Organization Of Welfare Services Research Articles

Financial literacy and quality of life amongst cancer patients in Sri Lanka

Purpose: The quality of life has been widely examined by social science researchers with reference to different lifestyle-related issues of people across the world. It has made an eye-opening contribution by many authors educating the importance of quality of life for patients suffering from different diseases including cancers as one of the critical scopes. Alongside this, this study aimed to examine how financial literacy and social support could impact the quality of life of cancer patients in Sri Lanka with a rationale for its social and community impacts. 
 Design/methodology/approach: The variable of financial distress was considered the main independent variable within the scope of financial literacy to examine its influence on the quality of life of cancer patients. Additionally, this study investigated how social support influences the quality of life of cancer patients supported by empirical evidence. It followed a quantitative research method in line with the required inclusions for an acceptable methodology. Respondents were selected for the survey with a questionnaire followed by a convenient sampling method. The final analysis was limited to 187 respondents due to the incompletion of the questionnaires filled in by the sample units. The hypotheses were tested by using the CB-SEM model supported by Amos-23 software and the descriptive analysis was executed by using the SPSS-21 package. 
 Findings: The main findings of the study were discussed in the article in line with the two hypotheses tested. In brief, results proved that financial distress (FD) has a significant impact on the quality of life (QoL) of cancer patients. Additionally, it has tested the hypotheses related to how social support (SS) impacts on quality of life (QoL) of cancer patients. The results verified that social support experienced by cancer patients significantly influences the quality of life of cancer patients.
 Originality: The cancer patients in Sri Lanka should be supported by a holistic approach besides the treatments. Alongside this, this paper contributes new knowledge of examining how the quality of life of cancer patients has been influenced by financial distress and social support in line with the empirical and practice gaps noticed. In addition, this study contributes to the main scopes mentioned by sustainable development goals (SDG) with reference to the local context as it provides new knowledge for social and community-related issues. 
 Implications: The findings of the study could be used by the health sector authorities and social welfare service organizations to come up with policies and programs to make life better for cancer patients in terms of financial and social aspects. 
 Keywords: Quality of Life, Financial Literacy, Financial Distress, Social Support, Sri Lanka

Distinctive character and added value of civil society organizations - a collaborative project within the Swedish integration system

ABSTRACT Expectations on collaboration between public authorities and civil society organizations (CSOs) have increased in Sweden the past decades, partly due to changes in the organization of welfare services. This article investigates a collaborative project within the migrant integration policy area. It is a collaboration between the employment offices in a region of Sweden and local CSOs with the common goal of easing the integration of migrants. Theories about civil society as service providers emphasize a possible added value of these non-statutory services related to CSOs distinct character. This link has seldom been empirically investigated. This article explores the distinctive character and added value of CSOs as they unfold in a collaborative project. Two previous studies were conducted by the researchers and this study is an extrapolation of the results. The analysis shows that discrepancies between CSOs and public authorities related to both ideology and organizational logics can be linked to an added value for the participants of the project. Paradoxically, the tensions and discrepancies enabled activities revolving around a more personal and informal understanding of integration that departed from the government agencies’ agenda whilst at the same time being enabled through the collaboration with them.

Elderly women living alone in Spain: the importance of having children

Our goal in this paper is to analyse the extent to which completed fertility, and in particular childlessness, is a valid predictor of living alone at advanced ages, an increasingly important residential option in advanced societies with crucial implications for social policy design and the organization of welfare services. Based on micro-data from the 2011 Spanish population census, logistic regression techniques are used to assess the impact of fertility on living alone among elderly women net the effect of age, marital status, educational attainment, and other standard population controls. Our results show a clear relationship between completed fertility and living alone. Childlessness is strongly associated with living alone, while having offspring acts as a powerful buffer against living alone, particularly in larger families. A relevant conclusion of this study is that a growing deficit of family resources available for the elderly women will take place in those societies where low fertility and high rates of childlessness have prevailed in recent decades, leading to substantial growth in the number of childless elderly women and in the incidence of living alone during later life.

Cross-Validation of the Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS) in Child Welfare Service Organizations.

