Abstract Child welfare work involves investigating referrals to determine whether a child requires protection or support. In Sweden, the number of children referred to child welfare authorities has increased in recent years, but most children do not receive services. This article aims to enhance understanding of how child welfare representatives reason when determining client eligibility. The article is part of a longitudinal research programme following 2,123 children across eight Swedish child welfare authorities. The study draws on interviews with twenty-five unit managers and child welfare workers. To analyse the results, the study employs concepts that highlight how client eligibility is negotiated by modifying client demand, job conception, and client conception. The findings reveal that child welfare workers may modify client demand by addressing issues without providing services, modify job conception by either narrowing or broadening what is considered within the remit of child welfare, and modify client conception by focusing on motivated and receptive clients. These findings are discussed in the context of previous research and ongoing policy trends in Swedish child welfare.

Abstract This article explores the intervention mechanisms employed by social workers in post-conflict Libya, the observable features of the conflict environment, and the primary challenges practitioners faced during the crisis. Using a collaborative autoethnographic approach, the researcher combined personal reflections with the lived experiences of six doctoral students from the Department of Social Work at the University of Tripoli. The narratives gathered through in-depth semistructured interviews focus on three central themes: the defining characteristics of the conflict, the challenges social workers encountered, and the intervention strategies implemented in the post-conflict period. The findings highlight the pressing need for specialized training that cultivates a profound understanding of human rights principles and promotes equitable resource allocation while emphasizing the importance of maintaining professional objectivity and a steadfast commitment to social justice, fairness, and equality. Advocacy, protection, and rights awareness emerge as key mechanisms in social work practice. Drawing on these insights, the study offers empirically grounded contributions that enrich our understanding of social work methodologies in global post-conflict reconstruction. The article concludes with practical recommendations for policy reform and the development of international frameworks to support social work in conflict-affected settings.

Abstract Social work is uniquely positioned to assist people to avoid evictions and to sustain at-risk tenancies through both direct practice and advocacy. The risk of housing loss and homelessness is an individual experience that social workers commonly seek to address through direct practice. Direct practice alone is insufficient. Social workers understand that achieving just and inclusive housing outcomes requires advocacy to underpin changes to housing and other systems. The dual practice and advocacy roles are definitive elements of social work. Drawing on an Australian qualitative study with semistructured interviews with practitioners (n = 13) and people at risk of eviction and entering homelessness (n = 29), this article contributes to social work knowledge by demonstrating not only how social work progresses individual and advocacy work in tandem but also how the knowledge generated through individual work lays the basis and legitimacy to engage in advocacy.

Abstract In the UK, professional responses to abuse adolescents experience beyond their families have undergone transformation in the past 30 years. We present data from 40 local authorities in England, Wales, and Scotland to assess the ‘state of play’ of child protection responses to significant harm adolescents experience beyond their families, commonly referred to in UK child protection guidance as ‘extra-familial harm’. Data were collected via a two-year multistrand mixed-methods research project between 2022 and 2024. The aim was to explore whether child protection systems in England, Wales, and Scotland are addressing the legal, contextual, and structural shortfalls of responses to extra-familial harm in adolescence. Data were analysed against the four domains of the Contextual Safeguarding framework; used here as an analytical tool for considering the extent to which child protection agencies and their partners are currently using child welfare legislation to address adolescent extra-familial harm. Findings indicate the social care sector has further to go to enact a child welfare response that enables the provision of support and not merely the imposition of statutory frameworks to young people’s lives.

Abstract This autoethnographic study examines the complexities and contradictions of leadership in social work academia through the lived experience of an Ethiopian–Israeli woman faculty member at a leading Israeli university. Using critical autoethnography as a methodological framework, the study presents three ‘case studies’ that illuminate the challenges to fostering change in social work academic leadership toward diversity and equality. The research reveals how institutional demands often conflict with social work values and community engagement, particularly for faculty from marginalized backgrounds. The study demonstrates how demands for measurable academic outputs clash with efforts to promote epistemic justice and community knowledge production. The findings suggest that while social work academic leadership has significant potential to drive positive change, institutional barriers and neoliberal academic culture often work to stifle this potential, especially for leaders from marginalized groups. This study contributes to understanding how intersectional identities shape academic leadership experiences and offers insights for creating more inclusive academic environments that value diverse and community-based forms of knowledge production.

Abstract Understanding activist leadership is vital for the future of social work. This article examines leadership styles and models prevalent in social work, exploring their alignment with one of the profession’s central obligations: achieving social justice through activism. Leadership in social work has historically been framed through managerial or hierarchical approaches with effects of neoliberalism often dictating approaches for the profession. More recently, there have been calls for activist leadership within social work literature, however, the profession remains influenced by existing leadership approaches that do not wholly encompass social work values. Using a critical lens, this article examines the applicability of transformational, adaptive, and relational leadership models which are popular within the social work literature, yet do not explicitly engender activism. Our findings suggest it is time for the profession to reimagine social work leadership ensuring it centres activism to achieve ethical and socially just outcomes. The article concludes by calling for a distinctive activist-inspired, social work approach to leadership, and suggests that this is vital for the identity of the profession.

Abstract Interventions for youth with foster care experiences can be vital in supporting youth as they transition out of care. The BraveLife Intervention (BLI), is a youth-centered, strength-based program developed to empower youth. This study examined the impact of BLI on perceived support, empowerment, self-advocacy, self-esteem, and resiliency for at-risk youth aged fourteen to twenty-one years. A repeated measures ANOVA for youth who stayed with the BLI for six months showed an increase in perceived social support mean scores from 16.0 at baseline to 17.3 at three months to 18.1 at six months, with statistical significance [F(2,76) = 4.52, P = .014]. With respect to empowerment, participants who stayed with BLI from baseline to six months had mean scores increase from 24.7 at baseline, to 25.9 at three months, and 26.3 at six months, a statistically significant increase [F(2,82) = 3.16, P = .048]. Self-advocacy mean scores for youth who stayed with the BLI for six months increased from 24.8 at baseline, to 28.3 at three months, and 28.8 at six months, with statistical significance [F(2,76) = 13.62, P = .000]. Changes in self-esteem and resiliency were not found to be significant. The BLI intervention provided a youth-serving and inclusive approach to improving perceived support, empowerment, and self-advocacy.