Sample Of Social Workers Research Articles

Early-Life Adversity and Choice of the Social Work Profession

Social work students have reported comparatively high incidences of adverse early-life experiences, yet little is known about the extent of these experiences among professional social workers or how they may affect the choice of social work. This study addresses many of the shortcomings of previous studies, with respondents drawn from a national random sample of social workers and a comparison group made up of college-educated professional persons outside of social work. The findings reveal that the social work sample was not characterized by greater early-life adversity than that found among professional persons generally. Possible interpretations include an association between early-life adversity and shorter stays in the profession, and cohort differences in occupational choice influences.

Homophobia and Use of Gay Affirmative Practice in a Sample of Social Workers and Psychologists

Researchers have previously found that social workers may be more homophobic than psychologists. This study revisits the topic and seeks to see if there are differences in the attitudes of social workers' and psychologists who are engaged in direct practice with clients. In addition, this study explores new territory by examining whether social workers and psychologists differ in their use of gay affirmative practice and discusses the impacts of these findings for gay and lesbian clients.

Examining Student-Field Instructor Problems in Practicum

Global measures of practicum satisfaction reported by social work students often fail to capture significant, specific problem behaviors of field instructors. A national random sample of social workers was asked to recall behaviorally specific problems with field instructors that occurred during concentration practicum. Although the majority experienced no problems with field instructors, a small but significant number experienced problems that generated moderate to severe levels of distress and impacted them as professionals. Exploratory factor analysis indicates that problematic supervisory behaviors have an underlying structure as suggested in the literature. Data results and implications for field education will be addressed.

Reporting client violence.

Much has been written about client violence against social workers; however, little attention has been given to reporting behavior of social workers who have been the target of such violence. The study discussed in this article documents the prevalence of client violence among a sample of social workers from a broad range of social work settings. It examines respondents' reasons for not reporting or for reporting client violence to management. A random sample of 300 social workers was mailed a questionnaire that examined these issues. A total of 171 questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 57 percent. The majority of respondents had experienced some form of violence from clients. Approximately one-quarter of respondents indicated that they did not report an incident of violence perpetrated against them by a client.

Prescription Privileges: Attitudes of Clinical Social Workers

From an initial survey on prescription privileges of a national sample of social workers, of the 176 respondents, 52% were opposed and 19% were in favor of prescription privileges.

Understanding Social Workers' Sense of Competence Within the Context of Organizational Change

ABSTRACT As large health care systems rapidly evolve, social work administrators struggle to help practioners maintain a sense of competence during a state of flux and uncertainty. Using a sample of social workers (N = 135) from seven Veteran Hospitals and one state hospital, the present study investigated the relationship of job and workers characteristics, change schema, and organizational change to workers' perceived competence. Workers with more practice experience, fewer distacting outside responisibilities, and higher levels of job satisfaction had a higher sense of competence. Positive change schema and positive perceptions of organizational climate were also significant predictors of competence. Organizational climate had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between social workers' change schema and their sense of competence. The findings have implications for social services administrators who are seeking to promote competence among practioners within the context of organizational change.

Supervision and mentoring in child and family social work: The role of the first-line manager in the implementation of the post-qualifying framework

This article examines how the support needs of candidates undertaking CCETSW's Post-qualifying awards may impact on traditional supervision as provided to child and family social workers. Based on pilot research which underpinned the University of Leicester's 'Post Graduate Certificate in Supervision and Mentorship (Child Care) by Distance Learning', this article describes how a small sample of social workers, first-line managers, staff development officers and senior managers, view the functions of supervision in their agencies, and what they think about the involvement of line managers in the process of mentoring and assessing staff working towards further qualifications. It is suggested that there may be difficulties associated with line managers acting as mentors, such as conflict of interest, lack of objectivity and inadequate preparation and training, but that such difficulties should not obscure the potential benefits. A key benefit involves line managers having an opportunity to refocus on the developmental and supportive aspects of supervision that may have been eroded over recent years in favour of a narrower, more managerial approach. The article concludes that, although the implementation of the PQ framework presents many challenges in relation to the role of the first-line manager, it has the potential to create work-place cultures of a more developmental and professional nature, which ultimately works to the advantage of those who use social work services.

Clinicians' Reasons for Rejecting Private Practice

Much attention has been focused on the attractions of independent social work practice and the motivations of individuals who choose to enter private practice on either a part-time or full-time basis. The author presents the findings of a study of a national sample of social workers eligible by their training and experience to engage in private practice but who for various reasons chose not to do so. Their reasons for not entering private practice are examined in light of previous research on the attractions of private practice as well as current challenges of private practice. The implications of these findings for structuring rewarding work experiences in agency contexts are discussed.

