Forms Of Advocacy Research Articles

I Sweat for Ina: The Spirituality of Sports in Naga, Bikol

In such a small city, Naga boasts of its own sports complex, many other sports facilities, and different sports clinics. Now dubbed the “Fun Run Capital of the South,” Naga continues to thrive in encouraging its people to lead healthier and more active lives. Interestingly, many local teams integrate the Lady of Penafrancia in their emblems, icons and names, which also extend even in the race events organized in the city. The people’s enthusiasm in sports, in many ways, seems to confirm their faith to Ina, which then finds extension in the many advocacies and efforts to save the rapidly debilitating Naga River. This research is, in essence, an exploratory paper on the sport dynamics in Naga, which shall seek to understand how the people’s spirituality shapes their sporting activities (and vice-versa); and how this sports-spirituality relationship becomes a form of advocacy to rehabilitate the Naga River.

Helping Grassroots Advocacy Efforts Take Root

Grassroots advocacy—as the term implies—is a form of advocacy that grows organically and, quite often, spontaneously at the local or regional level. As the leading food and nutrition experts, registered dietitians (RDs) are in a unique position to shape public policy, particularly at the ground level, by participating in a full spectrum of advocacy activities.

An Internet-Based Assignment to Teach Students to Engage in Policy Practice: A Three-Cohort Study

This article describes an Internet-based, policy-practice assignment required in the second course of a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) policy sequence. Students were required to join e-action alert lists, respond to multiple alerts, and document their experience. More than 98% of students reported that they would remain on e-action alert lists. In addition, students reported learning that this form of advocacy was quick, easy, and effective. Involving students in policy practice during their social work education may instill the importance of policy practice, give them the confidence to participate in policy practice, and experience the ease with which one can participate.

Gender Equality and Corporate Governance: Policy Strategies in Norway and New Zealand

Advancing gender equality in the labour market continues to be a policy objective in many OECD countries. Wide national variations are evident in strategies and accomplishments towards improving gender equality at all levels of the labour market, including senior management and corporate governance roles. This article compares policy strategies in Norway and New Zealand directed towards achieving gender equality in the governance of corporate institutions. A principal feature of the New Zealand strategy has been a soft regulation approach in the form of advocacy and encouragement of equal employment opportunity policies, awareness-raising and benchmarking. For Norway the use of legislation in the form of quotas and affirmative action programmes has been the predominant strategy. Using empirical data collected in 2004–2005 on women's perceptions and experiences of corporate governance participation, this article critically examines these different policy strategies.

Handbook on Service Learning in Women’s Studies and the Disciplines (review)

Reviewed by: Handbook on Service Learning in Women’s Studies and the Disciplines Alice E. Ginsberg (bio) Dugger, Karen, ed. Handbook on Service Learning in Women’s Studies and the Disciplines. Towson, Md.: Institute for Teaching and Research on Women, 2008. 178 pp. The Handbook on Service Learning in Women’s Studies and the Disciplines makes a very important contribution to a field of literature that is growing within both women’s studies and higher education more generally. The idea that women’s studies students should be closely connected to the feminist community is not a new one. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when women’s studies courses began popping up on college campuses, they were very closely related to the feminist movement and other political movements, such as the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement. In fact, women’s studies was often referred to as the “academic arm” or “wing” of the women’s movement. That this tradition of joining theory and actual practice continues today is heartening, for this book reinforces the idea that there is no substitute for working hand-in-hand with communities in need, not as “knights in shining armor,” but as true partners working together for a common cause. Editor Karen Dugger has collected a diverse and rich array of essays on the value and definition of service-learning, reflections on how it is done, and course syllabi that highlight ways that service-learning can be incorporated into the whole of a women’s studies course and other related courses as well. As Dugger rightly notes in the introduction: “Service is not an end in itself. Rather, the service activity is organized to meet learning objectives and to enhance students’ understanding of the course material. . . . Simply adding a service requirement to an otherwise unchanged course is not service-learning . . . ” (2). She stresses that service-learning is different from simply “volunteering,” in that it places a high premium on “reflection.” Indeed she notes that: “The mechanism through which learning is harvested—the hyphen connecting service with learning—is reflection.” This point is illustrated in an essay by Natalie Jolly, who teaches women’s studies courses at Penn State University, in which she quotes a student in her class: “I have benefited from this project in ways [End Page 174] that I can’t even explain. If someone had told me at the beginning of the semester that my views would change so much towards the LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] community I would never have believed them . . . . Looking back, I find it very hard to believe that I ever possessed such views” (10). This revelation is similarly underscored in another essay, in which Ann Green, the director of the Gender Studies Program at St. Joseph’s University, writes: “It is one thing to read about compulsive heterosexuality and sexist oppression, but it is another thing to engage in weekly conversations with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth about the daily homophobia in their lives”(22). Dugger also stresses the importance of students seeing service-learning as a form of advocacy and activism rather than simply charity. She notes that service-learning should lead to the transformation of the community as well as the individual. Similarly, it is underscored that service-learning is very different from “internships,” which tend to “signal professionalization and self-advancement . . . . over social justice and personal transformation . . . ” (37). Ideally, service-learning should be an experience of teaching and learning for both the student and community partners. In at least one case, the authors strongly recommend that community partners be invited into the classroom to discuss the projects with the students. The contributing authors to the volume, however, do warn readers that assigning or choosing a project for service-learning can be tricky and should not be taken lightly. As Betsy Eudey, the director of gender studies at California State University- Stanislaus, reflects, for example, with a topic like domestic violence, instructors should be aware of the fact that “some students have personal experiences with violence, and their ability to participate in various aspects of the project may be shaped by these experience” (27). Moreover, it is noted that...

