Local Social Services Research Articles

Living Conditions of Internally Displaced Persons in the Ciscarpathian Region in Context of the Russian War against Ukraine

The article is devoted to the difficult material, housing and everyday situation of internally displaced persons in one of the territorial communities in the Ciscarpathian region. One of the centers of the territorial community of Ivano-Frankivsk region at the beginning of the Russian open armed aggression managed to accept a significant number of refugees from the war on its territory, who were placed in various community owned institutions (so-called collective centers), religious organizations, and local medical institutions. Along with them, shelters of private and municipal ownership appeared on the territory of the community, where their strict rules of stay were in effect, but where people have found a small share of private comfort in the conditions of life’s wanderings. Many problems appeared over time with the arrangement of the living space of forced resettlers in this community centers for the acceptance of such people due to their individual needs, the organization of collective everyday life and the satisfaction of their social and natural rights. As a result, significant misunderstandings later emerged within the immigrant community, which caused suffering for some individuals in this group. This sowed considerable uncertainty about the future of these families, where they will find themselves tomorrow, because their own home, although it survived, became a traumatic page in their lives. Being around the elderly, it was very common to hear anxious questions filled with fear and doubt: ‘Won’t they relocate us from here?’. In general, arranging the personal space of forced resettlers, including people with special needs (persons with physical disabilities, people with psychological injuries and deviations, elderly persons) in the conditions of the ongoing Russia’s war against Ukraine, is a great challenge both for local authorities and relevant social services, and for public and volunteer organizations.

Penerapan Data Mining Untuk Klasifikasi Penerima Dana Bantuan Sosial Dengan Menggunakan Algoritma K-Nearest Neighbor

The Social Assistance Fund (Bansos) is a government program carried out to assist in eradicating community poverty in Indonesia and improving the welfare of families in Indonesia. Social Assistance Funds (Bansos) are distributed from the central ministry, then forwarded to local social services and then distributed to the community through each sub-district office. After data collection is carried out, the process of determining and selecting the families who receive Social Assistance Funds (Bansos) is carried out. However, in the implementation process there were several obstacles, one of which was that the provision of Social Assistance Funds (Bansos) was still not on target for families who deserved to receive Social Assistance Funds (Bansos). This problem is an important matter that must be resolved, this is because the main aim of the Social Assistance Fund (Bansos) program is to help eradicate poverty in Indonesia. Reviewing and processing data again based on previous data can be completed using one of the computer techniques. Data mining is a technique used to reprocess data. Data processing returns to data mining based on data previously stored in a data collection or data warehouse. Classification is part of data mining which aims to find out certain models of data so that they can be divided into several classes or groups. The K-Nearest Neighbor (K-NN) algorithm is part of a data mining technique which aims to divide data into certain groups. The results obtained in the research are the K value used in the research, namely K=7, the result of the family data grouping process which has just determined that the family received Social Assistance Funds (Bansos).

Can text messages reduce incarceration in rural and vulnerable populations?

AbstractReducing failures to appear (FTA) in court is a top priority for criminal justice practitioners and advocates. However, existing work on reducing FTAs through text message reminders focuses on large urban jurisdictions and defendants who are housed. Using a field study in Shasta County, California, we evaluate whether text message outreach can increase court appearances for housed and unhoused populations. We find housed defendants randomly assigned to the treatment group were 10% less likely to miss their next scheduled court date than defendants in the control group. We find no statistical difference in the FTA rate of unhoused individuals assigned to treatment or control groups, and cannot rule out large positive or negative effects. We find that improving the quality of contact information in court records could lead to large reductions in FTAs. Partnering with local social service providers may not, but more research is needed.

SOCIAL SERVICE CENTERS IN THE LOCAL SUPPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

Support for individuals, families or groups still remains an important need and task in contemporary society. It can be carried out by professionals and non-professionals, entities and institutions whose task is to be active in changing the situation into the desired and beneficial one, solving problems, satisfying individual needs or sensitivity, willingness to help, and providing services for people in need. This text is devoted to social service centers, the purpose of which - in accordance with the intention of the legislator - is to create and coordinate integrated local social service systems that will respond to social needs and new civilization challenges. The aim of this study was to identify the basic aspects of creating and functioning of social service centers, with particular emphasis on their tasks, functions and organizational structure. The consequence of the analyzes of these entities is the approximation and popularization of their idea as important institutions in meeting the needs of people and families at the local level, co-creating the social support infrastructure.

