Reimagining a social state

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Cummins
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Alternative Model ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Social State ◽  
Social Provision

This chapter considers a new or revised model of a social state based on notions of equality, mutuality and reciprocity. It looks at ethical and philosophical approaches that can be used to develop an alternative model of welfare, citizenship and social provision, with the goal of finding an opportunity for social work and social workers to challenge the orthodoxy of a focus on risk management. To this end, the chapter draws on the work of Emmanuel Levinas to examine the notions of the duties we, as humans, owe each other. It first provides an overview of the politics of discourses of human rights and dignity before discussing the notion of ‘Othering’, Martha Fineman's concept of the vulnerable subject, the Capabilities Approach (CA), and Marian Barnes' ethic of care.

Social workers’ peculiar contribution to ethnographic research

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 452-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald de Montigny
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Ethic Of Care ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Ethical Orientation ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Face

Over generations, social workers have borrowed theories from sociology. However, sociologists have generally avoided borrowing theory from social work. By beginning with social work practice wisdom, we can unfold the complex elements organizing social work practice and by extension ethnographic research. Complexity and resulting uncertainty are antidotes for theoretical purity. Practice as grounded in life, that of client’s and social workers is inherently “dirty”, i.e., messy, disorganized, confusing, unfolding, and uncertain. Understandings and practices are accomplished in a connection of self to a profession, agency/organization, mandate and purpose, and ethical orientation, in interaction with colleagues and clients. Social workers take sides as they are grounded in an ethic of care. The challenge of developing an ethical practice in the face of difference, disagreement, disjunction, and conflict lead social workers to bracket, and hence reflect on the putative coherence of a “life world.” Face-to-face work with individuals rather than being a liability provides a source of knowledge and wisdom to inform social science generally.

Social workers’ attitudes toward human rights in a sample from Taiwan

2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsin-Yi Chen ◽  
I-Chen Tang
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Worker ◽  
General Knowledge ◽  
Educational Training ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
Social Work Practitioners ◽  
Self Administered Questionnaire

The human rights concept is that everyone is entitled to enjoy those rights inherent to being human, without distinction. However, should human rights be considered a self-evident value for the social work profession? This study was to explore how social workers in Taiwan perceive the human rights concept. Responses from 276 social worker participants were analyzed by using a self-administered questionnaire. This study showed that social workers had a general knowledge of human rights. Receiving human rights educational training and engaging in social protests were important variables in increasing human rights awareness for social work practitioners.

Managing Risk in the Pro-Empowerment Era of Mental Health Care: A Cross-Cultural Study of Social Work Perspectives in Hong Kong and Sydney

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jialiang Cui ◽  
Limin Mao ◽  
Christy E Newman ◽  
Chi Kin Kwan ◽  
Kari Lancaster
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Assessment Guidelines

Abstract Risk management and empowerment have become key features of social work practice. Despite their increasing salience, relatively little is known about the perspectives of mental health social workers regarding how they navigate competing risk management approaches in modern practice that supports empowerment. The socio-cultural influences on risk management have also received insufficient attention in social work research. Focusing on these issues, this paper explored the perspectives of social workers in two geographically and culturally distinctive settings (i.e., Hong Kong and Sydney). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with frontline social workers and were analysed using thematic analysis. Similar views were expressed by participants in both settings regarding assessment of clients’ readiness for risk-taking. Differences were identified in their practices of negotiating the perspectives of other key stakeholders and can be attributed to the influences of distinctive cultural and socio-political contexts. These insights may contribute to the development of more systematic, localised and practice-based risk assessment guidelines for mental health practitioners working towards the empowerment of clients.

Measuring Rights-Based Practice: Introducing the Human Rights Methods in Social Work Scales

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane McPherson ◽  
Neil Abell
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Root Mean Square ◽  
Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Mean Square ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
The Impact

Abstract This article introduces a measurable framework for rights-based social work practice and an accompanying set of instruments, the Human Rights Methods in Social Work (HRMSW) scales: (i) ‘participation’, (ii) ‘non-discrimination’, (iii) ‘strengths perspective’, (iv) ‘micro/macro integration’, (v) ‘capacity-building’, (vi) ‘community and interdisciplinary collaboration’, (vii) ‘activism’ and (viii) ‘accountability’. These scales, designed for use by researchers, educators and practitioners, are the first to measure social workers’ use of rights-based methods. An electronic survey was used to collect data from a convenience sample of 1,014 licensed US social workers, and a confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the scales’ psychometric properties. A respecified model using eight error covariances fit the data (χ2/df ratio = 2.9; comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.91; tucker lewis index (TLI) = 0.90; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.04; standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 0.07). Thus, factor analysis yielded a set of eight related scales—collectively called the HRMSW—each measuring a different human rights practice method that social workers can use to promote human dignity and the rights-based principles of participation, accountability and non-discrimination. Scholars argue that ‘human rights’ are a more appropriate yardstick for measuring the impact of social work intervention rather than our traditional aim of social justice; the HRMSW scales can help us begin to test this proposition.

scholarly journals Needs, Rights and Democratic Renewal

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Ife
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Professional Category ◽  
Shared Humanity ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Strengths Approach

