Community Work Research Articles

Bringing the community into the classroom: professional identity and practice of social workers who studied alongside at-risk adolescent girls

ABSTRACT This study explores the professional identity development of social workers who participated in an academic elective course alongside at-risk adolescent girls aged 16–18. The course, influenced by critical pedagogy, and community and feminist social work, emphasized three core principles: flattening power hierarchies, challenging socio-structural oppression, and mutual learning. In-depth interviews were conducted with course graduates, social workers with 1 to 4 years of experience. Phenomenological analysis uncovered that the course acted as a ‘transitional space’ between student and professional life. Three subthemes emerged: recognizing the vulnerability and strengths of adolescent girls, reflecting on personal life experiences, and learning about forming partnerships with clients. Forming partnerships with clients was enabled by three vehicles: daring to be equal, daring to be authentic, and learning from clients’ knowledge. This study highlights the creation of a ‘community of practice’ through innovative teaching methods and community involvement. It underscores the importance of hands-on experiences and engagement with real-life contexts to bridge the gap between theory and practice, enhancing understanding of concepts like partnership and nonhierarchical approaches in both community and general social work.

OPTIMIZATION OF FINANCIAL RESOURCES OF TERRITORIAL COMMUNITIES: A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO RESPONDING TO MODERN RISKS IN STATE MANAGEMENT

Choosing the optimal financial provision for territorial communities is important as it allows for a more effective response to contemporary challenges in public administration. The methodological approach to this process helps communities better utilize available resources for secure development and improving the quality of life for their residents. An in-depth analysis of both scientific and practical literature reveals that the issue of financial resources for territorial communities has not been comprehensively addressed to date. Thus, the goal is to define an approach that will provide information on the most optimal forms of financial resources needed by various territorial communities under current conditions. For this, the object of study is the financial resources of individual territorial communities in Ukraine for evaluation. The scientific task is to propose and integrate such a method that will facilitate the selection of the most optimal financial resources for the territorial communities of Ukraine. For this purpose, experts were involved and appropriate pairwise comparisons were conducted. As a result, we analyzed the current financial state of Ukraine's territorial communities. We characterized the key principles of the proposed methodological approach to optimizing financial resources. We identified the most optimal types of financial resources for comparison and highlighted the most suitable among them. The practical significance of the obtained results is revealed through the possibility of applying this approach in the work of territorial communities in Ukraine. However, the research has limitations and does not take into account other resources, such as human and informational. This is noted for further research.

The Place of World Economy Research in the Heterodox Analytics of Eurasian Integration

Aim. The article shows the increased productivity of heterodox approaches in the part of economics that studies the problems of the world economy, including regional integration.Methods. Illustrations of the apparent paradoxicity (for representatives of the economic mainstream) of geopolitical and world economic dynamics after 2022 are used to explain the importance of analyzing economic processes in the world economy, taking into account approaches of related social disciplines. The connection of some important scientific results of Russian scholars in the field of economics with the achievements of historians, orientalists and cultural scientists, representatives of economic and political geography and studies of international relations is shown.Results. The article describes the boundaries of the mathematization of the considered segment of heterodox analysis related to the unreliability of world economic statistics, with examples of the successful application of approximate (in a broad sense relative to mathematical terminology) calculations to assess shifts in foreign trade and foreign direct investment in contemporary Russia. The author demonstrates that the heterodox approach reveals the absence of contradiction between Russia’s intensification of Eurasian economic integration (including within the narrow limits of the EAEU) and our country’s efforts to build a more equitable polycentric world order, including strengthening the BRICS format. Greater interdisciplinary transparency for heterodox economists against the background of representatives of the mainstream, among other things, makes it possible to intensify fruitful cooperation between scientists and practical analysts representing analytical centers — think tanks of the post-Soviet space and neighboring countries in the interests of developing integration projects.Conclusions. The proposed methodological framework can enhance the effectiveness of the work of the analytical community of Russia and its friendly countries in obtaining new applied conclusions in the economic sphere, especially in terms of enhancing the effectiveness of integration efforts in Greater Eurasia. At the same time, heterodox economists are more receptive to cooperation with historians, political scientists and other analysts who have focused on Eurasian economic integration.