Contradictions Within the Swedish Welfare System: Social Services’ Homelessness Strategies Under Housing Inequality

Sweden has seen a rise in homelessness alongside its strained housing market. References are increasingly being made to structural problems with housing provision, rather than individual issues. Housing has been organized through the local social services, which are responsible for supporting homeless people. With a foundation in housing studies, this article analyzes the Swedish social services’ challenges and actions in a time in which affordable housing is in shortage, and housing inequality a reality, through the lens of social services. The focus is on the intersection between the regular housing market and housing provision (primary welfare system), the social services needs‐tested support (secondary welfare system), and the non‐profit and for‐profit organizations (tertiary welfare system), with emphasis on the first two. The article is based on interviews with people working for the City of Malmö and illustrates how the housing shortage problem is moved around within the welfare system whilst also showing that social services’ support for homeless individuals appears insufficient. Social services act as a “first line” gatekeeper for those who have been excluded from the regular housing market. Moreover, recently implemented restrictions aim to make sure that the social services do not act as a “housing agency,” resulting in further exclusion from the housing market. The article highlights how the policies of the two welfare systems interact with and counteract each other and finally illustrates how homeless individuals fall between them. It highlights the need to link housing and homelessness in both research and practice to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of housing markets and how homelessness is sustained.

Pathways to Empowerment as a working method for local social support services.

According to recent legislation, support provided by local authorities in the Netherlands ought to be strengths-based and empower inhabitants to gain control over their lives. This study examined the outcomes, critical elements and working mechanisms of Pathways to Empowerment (PTE), a person-centered, strengths-based intervention, in local social support services provided by a medium size Dutch local authority, from the perspective of citizens needing support. A year after implementation of PTE, semi-structured face-to-face interviews were held with 17 citizens onto their experiences with the provided support with PTE, inquiring their experiences with certain principles of PTE and the changes the support has brought into their lives. The outcomes of support with PTE were: resilience, self-consciousness, positive connections and access to resources and services. According to citizens, 'being there', an empowering approach, listening and taking them seriously, focusing on strengths and qualities, working on naturally occurring resources and made-to-measure support is what makes support with PTE work. Working mechanisms connecting the critical elements with the reported outcomes were: building trust and rapport in the client-professional relationship, stimulating trust in and empowerment of self, stimulating social trust and awareness of naturally occurring resources, as well as support, guidance and mediation. The results of this study can help local authorities to better substantiate their choice for applying strengths-based interventions, like PTE, in local social support services.

Reasons for Not Adopting COVID-19 Permitted Changes to Legal Duties: Accounts from English Local Authorities

In England, “easements,” introduced via the Coronavirus Act 2020, were brought in at the start of the pandemic to support English local authority adult social care services. They enabled local authorities to suspend some of their mandatory duties under the Care Act 2014. Easements were only adopted by eight local authorities and for short periods, and the provision was rescinded in late 2021. This article examines why a sample of 16 local authorities, some of which were statistically close to the eight local authorities that did decide to use easements, decided not to do so. It draws on data from interviews undertaken in 2021 with Directors of Adult Services and Principal Social Workers that explored their decision-making about using easements. It also outlines their preparations prior to the pandemic reaching England, how they had operated using “flexibilities” within the Care Act thus not needing to adopt easements, and their views on those authorities that had adopted them.

Multiple Chronic Conditions and Disability among Vietnamese Older Adults: Results from the Vietnamese Aging and Care Survey (VACS).

Using data from Vietnamese-origin older immigrants/refugees in the Houston, Texas area, we assessed their overall health, chronic conditions, disability, depressive symptoms, and cognitive impairment, and examined the association between their chronic conditions and disability by comorbidity clusters. The mean age of the sample was 76years old. The majority were married in fair/poor health with several chronic conditions and disabilities and lived with families in low-income households. Hypertension and arthritis were the most common health conditions, but cognitive impairment had the most significant impact on their disability. They experienced similar health conditions to other older Americans but had higher rates of depressive symptoms and cognitive impairment possibly due to cultural factors that may have delayed mental health treatment. Culturally and linguistically tailored services created by policymakers, healthcare professionals, and local social service agencies are recommended for the well-being of immigrants/refugees who migrated to the U.S. for a better life.

