Basis Of Social Work Research Articles

Child sexual abuse and Aboriginal communities in Australia: a case study of non-inclusive government intervention

In this article, a particular event which occurred in the Northern Territory in Australia in 2007 is used to examine and constructively critique a government strategy that prioritised an invasive and non-participatory form of intervention. The justification for this course of action was the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. In order to examine both the action taken and the ongoing implications, a case study approach is adopted and despite the recent apology to the ‘stolen generation’, it is argued that links between current events and those of the past can still be made. These include Aboriginal communities continuing to be viewed in a negative, homogenising and pathologising manner and the recurrence of the pervading belief that complex and entrenched structural problems, endemic oppression and poverty can be solved by simple and straightforward solutions. It is contended that events in Australia's Northern Territory have implications for social workers internationally and that these can be seen to challenge the value base of social work and the integrity of the profession.

Advancing the Evidence Base for Social Work in Long-Term Care: The Disconnect between Practice and Research

ABSTRACT This article reviews the research literature relative to social work practice in geriatric long-term care (LTC) settings with the aim of determining the state of the evidence base for practice. Overall, this body of research supports the efficacy of social work services within the context of community-based case management and interdisciplinary models of geriatric intervention; however, there is less evidence of a discipline-specific contribution, particularly in institutional health care settings (e.g., nursing homes and hospitals) where a great number of gerontological social workers are employed. Implications of this review include the need to prioritize research within gerontological social work in order to enhance best practice knowledge and skills in settings where it is most needed.

The Theory Circle: A Tool for Learning and for Practice

Social workers have grappled for many years now with the tension between theory and practice. The struggle may be to bridge a perceived gap between the academic knowledge base of social work and the complex realities of practice. Equally, it may be to move from common‐sense interpretations of human need and professional responses, towards a more informed and accountable approach to practice. In recognition of the challenges faced by social work academics, practitioners and students, in relation to applying theory to practice, two of the authors of this paper developed a model, which aimed to facilitate productive discussions between practice teachers and students about the nature of theory and its link to practice. In addition, the model was designed to promote partnership approaches where service users participate fully in identifying their own issues and in shaping the services they receive. This paper describes the model—The Theory Circle—and reflects upon its effectiveness, based on the views of 19 practice teachers from central Scotland. The findings suggest that the pictorial model is one that practice teachers and students find accessible and valuable; it helps them to build a theoretical understanding of service users' situations and to work alongside service users to agree the most appropriate methods of intervention.

The Diffusion of Information Technology in the Human Services

The spread and utilization of information technology in the human services is examined using innovation diffusion theory. This examination is contextualized within the values basis of social work. Literature from the human services, the business sector, and the social sciences regarding the role of information technology is used to promote a broader perspective on the issues faced in innovation diffusion in our profession. The paper concludes with implications for social work education and suggestions for future research.

Transforming the Working Definition of Social Work into the 21st Century

Still in its organizational infancy, the National Association of Social Workers' working definition was a groundbreaking contribution to the evolution of social work in the 20th century. As a forerunner to Bartlett's common base of social work, the profession was defined by the following five core components: value, purpose, sanction, knowledge, and method. Transforming the definition to 21 st-century relevancy is the subject of this article. Ontological and practice issues are discussed in relation to transformational underpinnings that would evolve social work from its mechanistic and entity-centered roots associated with pre-20th-century science to the organic and relationship-centered discoveries of 20th-century science. An organizing framework is proposed that will transform the common base of social work to a new common whole of social work.

Psycho-Analytic Insight and Relationships revisited

In this paper I discuss the main theoretical ideas in the book and the way in which the author applies them to social casework. I consider the relevance of these ideas to contemporary social work in terms of their contribution to the knowledge base of social work and social work methods. I argue that Kleinian ideas can make an important contribution to understanding the interpsychic and intrapsychic aspects of human experience with which social workers come into contact. I suggest that the author writes about the casework relationship with little regard to the social and political contexts in which social work is undertaken and that in contemporary social work, there needs to be a relationship between three different elements, namely: the client--as an individual within their social context; the emotional dynamics of the client-worker relationship; and the integration of theory, social policy and the legal framework.

Knowledge Bases and Knowledge Biases in Social Work

Summary: The conception of a knowledge base for social work is explored within a multinational/multicultural context. Findings: Flaws in the idea of a knowledge base include the conception that social science knowledge is being continually reconstructed rather than acting as a base, the impossibility of defining a separable body of knowledge and the difficulty of seeing some knowledge as basic to all social work practice. Four arenas of debate within social work where the concept is particularly used are in defining the processes of professionalization, defining training and education curricula, identifying what knowledge is useful in practice and defining professional roles within multidisciplinary teams. Study of the construction and politics of knowledge biases within social work, through examination of the use of knowledge in practice and through consideration of the influence of stakeholders in creating biases, permits understanding of social work knowledge as a continuing interactive process among practitioners and other stakeholders rather than as an established base. Applications: Knowledge in any particular country or specialization of social work may be seen as biases within a broader conception of knowledge.

The moral bases of social work

The moral bases of social work

The moral bases of social work

Social work's conventional “value-talk” presents a professionally neutral value-system for making moral judgements, but paradoxically neglects the professional social role of making moral judgements on behalf of society. Conventional statements of social work's moral values neglect economic, political, and aesthetic value judgements and issues of logic, rhetoric, and epistemology, which should also be included in value debate. Social work's value codes are not 'basic', because they are not usable in practice, are not distinctive, comprehensive, or universal. Historical and sociological evidence suggests that social workers make moral judgements of their clients on behalf of society. These judgements should be earned out within a more comprehensive and better articulated value system, which is applied in the detail of everyday practice.