BARUDAK CERDAS DAN AKTIF : SOLUSI PENANGANAN ANAK PUTUS SEKOLAH DI DESA SIRNAGALIH KABUPATEN CIANJUR

This community service activity was carried out with the main background so that the people of Sirnagalih village, Cianjur district, could massively reduce the school dropout rate with the Smart and Active Barudak program. Thus, this service activity aims to increase parents' awareness and children's interest in going to school. The service method is carried out by providing counseling and providing training in collaboration with the community work team in Sirnagalih village. In general, the activity went well. The participation and enthusiasm of the participants in this activity could be seen from the active discussions. The impact of this activity can increase parental awareness and children's interest in going to school so that the school dropout rate can be reduced and decrease drastically.

Listening across the Américas: Base Ecclesial Communities and Relational Organizing as Listening Practices for a Synodal Church

Catholicism can draw on existing practices of listening to build a more participative church. This paper analyzes listening practices in Catholic and Catholic-engaged interfaith settings, drawing on the author’s long-term ethnographic research: i) four years of weekly participation in meetings of comunidades eclesiales de base in Mexico and Central America; ii) two decades of participant-observation in multiracial faith-based community organizing work in low-income communities of the United States; iii) participant observation at the US expression of the World Meetings of Popular Movements initiative; and iv) participant-observation at the “Prophetic Communities” gathering of organizers, scholars, and church leaders, focused on synodality and community organizing (San Francisco, CA, in 2023). The essay frames its discussion of listening practices around contemporary ideas regarding acompañamiento, solidarity, encounter, and the role of civil society and “public religion” as cultural and institutional underpinnings of democracy. A restructured, more synodal church can enable “ethical democracy” in the future, in part through its practices of liturgy and encounter.

Balancing public health and public safety: a situational analysis of a substance use pathway

Abstract Background Public health solutions to substance use harms are of interest across Europe, where the level of health need among detainee populations is broadly consistent. A need for multiagency working is widely recognised, as well as role changes with a view to the police engaging in health generating activity, as part of the wider public health workforce. This qualitative study explores the prospect for a multiagency, public health pathway in an English county district. This involved multiagency working across the community and custody settings. Methods 25 semi-structured interviews with senior and frontline staff of diverse agencies involved in pathway development, including public health, police, treatment providers and the NHS. A ‘frame-critical’ situational analysis sought to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats presented by the pathway. Data were organised into themes. Results Three themes highlighted the challenges and opportunities for addressing substance use harms via multiagency collaboration across the community and custody settings. The themes highlighted how 1) agencies’ shared commitment to public health was unsettled by subtle differences on the meaning of prevention; 2) community police were more accepting of new health activity than custody police; 3) a trade-off impeded a proactive approach: the need for substance worker capacity to support police in the custody suite (a reactive approach) meant that limited community outreach was possible, despite opportunities for preventative community work involving substance workers and community police. Conclusions Public health solutions are challenging to develop in a context of contrasting understandings of ‘public health’, unclear national policy and resource constraints. The design of multiagency public health pathways must be participatory and inclusive to ensure staff buy-in: in particular, new health activities need to align with police staff’s sense of role congruence. Key messages • Multiagency public health collaborations should start by establishing a shared understanding of what ‘public health’ and ‘prevention’ mean. • A long-term perspective on training and motivational alignment (e.g., via feedback) is necessary to implement health-related activity among custody police staff.

Increasing outcome measurement precision: Network analysis of items on the Outcome Questionnaire-45.