The Implementation Leadership Scale (ILS) is a brief, pragmatic, and efficient measure that can be used for research or organizational development to assess leader behaviors and actions that actively support effective implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs). The ILS was originally validated with mental health clinicians. This study validates the ILS factor structure with providers in community-based organizations (CBOs) providing child welfare services. Participants were 214 service providers working in 12 CBOs that provide child welfare services. All participants completed the ILS, reporting on their immediate supervisor. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to examine the factor structure of the ILS. Internal consistency reliability and measurement invariance were also examined. Confirmatory factor analyses showed acceptable fit to the hypothesized first- and second-order factor structure. Internal consistency reliability was strong and there was partial measurement invariance for the first-order factor structure when comparing child welfare and mental health samples. The results support the use of the ILS to assess leadership for implementation of EBPs in child welfare organizations.

Validating the Implementation Climate Scale (ICS) in child welfare organizations

There is increasing emphasis on the use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in child welfare settings and growing recognition of the importance of the organizational environment, and the organization's climate in particular, for how employees perceive and support EBP implementation. Recently, Ehrhart, Aarons, and Farahnak (2014) reported on the development and validation of a measure of EBP implementation climate, the Implementation Climate Scale (ICS), in a sample of mental health clinicians. The ICS consists of 18 items and measures six critical dimensions of implementation climate: focus on EBP, educational support for EBP, recognition for EBP, rewards for EBP, selection or EBP, and selection for openness. The goal of the current study is to extend this work by providing evidence for the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the ICS in a sample of child welfare service providers. Survey data were collected from 215 child welfare providers across three states, 12 organizations, and 43 teams. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated good fit to the six-factor model and the alpha reliabilities for the overall measure and its subscales was acceptable. In addition, there was general support for the invariance of the factor structure across the child welfare and mental health sectors. In conclusion, this study provides evidence for the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the ICS measure for use in child welfare service organizations.

Is Sweden Being Torn Apart? Privatization and Old and New Patterns of Welfare State Support

AbstractThis article examines the potential impact of institutional change on popular welfare support. The encompassing welfare state of Sweden provides an interesting case where the privatization of social service delivery has been widespread over the last decades. We use survey data from five rounds of the Swedish Welfare State Survey (1992, 1997, 2002, 2006 and 2010) in order to study how public preferences for the financing and organization of welfare services have changed over time. Based on a theory describing an ideal‐typical pattern of public support for an encompassing welfare model, we derive three types of public preferences: support for a pure state model, a pure market model and a mixed model (welfare services are funded by taxes but provided by private firms). We begin by tracking the development of these ideal‐typical attitude patterns between 1992 and 2010. We then investigate how preference patterns vary across municipalities displaying different degrees of privatization of social service delivery. Our results show that welfare support among Swedes over the last decades is better characterized as dynamic rather than stable. Swedes seem to take an overall more ideologically based position on the role of the welfare state over time. The share of respondents expressing such ideologically based preferences has increased from 54 per cent in 1992 to 78 per cent in 2010. This change is principally manifested in increased support for the state and mixed models. This trend seems to be parallel to the increasing share of private welfare service providers over the last decade. We also find a link between the municipal degree of privatization and support for our three ideal‐typical welfare models. Public support for a mixed welfare model and, to some extent, a market model, is comparatively stronger in municipalities where welfare services to a large extent are carried out by private actors. Conversely, data shows that public support for the traditional Swedish state model is more widespread in municipalities having a low degree of welfare services privatization. Lastly, we discuss some theoretical implications of our findings.

Die Bedeutung der Organisation im Prozess der Fallkonstitution

The classification of symptoms and characteristics of clients is an important part of professional work in health and welfare services.The definition of »what is wrong« or »what sort of problem is this« is a complex process by which professionals negotiate problem formulation together with other professionals and/or clients. This article is concerned with how a case is actually constituted. Therefore the article compares four examples of youth welfare service organizations and analyzes differences in case formulation between these organizations.

