EFFECTIVENESS OF A HUMAN RIGHTS–BASED APPROACH ONLINE PROGRAM FOR GERONTOLOGICAL SOCIAL WORKERS

Abstract

Abstract The human rights perspective is emphasized through the social work code of ethics and practice principles. However, the efforts to improve the human rights perspective of social workers were insufficient in gerontological social work education in South Korea. Thus, the study aimed to prove the effects of a human rights-based approach intervention for gerontological social workers, which consisted of nine online sessions using Zoom. PI developed the program based on McPherson’s integrated framework for Human Rights Practice in Social Work. A quasi-experimental design was used. The experimental group consisted of 36 social workers, and the control group was 31 social workers at senior centers. The pre-post tests for the experimental group and posttest for the control group were conducted. The socio-demographic characteristics of the two groups were equivalent. The key measure was the Human Rights Lens in Social Work (HRLSW) scale consisting of two sub-dimensions: social problems as rights violations and clients as experiencing rights violations.The effect sizes of the online program’s effects on the social worker’s rights-based perspective were large over .90. In addition, the degrees two dimensions of the HRLSW at the posttest were significantly higher than those of the control group (social problems as rights violations: d = 1.04, p < .001; clients as experiencing rights violations: d=0.98, p<.001). Based on the findings of this study, the implications of human rights education and training were discussed to improve the human rights-based perspective of gerontological social workers.