Aids-Related Knowledge and Attitudes of Social Workers in South Carolina

This study examines the association between knowledge of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and skill among social workers in South Carolina and attitudes toward people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS. A stratified random sampling method was used to obtain a representative sample of social workers in South Carolina. Findings show that AIDS-related knowledge and skill were significantly associated with improving the general attitudes of social workers toward HIV/AIDS clients. In addition to knowledge and skill-related measures, other significant covariates of attitudes include levels of contact with HIV/AIDS clients and sensitivity to minorities. As with previous studies, demographic variables such as age and gender were not found to be significantly related to variations in attitudes toward HIV/AIDS clients. Furthermore, locality of practice and supervisory position did not significantly correlate with attitudes. The implications of these findings for social services agencies are discussed.

The Role of Social Workers' Religious Beliefs in Helping Family Members Forgive

Practice experience suggests that forgiveness can strengthen family relationships and bring about social, psychological, and, for some, spiritual healing. This article presents a study from the first known quantitative investigation of social workers' attitude toward, theory of, and use of forgiveness in the clinical setting. Data were gathered from a sample of social workers, primarily testing the differences between a group of strongly religious practitioners and those with less religious conviction on five theoretical constructs: forgiveness attitude, forgiveness techniques, forgiveness and depression, forgiveness and anger, and religious openness. Although it was hypothesized that religious social workers would show favorable differences on all theoretical variables tested, they differed from less religious social workers only on attitude toward forgiveness. Several possible explanations for the findings are offered.

Worker Perceptions of Effectiveness and Minority-Relevant Education as a Function of Worker and Client Ethnicity

This study explores the relationship between perceived effectiveness of services delivered to minority clients, and the usefulness of education in the delivery of services, as reported by two national samples of social workers. This relationship was examined by using a national sample of minority social workers and a national sample of caucasian social workers, randomly selected from the Membership Directory of the National Association of Social Workers. The results indicate a stronger correlation between effectiveness and educational adequacy for the caucasian sample compared to the minority sample. In addition, the strength of the correlations change over the years. The data also suggest that the proportion of minority clients in a workers caseload results in differential perceptions of understanding of client problems and the presence of value conflicts.

Work Satisfaction in Probation and Social Work

SUMMARY The design and preliminary development of a research instrument intended to provide comparable measures of work satisfaction within different social work settings is des cribed. The results of administering it to two separate samples of social workers and probation officers are presented. It appears that probation officers feel themselves more highly regarded by members of the general public and are less likely to say they are badly paid; they enjoy more job autonomy; rather more social workers tend to feel alienated at work, but most believe that they have better chances of career advancement than is the case in the probation service. There are broad similarities between the two work settings so far as work with clients and attitudes towards colleagues are concerned; it is argued that the emergence of these similarities is methodologically reassuring because it suggests the stability of the data overall, and therefore increases the likelihood that the findings regarding agency dif ferences are a valid reflection of social reality in each setting. Most people between the ages of 20 and 60 spend a large proportion of their waking hours at work; their 'job' becomes an identifying feature of their personality and life-style; and the extent to which they find satisfaction in employment is a critical factor in their overall quality of life. There is an extensive literature concerned with work satisfaction in a

Community social work in egypt

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of community social work practice in Egypt. To achieve this a brief preliminary discussion of social work in Egypt is needed to place community social work in context. Also, empirical data are presented for a sample of social workers in Cairo in 1987. The paper concludes with the great importance of practising community social work in Egypt as a developing country.

Correspondence between occupational rewards and occupational needs and work satisfaction: A canonical redundancy analysis

The following hypothesis was derived from a general theory of work adjustment: the better the correspondence between occupational rewards and individual occupational needs, the greater will be employee satisfaction at work. Two samples of social workers were studied: one to obtain the occupational rewards levels, and the second to gauge individual occupational needs levels and satisfaction ratings with different work aspects. Then, vectors of difference scores between occupational needs and occupational rewards were computed for each of the subjects in the second sample, as a measure of the above correspondence.The canonical correlation analysis method was employed to ascertain the strength of association between these difference score vectors and satisfaction ratings among the subjects in the second sample. A canonical correlation of 0.84 (P<0.01) was revealed, indicating that a strong association exists. A canonical redundancy analysis was also taken as a precautionary measure. The conceptual implications of this analysis were discussed.

The Place of Knowledge in Social Work Activity

This study considers whether a small sample of social workers was using theoretical knowledge as a basis for activities in practice. The findings indicate that the use of this type of knowledge was minimal. They also bring to light a number of questions related to the development of knowledge for use in social work practice.

Role Expectations of Social Workers and Lawyers in the Juvenile Court

On the basis of data collected through a questionnaire from a sample of social workers and lawyers in a midwestern state, this study identifies the areas and extent of congruity and in congruity between the mutual expectations and perceptions of the two professions.