Livelihood Strategies during the COVID-19 Epidemic in Materially Disadvantaged Roma Communities from Covasna County, Romania

The study aims to analyze the livelihood strategies related to the labour market during the coronavirus pandemic in the context of the material and income situation in Roma communities in a multicultural rural area of Covasna County, Romania. The data source comprises adapted sociological research that was carried out using multiple methods in 2021, in three localities: Boroșneu, Ojdula, and Zăbala in Covasna County, Romania. Of the dimensions examined, housing deprivation, material deprivation, and unemployment were of particular importance. Based on these dimensions, we analyzed the local economic situation and social services; we then developed a typology of dimensions to analyze the livelihood strategies of Roma groups from different socio-economic backgrounds during the coronavirus pandemic. We tried to answer questions about the changes and ways of adaptation in the livelihood strategies of Roma communities to the restrictions that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic in Romania from 2020–2021. The results of the research show that during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the material and income situations worsened for people previously employed in the informal labour market, involved in precarious work, and those of very low work intensity in selected rural Roma communities in Covasna County. Neither the regulations and legal measures introduced, nor the social protection system, was sensitive to the needs of the Roma, who were the most vulnerable to the social consequences of the pandemic restrictions.

The Best Welfare Deal: Retirement Migrants as Welfare Maximizers

Retirement migration within Europe has increased enormously since the 1990s. It now involves millions of elderly Europeans moving from Central/Northern Europe (UK, Germany, Scandinavia) to Mediterranean countries (Malta, Portugal, Spain) in search of a better quality of life. Most previous research departs from an ethnographic perspective to look at the personal experiences and motivations of retirement migrants. In this paper, we adopt a macro-level perspective to address the use that retirement migrants make of the European framework of social rights. We aim to understand (a) to what extent do retirement migrants living in Spain ask for help from the local Social Services when they enter into dependency? (b) Do retirement migrants engage in strategies to maximize their welfare rights? To answer these questions, we carried out qualitative phone interviews with the coordinators of Social Services that cover 80 (out of 119) of the Spanish municipalities with larger numbers of retirement migrants (more than 30% of elderly residents are foreigners).

Country Folk in Russia: Specific of Social Integration

The article presents the analysis of social integration factors of the country folk, living in four rural areas in Belgorod region (Russia). The study had two stages and included quantitative as well as qualitative research methods: first of all, the survey (n = 715) of country people aged 18–70 in order to explore the specific features of their social integration process; secondly, the expert survey (n = 23) devoted to study the activities of main social agents, managing regional social policy and including government and non-government organizations. As a result, the main factors, influencing the effectiveness of social integration of the country folk have been identified: 1) the maintenance of traditions and an active participation in rural community's life; 2) the infrastructure's development and the transportation accessibility; 3) the economy's type; 4) the type of settlement (town, village); 5) the degree of trust in local authorities and the assessment of local social services' activities. It is essential to take into account that the current processes of social integration of the country people, on the one hand, are due to the consequences of urbanization as a world trend and, on the other hand, it is due to the influence of a new, reverse process of de-urbanization. The results of the study conclude that current state social policy should be more effective to bridge the gap between the social conditions of people living in cities and rural areas, especially with regard to the access to education, health and social services, transportation, employment, etc. The improvement of quality of life of villagers allows to revive the most of rural settlements and attract youth to village.

Building a Functioning Multi-sector Coalition: A Case Study from the Jerome Avenue Public Health Taskforce.

As a result of the Jerome Avenue Corridor re-zoning in Bronx, New York, the Jerome Avenue Public Health Task-force was convened by local elected officials in December 2018. Facilitated by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the taskforce consists of a core group of 15 committed organizations from local civic, government, healthcare, and social service agencies, as well as neighborhood residents. Striving to address common challenges faced by diverse partners, the taskforce implemented intentional strategies to enable transparent communication and tackle power dynamics. Best practices and lessons learned from this high-functioning coalition can serve as a model for future multi-sector collective action dedicated to health and community planning.

Improving Health and Addressing Social Determinants of Health Through Hospital Partnerships.

Hospitals and health systems are forming partnerships to develop an integrated social network of services that better address the needs of their surrounding communities and their social determinants of health (SDOH). There is little research on the association of these partnered services with hospital outcomes. This study examined the association between hospital social need partnerships and activities to improve hospital and community outcomes. A secondary cross-sectional design to analyze 2021 census data of nonfederal short-term acute care hospitals in the United States was utilized. Data were obtained from the American Hospital Association. Four multilevel logistic regression models were used to analyze data from 1005 hospitals. The authors found that hospital partnership type differed in association to social need outcomes. They found that hospitals with a partnership with health insurance providers were more likely to have better health outcomes. Hospitals partnered with health insurance providers, local organizations addressing housing insecurity, local businesses, or chambers of commerce were more likely to have decreased health care costs. Hospitals partnered with health care providers, health insurance providers, local organizations providing legal assistance, or law enforcement/safety forces were more likely to have decreased utilization of hospital services. However, hospitals partnered with other local or state government or social service organizations were less likely to indicate decreased utilization of services. Many hospitals and health systems across the United States are screening for SDOH and are advancing health care delivery and improving the community's overall health and well-being by identifying unmet social needs and partnering with the community to address them.