The way in which a discourse of human needs has been appropriated by neo-liberal perspectives within modernity is well-documented. The construction and definition of “needs” by professionals has been criticised as “the dictatorship of needs”, and has readily excluded people other than professionals and managers from the definition of need. Need becomes objectified, something to be “assessed” by professionals using expert methodologies, rather than involving democratic participation. Here need becomes another excluding professional category, apparently objective and value-free, but in reality ideological. Furthermore, the deficit approach inherent in the idea of “need” runs counter to the more positive “strengths” approach of social work. “Rights” as an alternative to “needs” is superficially a more empowering discourse, and moving from a needs-based to a rights-based approach is therefore intuitively seductive, and has evidently appealed to social workers. However, ideas of “rights”, and especially “human rights” are also embedded within modernity and the privileging of the expert. The conventional discourse of human rights as defined by the UN or other legal bodies, applied universally, and protected through laws and legal institutions, is a negation of any democratic understanding of rights. “Human rights”, like need, thus becomes an objectified discourse of the powerful about the powerless. However the idea of human rights, if constructed from within a more postmodern framing, has the potential to move our understanding of a shared humanity beyond the constraints of modernity. Thus human rights per se is an inadequate, and potentially dangerous, formulation for progressive social work, unless democratic participation is restored to the human rights project. If human rights are understood as being embedded in a community of reciprocal rights and responsibilities, rather than as “things” possessed by individuals, human rights from below can become a powerful framework for the democratic renewal of practice.

scholarly journals What is the problem? Representations of men's violence against women in a Swedish context

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena Hoppstadius
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Violence Against Women ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Gender Hierarchies

Abuse and violence against women is not only a serious violation of human rights, but is also, according to the Swedish government, the most acute and greatest obstacle to a gender-equal society. The aim of the current study was to investigate discourses that govern social work practice in Sweden analysed discourses of violence against women in five Swedish public working guidelines using Carol Bacchi’s social constructivist analytical approach What's the Problem Represented to Be? Our findings show that violence is framed in the guidelines within a heterosexual context and is represented as an individual problem of women within close relations and families. This framing also promotes a division between violence against Swedish-born women and violence against foreign-born women. The analysis also shows that equality seems to be more about the inclusion of men rather than looking after women's situations. How violence against women is understood will affect how violence can be predicted, prevented, and treated, and thus there is a risk that these representations might affect women subjected to violence differently depending on how social workers interpret and apply these guidelines. Our findings also suggest that these representations maintain gender hierarchies and other structural and societal inequalities and ignore violence against women as a major global social problem.

scholarly journals The importance of social work roles in disaster risk management in Zimbabwe

2022 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 717-726
Author(s):  
Dickson Machimbidza ◽  
Louis Nyahunda ◽  
Jabulani C. Makhubele
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
Disaster Risk ◽  
Disaster Risk Management ◽  
Work Roles ◽  
Social Work Roles

This study was aimed at exploring the efficacy of social work roles in disaster risk management in Zimbabwe in the face of climatic changes. It was carried out in Binga district, Matebeleland-North province using the qualitative methodology and a case study design. The study sample was comprised of 8 practicing social workers. Snowballing and purposive sampling techniques were used to select these participants. Data were collected through in-depth interviews using an interview guide. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. It was found that social workers play essential roles before, during and after disasters. On disaster preparedness, it was established that social workers assume roles of educators, community workers and disaster planners. Moreover, it was found that they play the roles of case managers, administrators of social protection and counselors during the disaster response phase of disaster risk management. Subsequently they also act as advocates, development facilitators as well as monitoring and evaluation personnel in the disaster recovery phase. As per the findings, the study recommends that social workers be recognized as essential in disaster risk management at both policy and practice level. Further, there is need to enhance social work training education for flexibility and contextual application of social work knowledge in the field of disaster risk management for quality realization of green social work in Zimbabwe.

Ally Model of Social Justice in Social Work

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscilla Gibson
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
Social Injustice ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Extensive List

The ally model of social justice is a philosophical approach that is congruent with social work’s values and emphasis on social justice and human rights. Using concepts from multiple identities and social justice, it directs those with privilege to act on behalf of those without privilege who belong to a different social group. It is developmental in nature and contains an extensive list of specific ally characteristics that inform social workers at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and system levels. Despites its limitations, the ally model of social justice is instructive for all social workers regardless of setting as they continue the profession’s mission to eliminate social injustice.

On Human Dignity and Social Work

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan Borowski
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Code Of Ethics

Abstract Human dignity is a key value found in the profession’s code of ethics. It demands that clients be treated respectfully. However, there are different understandings of what dignity means and, in turn, requires of social workers in their efforts to engender respect. This article reviews several understandings of dignity and their practice implications. It also explores understandings of indignity and their implications for avoiding treating clients in an undignified manner. Finally, the paper considers dignity as the foundation of human rights and illustrates some practice implications. The intent of the article is to strengthen social workers’ understandings of this contested concept and thereby raise their consciousness of how, provided they are careful about its application, it can inform their morally significant work.

Possibilities for new social work professional resistance in Chile: times of social change?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taly Reininger ◽  
Gianinna Muñoz-Arce ◽  
Cristobal Villalobos
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global North ◽  
Material Conditions

In the current unscrupulous neoliberal climate, social workers are increasingly confronted with ethical and political tensions that clash with the profession’s commitments to human rights and social justice. However, despite neoliberalism’s global reach, the scholarship on social work professional resistance has been largely limited to the Global North. Taking into consideration this absence in the literature, this article seeks to explore the possibilities for professional resistance in the Global South, specifically, in Chile, a country in which neoliberalism was forcefully imposed and that has experienced an exponential growth in social movements over the past two decades. The following article explores the structural and material conditions that have historically shaped social work resistances, arguing that the current social and political climate, specifically, the constitutional process under way, presents a space from which new resistances are possible and necessary in order to challenge neoliberal hegemony.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document