Psychotherapy outcome research mainly focuses on scale-level changes and constructs that were developed using cross-sectional statistical analysis, possibly concealing important findings on the level of single items, and limiting the clinical utility of outcome scales. Our goal was to explore changes in symptoms, interpersonal problems, and level of functioning in everyday life and to establish groups of items with similar rates of change that could be used to form more coherent targets for measuring different therapeutic outcomes. Triangulated maximally filtered graphs were used to model the network structure of the Outcome Questionnaire-45 in a data set of N = 12,075 university counseling center patients. Dynamic exploratory graph analysis was used to establish communities of items with similar rates of change. Five item communities (anxiety, hopelessness, interpersonal problems, well-being, and work impairment) were found. Compared to the original Outcome Questionnaire-45 subscales, they showed better fit to the data. The "hopelessness" community, which describes the extent of a patient's demoralization before the start of therapy, had a significantly higher rate of change compared to other communities. The discerned item communities provide clinicians with theoretically grounded, precise targets for outcome tracking, thereby enhancing the responsiveness and adaptability of treatment interventions to individual client trajectories. Such granularity enriches our understanding of therapeutic change, with direct implications for tailoring intervention strategies to maximize early therapeutic gains and sustain long-term recovery. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Determinants of International Non-governmental Organization’s Aid Upon Dalit in Bringing Behavioral Policy Governance

The caste system is the stratification of social structure based on Hinduism that has placed the Dalits in the lower strata and made to face various forms of inhuman atrocities and discrimination. The post-independent era of India is influenced by the different types of aid from international non-governmental organizations (INGO). The study looked at the effectiveness of international NGOs intervention in the Dalit community especially in promoting human rights and enhancing socio-economic development, especially in Villupuram District of Tamil Nadu. The struggle of resistance against discrimination by the Dalit community has been a continuous process and it is found that the situation has improved a lot after a lot of activism, social action, and community work through the help of NGOs. Continued efforts by INGOs advocating Dalit-driven policies at various levels are required to liberate the Dalits with the support of the government and various stakeholders.

Le travail en communauté d’apprentissage professionnelle (CAP) : une analyse réflexive

Collaborative work is becoming more and more present in teaching teams institutions across Canada. This reflective qualitative research (self-study) on professional practice presents an analysis of a teacher’s corpus who experienced a collaborative work in professional learning communities (PLC) in a school located in Alberta. A conceptual framework based on the sense of self-efficacy (SEP) towards collaborative work in PLC is guiding the study. The results show that participation in the PLC improved the teacher's SEP through the close collaboration established with her colleagues and by the implementation of new pedagogical practices. The autors suggest that this study be replicated to extend the impact to other teachers.

The role of the child-adult community in the development of adolescents’ meaning of life

Importance. The search for the meaning of life is a relevant issue during adolescence. A childadult community plays an important role in the development of meaning of teenagers’ lives by providing support, participation in social events, role models, and opportunities for selfrealization. Interacting with adult members of the community contributes to the development of value orientations among adolescents, the establishment of individual personal and professional goals, and provides support in the search for meaning of life. The purpose of the study is to identify the specific role of the child-adult community in the development of adolescents’ meaning of life.Materials and Methods. Analysis of Russian and foreign literature, conducting a survey among adolescents, conducting interviews and observations, as well as statistical processing of the results are used.Results and Discussion. It has been established that in developing the meaning of life, child-adult communities play the role of creating a supportive and emotionally favourable environment, mentoring and role models, and so forth. However, not all of the roles are fulfilled by the community equally. To increase the effectiveness of the child-adult community in matters of meaningful selfdetermination of adolescents, a programme of activities aimed at compensating for the lack of community work is developed.Conclusion. The study will help educational and social institutions to develop effective strategies and programmes of pedagogical support for adolescents, which may become an object of future research.