Planning and designing universal access to social services. A pioneering local program on welfare spaces in Italy

The combined effect of socio-economic and demographic changes exerts pressure on the welfare systems and makes it more urgent to provide appropriate answers to increasing and diversifying needs with scanter resources. Local social services are strongly committed to such challenges. The physical features of the spaces of welfare, often neglected both by research and by implementation, play a fundamental role in the attempt to innovate and extend access to social assistance services. The article analyses how, at the urban level, the interplay between urban planning and welfare policies might contribute to reshaping the traditional physical structures of social welfare services and, through these, the patterns of access to local welfare. Building on an experimental project tested and then consolidated in Milan, the article analyses the role of the spatial dimensions of welfare places, namely the contexts, settings and artefacts, in increasing accessibility, lowering the threshold, reducing stigmatization, ensuring (or not) the coherence between policies and programmes’ objectives and approaches and the features of the spaces where such programmes and policies are implemented and where citizens experience them. Moreover, it discusses alternative planning strategies and tools in use to design the current spaces for welfare and to govern their distribution and organisation at the city level.

Perceived benefits of digital health and social services among older adults: A population-based cross-sectional survey.

The aim of this study was to describe the benefits of digital health and social services perceived by older adults and to examine factors associated with perceiving these benefits. Several factors related to (a) sociodemographic characteristics, (b) area of residence, (c) physical, cognitive, psychological, and social functioning, and (d) Internet use, were examined. The present sample included 8019 respondents aged between 75 and 99 years. The inverse probability weighting method was used to correct for bias. Linear regression analyses were used to examine the associations. The ease of use of the services regardless of the time and location was perceived as the most beneficial. Convenient distance to local health or social services (parameter estimate = 0.15 [0.08-0.23]), good functional ability (PE = 0.08 [0.01-0.14]), good vision (PE = 0.15 [0.04-0.25]), ability to learn (PE = 0.05 [0.01-0.10]) and living with someone (PE = 0.08 [95% CI 0.04-0.13]) were associated with perceiving more benefits. In addition, access to the Internet (PE = 0.12 [0.06-0.19]) and independent use of the Internet (PE = 0.23 [0.17-0.29]) were associated with perceiving more benefits. Older adults who are healthier, have a social relationship in their everyday life or have easier access to traditional services seem to perceive more benefits from digital health and social services. Digital services should be developed to correspond with special needs caused by disadvantages in health and the social environment. To facilitate the use of digital health and social services, more efforts should be made to enhance older adults' perceptions of their benefits.

Social work in Ukraine: development trends and problems before and during the war with Russia

The article is devoted to the analysis of development trends and problems of social work in Ukraine before and during the war with Russia. Using the method of historical analogy, the author examines the main trends and problems of the development of social work in Ukraine. Poland was chosen as a country that is culturally, historically, politically, economically and socially close to Ukraine. The article notes that there is a certain lag between the passage of the main stages in the development of social work in Ukraine and Poland. As the main trends in the development of social work in Ukraine before the start of military aggression by Russia, the article highlights the development of integrated social services and social work in communities, the establishment of effective professional training of social workers for work in local social services, etc. The main problems of pre-war social work include the lack of personnel for social agencies, the low level of prestige and wages of social workers compared to representatives of other professions, the lagging of formal education systems from the needs of professional activity, etc. Russia's military aggression made certain adjustments to social work in Ukraine and Poland. According to the results of the interview of managers and leading specialists of social agencies of the city of Kharkiv, as well as Sumy, Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions, which was conducted by the Department of Sociology of Management and Social Work of the School of Sociology of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in November 2022, the main problems of activities of social workers in Ukraine are the absence of generally safe working conditions, as well as the absence of conditions for the performance of their official duties, insufficient personnel and/or their overload. In Poland, however, there were problems with establishing communication with forcibly displaced persons, it was also actualized the practices of providing psychological assistance to war victims, the workload of the personnel of social agencies increased significantly and others. The article concludes that the war with Russia and the problems in the activities of social agencies in Ukraine, to which it led, became a significant challenge for social work, capable to change the trends of its development

