The Intervention of the Social Service in the Multidisciplinary Teams to Combat COVID-19. The Case of the Municipality of Amadora (Portugal)

The creation of Multidisciplinary Teams to monitor patients with COVID-19 and those infected with SARS-CoV-2 in a situation of home confinement was one of the measures established by the Portuguese government to help stop the spreading of the infection in the parishes of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area more affected by the pandemic. To know its way of functioning and acting, as well as the role of social workers in the context of crisis and public health emergency, a qualitative study was developed based on interviews by focus groups and document analysis. It was found that the Multidisciplinary Teams and the intervention model carried out were fundamental in helping to break the transmission chains and prevent the growth of new contamination, with social workers having a crucial role in supporting the most vulnerable households in a containment situation.

How do working conditions affect the turnover intention of medical social workers in China?

Background The development of medical social work is an indispensable part of the Healthy China Strategy. However, the medical service field has the fewest social workers in all service fields in China. Creating favorable working conditions can reduce the turnover intention of social workers in the medical service field. So it is necessary to integrate the existing theoretical models to deeply analyze the multiple influencing paths of working conditions on the medical social workers’ turnover intention in the context of China. Methods The data we used came from the China Social Work Longitudinal Survey (CSWLS) conducted in 56 cities across the country in 2019. It adopted a multi-stage random sampling method and the sample of medical social workers was selected according to their current service field and the sample size finally entering the model was 382. We tested the relationships with the Structural Equation Model (SEM) by STATA 16.0. Results Job-related stress play the most significant role in explaining the formation mechanism of medical social workers’ turnover intention. On the one hand, job-related stress can reduce the job satisfaction of medical social workers, further increasing their turnover intention; on the other hand, job-related stress can increase job burnout of medical social workers, further reducing their job satisfaction and ultimately increasing the turnover intention. Job satisfaction plays a full mediating effect between the job burnout of medical social workers and their turnover intention. The social support and job autonomy provided by social work agencies have limited effects on decreasing the turnover intention of medical social workers. Conclusions The two paths of job-related stress affecting turnover intention successfully integrate the Job Demands-Resources Model and the Price-Mueller Turnover Model into the same theoretical framework providing a theoretical basis for reducing the turnover intention and behavior of social workers in the medical service field, improving the management level in the medical service system and promoting the overall healthy and sustainable development of medical social work in China.

Integrated Care for Seniors as a Challenge for Slovakia

Older age can be accompanied by a lot of changes in the field of health, which influence the social functioning of seniors.One of the factors influencing the quality of life of seniors is the connection of healthcare and social care, built on the interdepartmental cooperation. This approach is still absent in Slovakia.The aim of the paper is therefore to emphasize the importance and need of integrated care and to describe the barriers that prevent its implementation in Slovakia. In search of answers to the questions: “When and why was the healthcare and social care department of seniors established in Slovakia? What are the reasons persisting in this condition? What are the consequences of this divided care for the seniors in practice? What strategies use facilities for seniors to overcome this situation during the COVID-19 pandemic?” the authors used the method of the case study (Yin, 2003) focused on the Trnava self-governing region. Persistent structural, procedural, legislative and political factors have been identified as the main barriers. Specific for Slovakia is the existence of a barrier of the profession, which is caused by the low interest of social workers in the issue. The authors state that the situation in Slovakia is caused mainly by the reflection of integrated care as a political problem. In the end, the authors make several suggestions for solving the situation.

Pandemics and Social Work

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 confronted health and also social services globally with unprecedented challenges. These amounted to a combination of increased demands for support to individuals and families whose physical and mental health and economic security were threatened by the rapid spread of the virus and the imposed limitations to direct contacts with service users. This constituted a situation for which there was no immediate historical parallel but from which important lessons for better preparedness for future global disasters and pandemics can be drawn. There existed no specific introductions to or textbooks on social work responses to pandemics and the nearest usable references concerned social work involvement in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in the aftermath of natural disasters. Frontline social workers were at first forced to improvise ways of establishing and maintaining contacts with service users partly through electronic means and partly by taking personal risks. This is reflected in an initial delay in the production of comprehensive theoretical reflections on the practice implications of the new situation. Practitioners resorted to pragmatism, which became manifest in numerous episodic practice accounts and brief statements in social work journals which nevertheless contain important messages for new practice developments. Notably, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) opened an online exchange and advice platform for social workers globally and also hosted a series of webinars. Nevertheless, books with collections of contributions from various practice fields and geographical areas soon began to appear. In view of the interdisciplinary nature of social work responses required in the pandemic the use of publications from a wider range of academic disciplines and related professions was indicated for this review.

Social Workers’ Causal Attributions for Poverty: Does the Level of Spatial Concentration of Disadvantages Matter?

Social workers may play an important role in the implementation of welfare policies targeted at the poor. Their norms, beliefs, and attitudes form local anti-poverty programmes and affect discretionary practices with their clients. Despite this, we know little about how social workers’ exposure to poverty shapes their attitudes towards poverty and their causal attributions for poverty. This study investigates social workers’ poverty explanations and the extent to which they depend on the level of local poverty. Data from a survey conducted among Hungarian social workers were analysed using multilevel linear regression models. To measure local poverty, we used a composite index of poverty, as well as a subjective measure of exposure to poverty. Our analysis revealed that most social workers explained poverty with structural causes, but individual blame was also frequent. Contrary to our hypothesis, the level of local poverty did not significantly increase the adoption of structural explanations but did raise the occurrence of individualistic ones. However, the effect of local poverty was non-linear: social workers tended to blame the poor for their poverty in the poorest municipalities, where multiple disadvantages are concentrated, while moderate poverty did not lead to such opinions. Our results suggest that efforts should be made to improve the poverty indicator framework to better understand the phenomenon of spatial concentration of multiple disadvantages and its consequences for the poor.

Child bride, a story that never ends: A look at experiences of Iranian women

Child marriage is one of the issues that deprive many young girls of their basic rights and lives. The present study aimed to explore Iranian child brides’ experiences of the consequences of early marriage. The participants were women living in Tehran who had married at the age of 14–18 years. The analysis of the participants’ experiences revealed four main themes, including ‘underlying causes of early marriages’, ‘concerns and negative feelings’, ‘exposure to violence’, and ‘consequences of early marriages’. Awareness of these challenges can provide useful insights to be used by social workers and policymakers to further support these women.