Spirituality, religion and social work in recovery

This study addresses the potential role of spirituality in promoting mental health and wellbeing and argues for its utility in the helping professions. Spirituality, as a common human orientation, has long been a central notion in recovery movements. In the first part of the paper the author discusses the differences and overlaps between spirituality and its traditional form, religion. In the second part a questionnaire was used to study laypersons’, and professional helpers’ views on spirituality. The convenience sample comprised 137 persons. Professionals could find spirituality an important resource in their practice and included it in their interventions mainly when their clients had introduced the theme first. Most of the laypersons in the sample were concerned with spiritual issues and regularly practiced meditation or prayer. They conceived spirituality to cope with mental or physical illnesses.

Emotional Intelligence from Perspectives of Malaysian Helping Professionals: A Qualitative Study

Frequent emotional interactions between professional helpers and their clients mean that helpers must possess a high level of emotional intelligence (EI). No previous study explores the specific aspects of EI needed to become efficient helpers. Moreover, most EI research has been carried out in Western countries, where the concept of EI may be different in comparison to the Malaysian context. Therefore, this study explores the idea of EI from the perspective of professional helpers in Malaysia through a qualitative research design. Twenty-four professional helpers, with a minimum of five years working experience in their respective fields, were recruited for four focus group interviews. Participants included counsellors, psychologist, rehabilitation officers and social workers. Data were analysed using Atlas.ti, and the results yielded 11 themes. They were self-awareness, self-expression, self-understanding, self-acceptance, self-management, social awareness, effective decision making, effective communication, management of others emotion, intrapersonal professional competencies and interpersonal professional competencies. The research highlights the vital components of EI from the perspective of professional helpers in the multicultural society of Malaysia.

Building Bridges and Crossing Boundaries

Where are the boundaries between things located? When we meet another person or when we meet the tree in the forest or the sand by the shore each is changed by the other. We all know that at one level of reality we are different and yet we also know that the apparent rigidity between me and other dissolves in a constant and mutual exchange of cells, conversations and consciousness. In nature, the bridge between two points of apparent difference is a dynamic, interactive field of reciprocal engagement. Indeed, in nature, complex, reciprocal relationships are the sine qua non of ecosystems. Everything touches and is touched by everything else. It is in meeting, touching, listening and communicating with another that we discover most completely what we are and are able to express most eloquently who we are. The helping professions are increasingly seeking ways to bridge the epistemological gap between the atomistic and the ecological and cross those professional boundaries that have for too long kept helpers of every stripe separated and isolated from one another. Ironically, it is a new rediscovery of an ancient wisdom that is creating a catalyst for hope and change. Recently, those hopes to discover new linkages and a new era of collaborative professional partnerships to address pressing social and environmental problems took a small step forward. Professional helpers from a variety of disciplines including social work, psychology, nursing, education and environmental studies gathered in Calgary, Canada in May, 2009 for a first of its kind multi-disciplinary conference entitled: Building Bridges, Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Person, Planet and Professional Helping. The conference was suffused with both urgency and anticipation as professional helpers worked to better understand each other and those many ways they might cooperate across professional borders to build bridges to a more balanced and interdisciplinary view of the helping enterprise. This brief introduction provides a short sketch of the historical realities which created the ideological boundaries that the conference sought to bridge and how that has begun to change. It also provides a brief overview of each contributor’s work.

Spousal care-giving arrangements in Europe. The role of gender, socio-economic status and the welfare state

Spouses (and partners) are the most important source of care in old age. Informal care for frail spouses is provided by both sexes and across all socio-economic backgrounds and welfare policy contexts. There are, however, interesting differences as to whether spouses care alone, receive informal support from other family members or formal support from professional helpers, or outsource the care of their spouse completely. The present article contributes to the literature by differentiating between solo spousal care-giving and shared or outsourced care-giving arrangements, as well as between formal and informal care support. Moreover, we show how care-giving arrangements vary with gender, socio-economic status and welfare policy. Adding to previous research, we compare 17 countries and their expenditures on two elder-care schemes: Cash-for-Care and Care-in-Kind. The empirical analyses draw on the most recent wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data from 2015. Our results show that men have a higher propensity to share care-giving than women, albeit only with informal supporters. As expected, welfare policy plays a role insofar as higher expenditure on Cash-for-Care schemes encourage informally outsourced care-giving arrangements, whereas Care-in-Kind reduce the likelihood for informally shared or outsourced care-giving arrangements. Moreover, the influence of these welfare policy measures differs between individuals of different socio-economic status but not between men and women.