Young people's right to flourish: A 21st century social justice issue for youth and community work

AbstractThis article argues for youth and community work (YCW) to be recognised for its critical role in working alongside young people to enhance their well‐being. We supply amalgamated vignettes as evidence from student's placement practice and explore the value of informal education practices in YCW in more formal settings. We assert that it is important to offer recognition of the distinctive methodologies YCW practitioners employ to enable meaningful engagement with young people. We argue young people's well‐being is a 21st century social justice issue of primary concern to YCWs. Cuts to youth services have led to a crisis in the YCW workforce, which urgently needs to be addressed. Therefore, as a reminder of the ongoing need for young people to be at the heart of integrated and holistic policies, the anonymised vignettes supply reflections on student professional practice placement that take account of their experiences of working collaboratively with schools. Policy makers should seek ways of drawing on YCW student's perspectives and in working to develop parity of esteem with other social professions, create environments in which young people can flourish. This article therefore joins the recent calls from the YCW sector for the need to fund and re‐grow YCW.

Abolition methodologies

Pervasive carceral conditions are being met with a range of efforts to make what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “freedom as a place.” What does it mean to create such places? We answer here by taking seriously the methodological demands of how we do abolition work in the academy. Abolition methodologies entail a responsibility to bridge the spaces between academic and community work focused on resisting and building alternatives to carcerality. Taking our lead from organizers embedded in communities of practice and care, we see abolition methodologies as an opportunity to pursue a range of artistic, educational, and politically strategic scholar and scholar-activist works. Inspired by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s understanding that refusals can offer imaginative alternatives, we present four principles of abolitionist methodologies grounded in generative acts of refusal. These include abolition as reorientation, as contextual, as livingness, and as relational. To illustrate these principles in action, we discuss our efforts in the Prison Agriculture Lab to develop creative works and beneficial tools that, we hope, will help upend racial capitalism and advance the practice of abolition in daily life.

«Автобиография профессора Николая Иосифовича Воробьева»

The publication is a commentary and the text of the handwritten autobiography of N.I. Vorobyev. The document is introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time. The undertaken analysis of the text allowed us to identify new facts from the life and work of the researcher and to grasp their context. The document is dated March 2, 1947 and was written by the scholar during his work at Kazan State University. N.I. Vorobyev lists in detail the facts about his parents, the process of receiving an education, the beginning of his teaching and research work. He reveals the evolution of his own academic interests, from geography to ethnography, and highlights the author’s scholarly papers that are of significance from his point of view. The document mentions N.I. Vorobyev’s research work in the Far East dedicated to the study of the life of the Nanai (the Golds) and in the Mari ASSR – limnological studies of lakes. The researcher emphasises his work on methodological support of teachers. A separate chapter of the autobiography contains a description of the academic’s participation in the work of various public scholarly organisations. N.I. Vorobyev focuses on the important aspects of his life that correspond to the spirit of those times. This is the recognition of his political unconsciousness in the first years of the Soviet power, service in the Red Army as a private soldier. The autobiography of N.I. Vorobyev is a valuable, informative source. It shows not only the significance of individual milestones in his life and work for the scholar himself, but also reveals the distinctive features of the Soviet era, which formed the conditions for work for the entire academic community.

A study of the correlation between residents’ humanistic care skills and their level of emotional intelligence—A cross-sectional survey

BackgroundThere is variability in the structure of junior doctors’ knowledge of humanistic medicine. The level of residents’ emotional intelligence affects their professional development and the doctor-patient relationship. Currently, there is a paucity of research examining the humanistic competence and emotional intelligence of medical residents, both domestically and internationally.The primary objective of this study was to scrutinize the prevailing status of residents’ humanistic competence and emotional intelligence levels, aiming to assess the correlation between humanistic competence and emotional intelligence.MethodsA cross-sectional survey using the Demographic Characteristics Questionnaire, the Humanistic Care Competence Scale, and the Emotional Intelligence Scale was conducted in September 2022 among residents of a tertiary general hospital in Sichuan Province. The relationship between humanistic care competence scores and emotional intelligence scores among residents was analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.ResultsThe mean score of residents’ humanistic care competence was 188.82 ± 20.80, and the mean score of emotional intelligence was 87.08 ± 13.49.The Pearson correlation results demonstrated a significant correlation (r = 0.400, p = 0.000) between the level of emotional intelligence and humanistic care competence. The results of multiple linear regression analysis indicated that self-emotional appraisal, emotional appraisal of others, emotional control, emotional use, and school community work experience independently predicted humanistic care competence.ConclusionThe scores for residents’ humanistic care competence were notably low, influenced by a multitude of factors that also exhibited varying levels of impact on emotional intelligence development. Emotional intelligence was positively associated with humanistic care competence. Emotional intelligence is an important consideration in the development, implementation, and evaluation of humanistic care interventions. Residency programs should provide education and training in humanistic competencies to improve residents’ levels of emotional intelligence and promote the overall health of society.