Forms of advocacy in social welfare work with homeless women

The article examines the practices of social welfare work with homeless women. The question asked is, what forms of advocacy can be identified in these practices, especially from the perspective of welfare rights? The research is conducted in a support point open to all homeless women, located in a large Finnish city. The data consist of a diary kept mainly by three practitioners between 21 August 2000 and 21 September 2001. The analysis, which focuses on 359 entries, shows that the diary contains elements of four different forms of advocacy: best interest advocacy; self- and consumer-controlled advocacy; partnership and personal advocacy; and citizen advocacy. The conclusions from the research have relevance to work with the most vulnerable groups in general and are of three kinds. Firstly, all forms of advocacy are significant, for they complement each other and make up for the deficiencies in other forms. Secondly, the support point functions as a refuge for the homeless women, from which contacts with other service systems are organised and negotiated. Thirdly, this kind of advocacy is needed, because vulnerable groups have the greatest risk of being excluded or mistreated in different service systems.

Occupational Therapists’ Role on U.S. Army and U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Disaster Mental Health Response Teams

Occupational Therapists’ Role on U.S. Army and U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps Disaster Mental Health Response Teams

Strategic Engagements: Exploring Instrumentalist Approaches to Engendering Development

ABSTRACT The introduction of a gender perspective within development has been done with the aim of enhancing the understanding of the situation of women and men, and boys and girls in the development process and bringing forth a transformational politics. In the endeavour to make gender a constitutive element of development, gender lobbies have often had to resort to instrumental forms of advocacy and implementation. The feminist critique of development has consistently highlighted the fact that for the most part, gender has been incorporated not as an end in and of itself but only as a means to other, broader development objectives. This paper discusses the debate surrounding instrumentalist approaches to mainstreaming gender and focuses on the strong nexus that has emerged within development practice between gender and poverty. In discussing how gender issues have entered the mainstream, the paper draws attention to some of the challenges that have arisen as a result of tackling gender issues through the poverty platform—specifically in the context of microcredit initiatives. The discussion highlights the implications for the transformative aspects of the gender project of the merger of gender and poverty agendas, as well as the strategic advantages emerging from such instrumentalist approaches. The paper concludes by underscoring and justifying the need for strategic engagements with development agencies in the struggle for gender-redistributive change.

A Differential Model of Advocacy in Social Work Practice

Although advocacy is a central aspect of social work practice, there is considerable variation in its purpose, aims, and roles within human services, infusing it with a rich and diverse character. On the basis of a differentiation of who controls the ends or outcomes of advocacy and who controls its means or process, the authors offer a differential model that encompasses four major traditions of advocacy within the profession: protecting the vulnerable, creating supports to enhance functioning, protecting and advancing claims or appeals, and fostering identity and control. The authors then identify four forms of advocacy and examine the conditions under which social workers are likely to employ each of the four variants.

Transnational/Domestic Constitutional Law

The Supreme Court's references to non-U.S. law in deciding constitutional cases, new treaty institutions associated with NAFTA and the WTO, and recent advocacy urging that U.S. courts should make non-U.S. law a rule of decision more often than they have - all these have generated a new critical literature arguing that these developments threaten domestic sovereignty and self-governance. This Essay attempts to describe precisely what the objections are, distinguishing between discrete objections focusing on particular constitutional problems and sovereignty-based objections. I argue that the discrete objections are not terribly strong and that the sovereignty-based ones re-state familiar arguments about judicial activism. The context is new, but the nature of the arguments is not. I conclude by suggesting that the critical literature is a form of interest-group advocacy of precisely the same kind that the literature criticizes as undermining domestic sovereignty and self-governance - which suggests that neither form of advocacy is really troubling.

Preventing child neglect and physical abuse: a role for pediatricians.