Influence of local ECEC policy on the quality of ECEC centers in the Netherlands

This study investigated the influence of local governance at the level of municipalities on the process quality of ECEC centers for 2- to 4-year-olds in the context of a privatized, marketized and decentralized ECEC system with both for-profit and not-for-profit providers. We studied the relation between local policy and ECEC-quality in a sample of 157 ECEC centers nested in 36 municipalities, with a total of 299 observations of process quality at two measurement waves. The results showed significant differences between municipalities in the observed emotional and behavioral support and engaged support for learning of the ECEC centers: 23% of the variance in emotional and behavioral support and 14% of the variance in engaged support for learning could be attributed to the municipal level. Contrary to our expectations, differences between municipalities in ECEC quality were not related to formal indicators of compliance with national legal requirements nor with formal indicators of coordination and quality assurance. However, exploratory analyses revealed that ‘soft’ horizontal governance of local networks of collaborating services was significantly associated with the engaged support for learning provided at ECEC centers. The local network governance measure included indicators of a mission-driven focus on reaching out to children and families with less financial resources, low educated parents or a migration background, collaboration of ECEC with other local social services to provide support for children and families with additional needs, and coordination of professional development and quality monitoring. Therefore, a more pronounced focus in ECEC policy on encouraging and monitoring local network governance is recommendable in hybrid, decentralized systems.

Exploring the Implementation of Workplace-Focused Primary Prevention Efforts to Reduce Family Violence in a Regional City: The Need for Clarity, Capacity, and Communication.

In response to the high burden of family and domestic violence (FDV), The Australian National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children has established that primary prevention measures are necessary to reduce FDV's harmful impacts on health. The Community, Respect, and Equality (CRE) project is a primary prevention initiative aimed towards changing harmful social norms and practices that enable FDV in Geraldton, Western Australia. Organizations affiliated with the CRE are required to promote gender equality and a respectful work environment. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the impact and effectiveness of such interventions, especially in rural/regional areas. As such, this study served to evaluate the project's effectiveness in a CRE-certified workspace, a local non-profit social services provider. Investigators conducted interviews to learn how the organization had implemented the CRE, and whether the CRE had had an impact on social norms and practices within the work environment. Findings indicated that the project had largely failed to permeate workplace culture due to a lack of effective promotion, low perceived benefits, and low resources. Future interventions must take persuasive measures, even for organizations perceived to be receptive to change.

A realist approach to understanding alliancing within Local Government public health and social care service provision.

Within the current context of continued austerity and post-pandemic recovery, it remains important that Local Government services address the increasing needs of residents as cost-effectively as possible. Alliancing, whereby services work collaboratively focusing on the 'whole-system', has gained popularity as a tool with the potential to support collaborative whole systems approaches. This synthesis aims to identify how alliancing can be successfully operationalised in the commissioning of public health, wider National Health Service (NHS) and social care-related services. A realist literature synthesis was undertaken in order to identify underlying generative mechanisms associated with alliancing, the contextual conditions surrounding the implementation and operationalisation of the alliancing approach mechanisms, and the outcomes produced as a result. An iterative approach was taken, using a recent systematic review of the effectiveness of Alliancing, online database searches, and grey literature searches. Three mechanistic components were identified within the data as being core to the successful implementation of alliances in public health and social care-related services within Local Government: (i) Achieving a system-level approach; (ii) placing local populations at the heart of the system; and (iii) creating a cultural shift. Programme theories were postulated within these components. The alliancing approach offers an opportunity to achieve system-level change with the potential to benefit local populations. The realist synthesis approach taken within this study has provided insights into the necessary contextual and mechanistic factors of the Alliancing approach, above and beyond effectiveness outcomes typically collected through more conventional evaluation methodologies.

Three Nordic countries responding to COVID-19 – Eldercare perspectives

Comparative international studies show that about half of the deceased in the COVID-19 pandemic were persons living in institutional and residential eldercare. As seniors are the most affected age group, we aim to study if and to what extent the eldercare services were included in the National Pandemic Plans, and how they were included in the response during the first phase of the pandemic in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. We use the CRISMART approach to crisis documentation and analysis in comparing national response to the pandemic for the eldercare sector. The method enables comparison of extraordinary crisis situations from the decision-making and policy-making perspective. We found that there were both similarities and differences in the preparedness of the three Nordic countries, as well as in how they responded to the pandemic. In all three countries the focus of the national responses framed the problem as a health and healthcare services’ problem. We also found value conflicts in the response between the value of protection versus social contact and self-determination and hence relating to the quality of eldercare. Keeping in mind the proportional increase of elderly people, care challenges, and future crises, we must strengthen the position of local social services within the emergency management systems to enhance disaster resilience and sustainability of our societies.