A place to call our home: innovative rural physical therapy training in Canada

BackgroundTo promote rural practice and increase enrollment in the entry-level Master of Science Physical Therapy program at the University of Alberta, the Department of Physical Therapy developed a rural physical therapy satellite campus located in a farming region in central Alberta. A distributed learning format was used to connect the rural cohort to the main urban campus. Real time video conferencing was used to connect the two campuses for all lectures, seminars and clinical skills classes. This evaluation aimed to describe a unique rural training program for physical therapy students and its effectiveness in promoting work in rural communities after graduation.MethodsPhysical Therapy students in the first three years (2012–2015) of commencing the rural satellite program (n = 280) were surveyed, and six focus groups were held to capture student experiences, satisfaction and engagement. Data were collected on employment locations of the 2012–2019 graduates’ first physical therapy position and current employment.ResultsSurvey results suggested comparable levels of satisfaction and engagement for all physical therapy students regardless of campus. Focus group data revealed that students quickly accepted the distributed learning technological interface, enjoyed their local campuses, and felt connected to instructors and student colleagues. Compared to the overall physical therapy workforce, a higher percentage of physical therapists graduating from the rural campus reported working in rural centers for both their first and current jobs.ConclusionRegardless of campus, students were satisfied and equally engaged in the physical therapy program. Students who completed the physical therapy program in a rural setting tended to work rurally after graduation. A distributed learning model may be useful for other healthcare training programs to promote engagement in rural health.

Hechos y Tachas: value, facts, and bodies in the early modern Caribbean

ABSTRACT This article examines the emergence of ideas about corporeal hechos [facts] in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Caribbean. The establishment of facts around the human flesh in the early modern Caribbean and their circulation occurred in multiple social and cultural spaces but was prominent in the world of slave trading. This development depended on the creation of categories for the fixation of the flesh in the public discourse that appeared in governmental, judicial, and private records in locales in Europe and the Americas. At the same time, the development of this Caribbean tradition of facts required the circulation of these ideas and categories as inscribed in procedures of tacit knowledge related to bodies, practices that were evident in the work of slave-trading communities in the region. The creation of bodily facts emerged, in the end, from techniques that inscribed human bodies in accounts and transactions of all sorts moving across the Atlantic.

Exploring The Connection of Spirituality at Work in Enhancing Nurses’ Job Performance: Insight from Malaysian Hospitals

The performance of nurses can be seen as a reflection of healthcare organizations, as they constitute the most critical human resources within hospitals. However, challenges arise when issues such as staff shortages, high turnover rates, and burdensome workloads contribute to poor nurse performance. Conversely, the incorporation of spirituality in the workplace provides nurses with an opportunity to align their inner selves within a supportive community environment, fostering a deeper sense of purpose in their professional responsibilities. This study sought to determine the connection between spirituality at work and nurses’ job performance, surveying 350 nurses employed in public hospitals across Malaysia. Data analysis was conducted using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 27, revealing that all three aspects of spirituality at work, namely inner life, meaningful work, and sense of community, had a positive and significant influence on nurses’ job performance. This study provides potential aid to decision-makers in Malaysian healthcare organizations by offering significant insights for the development of strong spirituality at work values within their organizational setting. Additionally, this study presents recommendations for future research and proposes methods for the authorities to incorporate spirituality at work values into nurses’ jobs, ultimately enhancing the overall performance of healthcare services.

Continuity of service and longer term retention of doctors training as general practitioners in the Remote Vocational Training Scheme.

