Shifting roles of Employers: At the Intersection of Employment and Social Work: A case study from Norway

Active labour market policies (ALMPs) are often seen as a panacea for dealing with labour market exclusion, especially when it comes to young people with mental health issues. Such policies demand considerable involvement from employers, placing more responsibility in their hands. Yet, there remains a notable knowledge gap concerning the actual role that employers play in processes of inclusion in the labour market. In this article, we provide knowledge about what employers do in order to include young people with mental health issues into the workforce, what roles they play in these processes, and what motivations underlie their endeavours. We argue that, due to organizational changes to occupational rehabilitation in Norway, employers must increasingly occupy a vacancy left open by social workers. While this situation has demanded further responsibility from employers, they are quite often insufficiently educated or trained to deal with such issues.We address what consequences this could have for young people with mental health issues striving to enter the labour market.

Social Work Practice during the COVID-19 State of Emergency in Spain

Spain has been hardest hit by the pandemic and, thus, one of the first to implement the strictest confinement measures. Social service is a key sector for alleviating the negative social impacts of the country's healthcare crisis and confinement. This has represented a big challenge for social workers, who have been obligated to take on larger caseloads, new responsibilities, and a new working environment. Social workers have had to handle these issues from a work setting plagued by uncertainty, coping with a crisis never experienced before.We conducted an online survey during the pandemic to aim to investigate what kind of work has developed by the social workers of the social service at the Community of Madrid and the City Council. Respondents felt stressed and confused by lack of coordination between care and public health agencies. They have had to manage aids and assistance related to food and hygiene, emotional support and general information on the pandemic, as well as all financial aids allocated by the administration. Teleworking became regular which undoubtedly has contributed to reducing any lingering reservations they still had about this method.

Neoliberal managed care and the changing nature of social work practice

Social workers are currently caught in a “structural bind” in which the field’s original normative mission, rooted in social justice and social change, is increasingly at odds with the reality of working in a hierarchical neoliberal managed care setting. While most practitioners are at risk of burnout under these strained conditions, not all will respond in the same way. This article considers the possibility that some practitioners will exhibit authoritarian character traits (e.g., submission to and unquestioned compliance with institutional rules) in conformity with the institutional setting of neoliberal managed care. Using the Maslach Burnout Inventory for Health Services Occupations (MBI-HSS) and Dunwoody and Funke’s Aggression-Submission-Conventionalism (ASC) authoritarianism scale, the authors explore the previously unexamined relationship between authoritarianism and burnout among a sample of 532 social workers in the US. As hypothesized, correlations between each of the MBI-HSS subscales and ASC subscales yielded an inverse relationship between authoritarianism and burnout.

Sustaining a plurality of imperatives: an institutional analysis of knowledge perspectives in Swedish social service policies

Social services are among the public policy areas criticized for lacking a reliable knowledge base to support professional as well as political ambitions and actions. This article contributes to the literature on knowledge perspectives in social service policies by studying and analyzing mechanisms that sustain a plurality of perspectives in the policies. The empirical material consists of knowledge perspectives in social service policies at the national level for child and family care and substance abuse treatment in Sweden between 1992 and 2015. Mechanisms that sustain a plurality of perspectives are identified with the support of an institutional logics framework. The main findings are that a plurality of knowledge perspectives. such as professional, scientific, and organizational, seems to be a permanent rather than temporary configuration; and that this permanent plurality is sustained by a set of mechanisms, including assimilation, blending, segregation, and contradiction. Despite this pluralism, there are few comments or guidelines in policy regarding the relationship between different knowledge perspectives. The findings suggest that more attention should be paid to the relationship between different knowledge perspectives and its impact on social work practice. In this, research and practice together need to support a development towards a more transparent professional acting.

The view of foster parents’ on the adequacy of foster care grant in meeting the needs of recipients in Amathole District, South Africa

Initially, foster care grant originated to assist children removed from their families of origin and placed in alternative care due to their vulnerability, neglect and abuse. Foster care grant forms part of the child protection system and it is issued to children whom require care and protection and are deprived of proper upkeep. The aim of the study was to explore the view of foster parents on the sufficiency of the child support grant in meeting the basic needs of beneficiaries. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. Moreover, in-depth interviews were used to collect data with purposively selected participants. The finding of this study revealed that the grant is sufficient in providing for the nutritional, educational and sartorial needs of beneficiaries. The study sample consisted of twenty-five participants. The study concluded that the grant is sufficient but could be increased to provide funds for some additional stuffs like educational policies, which is essential in securing a decent future for children. Keywords: Sufficiency, basic needs, foster care grant, beneficiaries.

Support-nets: A participative Action-research into the Value of a Mutual Support Group to overcome Social Isolation.

Social isolation is a widespread problem with which community oriented social workers are increasingly confronted. Mutual support groups can be used by social workers to support socially isolated people. This paper reports on a participatory action research into the method Support-nets. In this method, a mutual support group is set up specifically for people that share the problem of social isolation. The aim of the study was to gain insight in how participants and social workers give substance to mutual support to overcome structural social isolation. Results show that in a Support-net, every participant is enabled to actively contribute. This makes participants feel that they are valued members of a social group. Based on this shared identity, people offer each other different types of social support, thus alleviating their isolation.

The place of child development in evaluations related to custody in Turkey

The aim of this study is to examine the reports prepared in the process of deciding the custody of children in divorced families in the context of child development. The reports evaluated in the scope of the research were evaluated by the method of document review and the results were found in the context of child development and the best interest of the child. In this context, a total of 107 reports related to custody were examined. The results from findings show that while evaluations regarding custody are expressed in many places with the emphasis on the development of the children, the reports contain little information about the development of the child. When the child's best interest is considered to be the most important component of child development, it is seen that as a result of these depictions, developing a new system in order to protect the best interest of the child, which is one of the top principles of the law related to custody, and carrying out an evaluation that focuses on child development is necessary.

Just shut up and let them talk’: Participation, power and the parent voice in the child protection system

Participatory practice is acknowledged as increasingly important in empowering families in the decision-making process. Yet parental participation in child protection and welfare settings remains a complex and multi-dimensional practice, dependent on a range of individual factors including willingness to engage; understanding of need, as well as system factors including power dynamics and resource constraints (Darlington et al., 2010). Parents can feel ‘powerless and helpless’ when not involved in decision-making processes (Hardy & Darlington, 2008). In addition to practice wisdom emerging from literature in the field, this paper examines the findings of a research study commissioned by Tusla (the Irish, national, statutory Child and Family Agency) on parental experiences of Child Protection Conferences (CPCs) in Counties Galway and Roscommon. Analysis of findings of a series of qualitative interviews (n=14) with parents who have attended CPCs, found that parents in the study felt unprepared for CPC, unclear of the implications for their families and felt marginalised by the CPC process. While many parents recognised their right to reply, most reported wanting to appear cooperative. The paper proposes recommendations including the development of a protocol for CPC preparation; participation supports for parents to ensure their voices are heard throughout the process; debriefing as a structured phase of the CPC; and continuous intensive engagement with parents post-CPC.