Clients Without a Cause: Is There a Legal Right to Effective Treatment?

This article considers the legal right to effective treatment. Such a cause of action is distinguish able from the estabhshed right to treatment because the standard of care ensured by the latter is so minimal Tort law of negligence, law of the fiduciary, and contract law were explored. The outcome suggests there is little legal basis for social work to assume a right to effective treatment.

Reframing Practitioner Research

The concept of scientist-practitioner has served as a bridge between the worlds of practice and scientific research since the 1960s (Reid, 1994). Schools of social work typically prepare master's-degree students to use both single-case designs to evaluate their own treatment effectiveness and rapid assessment instruments to monitor treatment progress and outcomes. In this way practitioners may contribute to the knowledge base of social work. Since the early 1980s, however, criticism of this model has been growing.

The knowledge base of social work: a citation analysis

The knowledge base of the social work profession was studied. Previous research has generally taken into account only citations from social work journals. In this paper a broader view was taken. Consequently in order to determine the sources of knowledge in American and non‐American journals, citations from four sources for the year 1992 were counted and analysed: social work journals, journals from other fields, books and grey literature. The most frequent citation source was books, followed by non‐social workjournals, grey documentation and finally by social workjournals. Differential use of the four sources by American and British journals was noted and discussed in terms of structural and ideological restraints extant in the two countries.

Theoretical Integration as a Basis for Social Work in a Marriage Counselling Setting

This paper attempts to describe two aspects of the role of a social worker working within a marriage counselling setting. One aspect of this role is the direct service to clients. In this setting clients will seek the service of a counsellor to help them improve their ability to relate within a legal or de facto marital relationship.

Observations on the Search for an Institutional Base for Social Work

Observations on the Search for an Institutional Base for Social Work

The Missing System in Social Work's Application of Systems Theory

Amid ongoing struggles regarding definition of the knowledge base for the social work profession, a meaningful application of an ego psychological perspective offers a significant, although not exclusive link. The concept is capable of contributing to coherence in the educational and practice base of social work.

Generic and Generalist Practice and the BSW Curriculum

Abstract Through the use of two conceptual frameworks, entry level social work is conceived as direct service generalist practice. The generic framework presents the common base of social work in terms of purpose, function, focus, objectives, and values and aspects of knowledge and skills. The generalist framework indicates the variety of methods used in relation to assessed needs, goals, and targets in practice situations. These frameworks are useful in developing the BSW curriculum. The implications are considered for enhancing the knowledge, conceptual, and practice integration needed for developing the competence for direct service generalist social work practice.

Mapping the knowledge base of social work

Mapping the knowledge base of social work

Inflated States and Empty Theories in Social Work

SUMMARY The recommended knowledge base of social work is seen to be wide-ranging on the one hand, and subject to divides and tensions on the other. This state of affairs is reviewed briefly. An argument is then developed which maintains that only certain types of activity within the considerable range often identified as social work, offer a clear suggestion that the job which is being described is that of social work. These various activities and practices appeal to different kinds of theory and knowledge. As the knowledge base and practical possibilities of the job have become increasingly elaborate and extensive, an argument which recommends that social workers recover a simplier notion of what they are about also entails the idea that social work is a job which is seen to have necessary and definite limits to its practice and theory. Social work in general, and its knowledge base in particular, have been viewed in two contrasting ways by present day commentators. There are those who, as they think about social work, see no natural bounds to its earnest endeavours. Standing in admiration at the sheer scope of this wide ranging activity and thrilled to be part of it, they set aside their occupational humility and get down to consider seriously what such an enterprise needs to know in order that it should work well. 'No other profession . . .', says Bartlett,1 with barely a flinch, '. . . sets goals with such current breadth and temporal length, and no currently available behavioural science attempts to span that breadth and length.' It follows that as well as the usual diet of social sciences and home grown ideas, a more expansive claim for what a social worker needs to know is also necessary for he or she is expected to know something of '. . . economics, biology, human ecology, and anthropology', and to draw on the 'allied disciplines of public health and medicine, law and criminal justice and social administration'.2 But the idea of an activity without bounds worries others who think

Research and Social Work

From the beginning there has been a strained relationship between social work practice and research. The choice of moral imperative or empirical knowledge as a base for social work has been debated for decades. The Flexner speech emphasized science as the knowledge base for a profession at a time when social workers were, in fact, establishing practice wisdom as the intellectual foundation for practice. The result has been an official commitment to research but a very limited demand from the field for actual research. In the university the research model of the sciences dominates. Research interests of social work faculty tend to reflect the science model even though the resulting research may have little relevance for practice. There is a need for a nationwide research strategy for social work which focuses primarily on the empirical study of social work practice.

Teaching Americans in America

Abstract Schools of social work in the United States and in Canada have for many years, supported and encouraged their faculty to accept visiting professorships or research appointments in foreign schools of social work. This program has benefited both faculty and students through enriched course content. However, only in recent years have more than a few faculty from foreign schools of social work joined the faculties of schools of social work in the United States and Canada as visiting professors. There is no question that these faculty members have made a contribution to social work education in the schools where they were resident. This author provides insights on how visiting professors might affectively contribute as members of faculty and questions the emphasis we are presently giving to methodology at the expense of our commitment to the ideological and moral base of social work.