To explore continuity of service and longer term retention outcomes of participants of the Remote Vocational Training Scheme (RVTS). Retrospective cohort study of all doctors who participated in the RVTS from 2000 to 2023, many of whom are international medical graduates and are expected to work in the same community for three to four years in remote (Modified Monash Model [MMM] categories 4-7) or rural Aboriginal Medical Services (AMS) streams while undertaking training towards general practice fellowship. Continuity of service was measured in the pre-program period (period working in same practice before commencing) and during-program period (period completing the RVTS program in same practice as worked in before commencing the program). Retention was measured firstly within two years, and secondly beyond two years (up to 20 post-completion years) based on: working in the same community (relevant to both streams); working in the same region (Remote Stream only); working in any MMM4-7 community (Remote Stream only); or working anywhere rurally (both streams). From 506 enrolled participants, 373 (73.7%) were international medical graduates. The approximate mean service continuity in the same practice was 1.6 years (standard deviation [SD], 2.2 years) for the pre-program period and 3.6 years (SD, 1.4 years) for the during-program period (mean total, 5.2 years). Two years after completion, 21 out of 43 Remote Stream doctors (49%) and four out of five AMS Stream doctors (80%) remained in the same community. Over the long term, retention in the same community stabilised to 44 out of 242 Remote Stream doctors (18.2%) and seven out of 27 AMS Stream doctors (26%); 72 Remote Stream doctors (29.8%) remained in the same region, 70 Remote Stream doctors (28.9%) were in an MMM4-7 community, and 11 AMS Stream doctors (41%) were in a rural (MMM2-7) community. Strong service continuity outcomes have been achieved by the RVTS, which supports mostly international medical graduates in locations typified by the highest workforce turnover. This suggests that continuity of service could be improved for remote and First Nations communities through place-based retention-focused programs like the RVTS.

Recruitment and retention of new doctors in remote and Aboriginal medical services through the Remote Vocational Training Scheme's Targeted Recruitment Strategy: a focus group study.

To explore the results of a targeted recruitment strategy designed to attract and retain new doctors in remote and Aboriginal medical services where they can access Remote Vocational Training Scheme (RVTS) training and support to qualify as general practitioners. Two 2-hour purposeful online focus groups on the RVTS' Targeted Recruitment Strategy. Five participants and nine stakeholders with knowledge and experience of the strategy. Data were transcribed and deductively and inductively coded for themes including insights from separate project reference and stakeholder advisory groups. Perspectives of the strategy. The overarching theme was that the strategy is useful for attracting and retaining new general practitioners in areas of high need and is potentially scalable. Since 2018, 20 new doctors were recruited via the Targeted Recruitment Strategy and six of them completed the RVTS program. The strategy could better differentiate target locations because increasing communities are experiencing major general practice workforce shortages. The package of employment and training could also be more clearly defined for participants, nationally marketed and collaboratively implemented. Further, more site accreditation and ongoing risk and quality review is needed, along with intense early supports for participants who are new to both the community and general practice work. The Targeted Recruitment Strategy is still maturing but the early results suggest it is a unique and proactive model for attracting and improving access to general practitioners in places with high needs. It could be strengthened through formal agreements between communities and agencies, ensuring coordinated implementation, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and developing clear pathways for risk and quality management.

Creating spaces for dialogue and learning to build collective empowerment: A qualitative study on community leadership development in Midwest America communities

ABSTRACT The complexity of today’s community challenges calls for innovative approaches that promote leadership of diverse community members and institutions working collaboratively with communities. This study reports on an evaluation of two neighborhood leadership development programs that examined the impact of programs on participants and their communities. 41 interviews were conducted with 33 program participants and eight facilitators. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants expressed that they were motivated to participate in the leadership program(s) because they saw the need to help others in their communities and wanted to learn how to do that well. Others reported scaling up their capacity and capabilities in doing community work through engaging and empowering others toward achieving shared community development goals. Insights from the study suggest that building communities that are well resourced, equitable, and thriving places, require sustainable investment in hands-on, relational leadership training at the local level.