1. Howard Dubowitz, MD, MS* 1. *Professor of Pediatrics, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md After completing this article, readers should be able to: 1. Describe the importance of preventing child abuse and neglect. 2. Identify key risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect. 3. Delineate useful principles and practical guidance for pediatricians on screening, brief assessment, and initial management of problems related to child abuse and neglect. Preventing child abuse and neglect spares a child pain and suffering, both physical and psychological. This is intuitively and morally preferable to intervening “after the fact.” Further, early intervention or prevention may be more effective than later intervention. For example, the time when a family has a new baby often is described as “a window of opportunity,” and early efforts to support the family and strengthen their parenting abilities may be particularly effective and cost-effective. Child maltreatment is not a rare phenomenon. Data from the 3rd National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect revealed that approximately 1% of children were identified as abused and 1.5% as neglected in 1993, and these rates are likely the “tip of the iceberg.” A number of studies have found that as many as one in four girls and one in ten boys has been sexually abused during childhood. Another reason for preventing child abuse and neglect is its immense morbidity and significant mortality rates. Research has documented the multiple physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional sequelae of child maltreatment. Brain damage, learning problems, aggression, juvenile delinquency and adult criminal behavior, depression, and parenting difficulties are a few of the potential long-term problems. The goal of preventing child maltreatment fits well with the goals and scope of pediatrics. “As physicians who assume a responsibility for children’s physical, mental, and emotional progress from conception to maturity, pediatricians must be concerned with social and environmental influences, which have a major impact on the health …

Is advocacy at the heart of professional practice?

This article considers the meaning of advocacy and the various forms of advocacy in existence. The author discusses whether the nursing profession sees advocacy as being at the heart of professional practice. Some of the risks that may result from advocacy are also outlined.

“Truth” and Advocacy: A Feminist Perspective

ization then leads to the really interesting question of what forms of advocacy are acceptable in the academy? Feminist thinking about advocacy involves a complex rethinking of the nature of truth that belies caricatures of feminists as strident advocates in search of converts. In this article, we will demonstrate that dismissals of feminist pedagogy are inappropriate because everyone is an advocate, feminist research into the nature of knowledge repositions the questions about the nature of advocacy, and the reconceptualization of knowledge requires pedagogical changes.

Americans with disabilities act: Implications for family therapy

Abstract This article provides a review of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Public Law 101–596) and discusses its implications for family therapy. Consideration is given to the family therapist's proper form of advocacy of rights and therapeutic usage of the Act for empowering the individual with a disability and his or her family.

Looking after Unaccompanied Refugees

Government departments and government-commissioned inquiries repeatedly urge all those involved in child care to work together in the best interests of children. So, why aren't government departments doing the same when it comes to unaccompanied refugees? The situation of unaccompanied children who have arrived in Britain from former Yugoslavia, and other countries in turmoil, is increasingly becoming one of 'drift'as government departments with responsibility for different aspects of their lives and welfare fail to produce a coordinated response. Much pressure has been exerted on government to fall in line with other European countries and provide unaccompanied young people with some form of advocacy during asylum procedures. Hopefully, the Asylum and Immigration Appeals Bill, now in Committee Stage, will provide an opportunity for UK law to be brought in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN High Commission for Refugees Guidelines, which provide for children's representation. But like all legislative reforms, this will take time, and the current plight of unaccompanied refugees requires an immediate response. As in other disaster situations, such as in Romania, the well-intentioned private response is much more immediate, but there is already evidence that such initiatives turn into crises for the children involved. Separated from families and homes in traumatic circumstances, these children and young people are particularly vulnerable. It cannot be in their best interests for the UK programme of help to consist of largely voluntary effort. Of course voluntary organisations have a part to play, but what these unaccompanied children need above all is a feeling of security. The essential elements which might lead to such security: proper assessment, service according to need and careful monitoring can only be ensured on an equitable basis by government. In common with children leading settled lives in their home countries, refugees have housing, health and educational needs, but who assesses first of all the suitability of their carers? Is the status of their care private fostering? Who assumes financial and legal responsibilities for them? How are their ethnic, religious and cultural needs met? Prior to all these considerations, have measures been taken amidst the chaos they leave behind to locate relatives, obtain papers regarding identity, and reach any agreements about temporary custody? Once in the UK these children are the subject of immigration law and procedures and child care law and procedures. The Home Office, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department of Health and Department for Education, as well as local authorities, all have powers to look after them but only if they are aware of their existence. An impressive coalition of organisations representing the interests of children has emerged in the debate about the Asylum Bill. There are also noteworthy examples of private initiatives such as the BEARR Trust, established in 1991, (British Emergency Action in Russia and the Republics), one of whose aims is to coordinate aid and welfare projects. There is clearly a lot of expertise that could be harnessed as part of coordinated government action.

Nottingham advocacy group: Giving a voice to the users of mental health services

Abstract This paper outlines the development and work of Nottingham Advocacy Group, a unique body in the mental health field committed to user empowerment and giving service users a voice. It encompasses three broad forms of advocacy, designed to meet the needs of different groups of people and to operate in somewhat different ways. The essential role of effective user representation in the field of community care is discussed.