotional intelligence as a part of critical reflection in social work practice and research

2021 ◽  
pp. 147332502110247
Author(s):  
Mari D Herland
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Intelligence ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Critical Reflection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
Emotional Aspects

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.

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