사회복지시설 네트워크 구조적 특성 - 부산 사회복지 개별기관의 네트워크 활동을 중심으로 -

본 연구는 사회복지서비스 조직간 네트워크의 구조적인 특성과 이러한 특성에 미치는 영향요인을 알아보고자 하는데 그 목적이 있다. 또한 네트워크 내용별 특성과 중심적인 역할을 하는 기관이 어떠한 기관인지를 살펴보고자 하였다. 이를 통해 사회복지서비스 조직간 관계를 규명하고 클라이언트 중심의 효과적인 서비스 전달을 위한 조정과 통합의 방안을 제시하는데 있어 기초자료를 제공함에 있다. 분석결과, 내용별 네트워크의 상대적인 활발성 순서는 정보교환, 클라이언트의뢰, 자원교환의 순으로 나타났으며, 개별기관의 네트워크 성향에 미치는 요인들로는 선행 이론들 중 직위, 모임수, 조직유형, 네트워크 경험 등의 유의미한 영향력이 경험적으로 일부 인정 되었다. The purpose of this study, decision factors about network characteristics among Social Welfare service organizations and individuals are defined to obtain proper empirical bases for building systematic human service network in the local community bases. As results of analysis, Firstly The order of density is shown as follows the information exchange, the client refer, the resource exchange. Secondly The result about the analysis whether the level factor of the organizational members and organizations affect positively is summarized as follows.it is shown that the number of meeting, organizational type, the prior experience of networking affect positively.

Interprofessional collaboration – a matter of differentiation and integration? Theoretical reflections based in the context of Norwegian childcare

This paper presents a selection of theoretical approaches illuminating some aspects of interprofessional collaboration, which will be related to theory of contingency as well as to the concepts of differentiation and integration. Theories that describe collaboration on an interpersonal as well as inter-organizational level are outlined and related to dynamic and contextual factors. Implications for the organization of welfare services are elucidated and a categorization of internal and external collaborative forms is proposed. A reflection model is presented in order to analyse the degree of integration in collaborative work and may serve as an analytical tool for addressing the linkage between different levels of collaboration and identifying opportunities and limitations. Some implications related to the legal mandate(s) given to childcare agencies are discussed in relation to the context of childcare in Norway.

Community Reactions to the SARS Crisis in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This paper is based on an analysis of the calls to a time-limited hotline specifically set up in response to the SARS crisis in Hong Kong in 2003. The findings of the study indicate that the arena and level of concern raised by the hotline callers are associated with the situation of the callers and the developmental phase of the disaster. The authors call for welfare service organizations to adopt a differential service focus for different phases of disaster development, when they are confronted with similar public health hazards in the future. The study also identifies the special role played by women in containing the epidemic, and suggests more gender sensitive intervention planning in addressing the needs of women in their gate-keeping and care-giving roles during an epidemic.

Responding to Uncertainty

This paper examines the educational implications of recent transformations in the organization of welfare services. Three educational approaches are identified: acquiescence to the managerial ethos that increasingly characterizes public welfare provision; renewed commitment to critical social work principles; and new approaches which combine critical and postmodern perspectives and embrace uncertainty and dialogue as a basis for educational practice. The paper argues that postmodern ideas, though continuously problematic, can be used within critical social work education to continue progressive struggles under conditions of rapid change and uncertainty. The authors use excerpts from their dialogue with each other which reflect some of the differences between them and their own particular responses to uncertainty.

Pakistan: Co-operative Ventures in Social Welfare

The creation of the state of Pakistan, following in the wake of the bloody partition, the mass migrations, as well as the resultant concentration of people, culminated in a situation where the human needs could only be fulfilled through organ ized and planned social welfare. Industrialization was the apparent need for a largely agricultural country. But the Muslim population with its inbred tradition of social justice and equality reinforced the stress on social welfare. There emerged, therefore, a policy that demanded a balance between economic and social planning. Social work begun by volunteers was shaped by government efforts. International assistance was requested and personnel was secured to institute the needy training of local persons. Among the varied projects which developed, perhaps the most noteworthy was the emergence of the Village-Aid Programs and the Urban Community Develop ment Programs. The simultaneous activity of the government and the voluntary agencies facilitated rapid and dramatic prog ress in the planning and organization of welfare services.—Ed.