scholarly journals Thoughts on files

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1461-1476
Author(s):  
Gary Clapton

With the benefit of an anthropological attention to the importance of ‘things’ and the relations between ourselves and things (‘artefacts’), this paper gives attention to the Social Work File. Despite the rise of electronic recording, social work archives remain full of thousands of files that are increasingly accessed, especially by those who have been in care, and physical file-keeping remains a regular feature of practice. There is already a body of literature relating to the information in social work files, however this paper shifts the focus from this to the nature and role of the File itself. ‘Hidden in plain sight’ but laden with meaning and capacity, I identify the little we know already about the file. The various ways files and their authors and subjects, can interact are explored together with the file’s symbolic properties and the power held by the file’s owner, and the ability of the file to ‘other’ its subject. Whilst we understand that the practice shapes the file, how might the file shape practice?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Michael Phillipp Brunner

Abstract The 1920s and 30s were a high phase of liberal missionary internationalism driven especially by American-led visions of the Social Gospel. As the missionary consensus shifted from proselytization to social concerns, the indigenization of missions and the role of the ‘younger churches’ outside of Europe and North America was brought into focus. This article shows how Protestant internationalism pursued a ‘Christian Sociology’ in dialogue with the field’s academic and professional form. Through the case study of settlement sociology and social work schemes by the American Marathi Mission (AMM) in Bombay, the article highlights the intricacies of applying internationalist visions in the field and asks how they were contested and shaped by local conditions and processes. Challenging a simplistic ‘secularization’ narrative, the article then argues that it was the liberal, anti-imperialist drive of the missionary discourse that eventually facilitated an American ‘professional imperialism’ in the development of secular social work in India. Adding local dynamics to the analysis of an internationalist discourse benefits the understanding of both Protestant internationalism and the genesis of Indian social work and shows the value of an integrated global micro-historical approach.


Author(s):  
Samantha Teixeira ◽  
Astraea Augsberger ◽  
Katie Richards-Schuster ◽  
Linda Sprague Martinez ◽  
Kerri Evans

The Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative, led by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), aims to organize the social work profession around 12 entrenched societal challenges. Addressing the root causes of the Grand Challenges will take a coordinated effort across all of social work practice, but given their scale, macro social work will be essential. We use Santiago and colleagues’ Frameworks for Advancing Macro Practice to showcase how macro practices have contributed to local progress on two Grand Challenges. We offer recommendations and a call for the profession to invest in and heed the instrumental role of macro social work practice to address the Grand Challenges.


Author(s):  
Fahri Özsungur

Social work plays an important role in managing the process of planning, supervising, and ensuring the sustainability of protective and supportive measures applied to children who are dragged into crime and in need of protection in order to prevent incompatibilities that may arise in society. Social workers are actors in the field in the execution of the process. In this chapter, these practitioners who have made significant contributions to social work by giving reports and opinions about the measures taken by the courts about the children dragged into crime, determining the criminal tendencies of the children and the necessary precautions and training, are examined closely in the context of the Turkish legal system. The chapter includes the issues of judicial control, protective and supportive measures, preparation of a plan for the implementation of cautionary decisions, confidentiality, the role of the social worker and the social worker board for children who are dragged into crime and in need of protection.


1988 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Boyd Webb

The author discusses the role of the field instructor as an agent of socialization into the social work profession. A self-assessment profile is presented to help students and field instructors identify their physical and personality attributes as well as their cognitive styles.


Author(s):  
Idit Weiss-Gal ◽  
John Gal

This study contributes to research on policy practice by enriching our knowledge about the forms that the policy engagement of social work academics takes, the dynamics of this engagement, and the factors associated with it. The study is based on structured interviews with 24 faculty members from schools of social work in Israel, all of whom are actively involved in policy formulation. The findings of the study reveal that participants are motivated by ideology and values to engage in policy and that they do so despite their perception that there is a lack of institutional support for this type of activity. The participants report that they successfully manage to combine their policy-related activities with teaching and research. The study also indicates that the social policy formulation process in Israel offers specific opportunities for the policy engagement of social work faculty.


Affilia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Lyons

Recent events in the United Kingdom have implications for the migration of women. Migrant women feature significantly in the staffing of the National Health Service and the social care sector, both currently under economic and political pressure. International labor mobility is also evident in the social work profession, though transnational social workers constitute only a very small proportion of the workforce. The recent vote to leave the European Union (EU) raises questions about the trend from recruitment of social workers from English-speaking countries to those from the EU. The role of social workers in relation to migrants is considered.


Rural History ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICHOLAS BLOMLEY

Analyses of enclosure in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England have tended to focus on the social work of representations, in particular estate maps. I depart from this emphasis, however, in my attempt to focus on the consequential and often contradictory role of material objects in producing enclosure. In particular, I emphasise the important work that hedges did, physically, symbolically and legally, in the dispossession of the commoner. Acting as an organic barbed wire, the hedge was increasingly put to work to protect the lands of the powerful. Disrupting the propertied spaces of the commoning economy, hedges were not surprisingly targeted by those who opposed privatisation. The hedge, as both a sign and material barrier, served complicated and sometimes opposing ends. It materialised private property's right to exclude, but thus came into conflict with common property's right not to be excluded. The hedge was both an edge to property and was itself property. Both the encloser and the commoner, however, had property interests in the hedge. If broken, the hedge could signal violence and riot, or the legitimate assertion of common right. The hedge served as an often formidable material barrier, yet this very materiality made it vulnerable to ‘breaking’ and ‘leveling’.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Quartly

Relatively little work on adoption focuses on the role of social workers. This article gives an account of the conflict between social workers and prospective adoptive parents which developed in Australia in the 1970s, taking as a case study the conflicting roles of adoptive parent advocates and professional social workers within the Standing Committee on Adoption in the Australian state of Victoria. Its overarching concern lies with the historical attitudes of the social work profession towards adoption, both domestic and intercountry, as these have changed from an embrace of both adoption and adoptive parents to mutual alienation. It concludes that the inclusive practice of radical social work could only briefly contain contesting client groups.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiara Consiglio ◽  
Laura Borgogni ◽  
Cristina Di Tecco ◽  
Wilmar B. Schaufeli

Purpose – Work engagement represents an important aspect of employee well-being and performance and has been related to both job and personal resources. The purpose of this paper, based on Social Cognitive Theory, is to emphasize the proactive role of self-efficacy which is hypothesized to predict work engagement, not only directly, but also indirectly through positive changes in employee’s perceptions of social context (PoSC); namely, perceptions of one’s immediate supervisor, colleagues and top management. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 741 employees of a communication service company completed two questionnaires, with a time interval of three years. Structural equation modeling was performed in order to test the hypothesized model. Findings – Results revealed that, as expected: first, initial self-efficacy predicts work engagement three years later; and second, positive changes in employee’s perceptions of the social work context across the three year period, mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and work engagement. Research limitations/implications – Results relied only upon self-report data. Moreover, each variable was only measured at the time in which it was hypothesized by the conceptual model. Practical implications – The significant role of self-efficacy as a direct and indirect predictor of work engagement suggests the development of training programs centered on the main sources of self-efficacy, specifically focussed on the social work domain. Originality/value – This research provides evidence of the substantial contribution of self-efficacy to work engagement over time. Moreover, the results also support the beneficial effects of self-efficacy through its influence on the improvements in the individuals’ perceptions of their social context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-208
Author(s):  
Daniela Gaba ◽  
Anca Mihai

The 4th edition of the Social Work International Conference (SWIC) took place in Bucharest between the 7th and 8th of November 2019. The conference is organised by the Department of Social Work, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, University of Bucharest, in collaboration with the Association of Schools of Social Work in Romania (ASSWR). We present the main activities of the conference, namely the workshops, the keynote speeches, and the presentation of papers in the field of social work.


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