Social Work Agencies Research Articles

Older Chinese migrants’ social connectedness in Aotearoa New Zealand during Covid-19

INTRODUCTION: The Covid-19 pandemic potentially increased loneliness among older Chinese migrants. There is a paucity of literature on the use of digital technology by this older population in Aotearoa New Zealand. Computer-mediated communication may assist in ameliorating loneliness through maintaining connections. METHOD: Using semi-structured interviews, two groups of participants were recruited from a social work agency serving older adults in a small study conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand. Three community social workers who work with this population were interviewed along with five older Chinese migrants. FINDINGS: Community social workers recognised the potential for digital technology to enhance connectedness for older migrants, although they were concerned by the barriers posed by skills, confidence, and language. The older migrants did not report loneliness and reported good social connections. Having time available to learn new skills, most older participants embraced digital technology, with some concerns about the possible risks of using digital platforms, a concern shared by social workers. IMPLICATIONS: The impact of Covid-19 globally changed how people could interact with one another and carry out daily routines. This small study confirms the potential for enhanced connections for older migrants, particularly under pandemic conditions utilising communications technology.

Navigating suicidality: swedish social workers’ approaches to identifying and supporting suicidal clients

ABSTRACT This study examines how Swedish social workers across various social work agencies identify and support suicidal clients. Thematic analysis of interviews with seven social workers reveals a reliance on strong client relationships and past experiences with suicidal clients. The social workers consistently assess severity of suicidal intent in clients. Despite variations in roles, social workers generally express comfort in dealing with suicidal clients by using intuition, discretion and professional and organizational logics to support suicidal clients in personalized ways. The exercise of professional discretion and interventions varies based on roles, work conditions, and relationships with suicidal clients. Notably, social workers in addiction recovery outpatient care exhibit a high degree of discretionary power, while youth treatment workers in residential care units prioritize continuity of care, involving psychiatry when needed. Case workers often view psychiatry as responsible for decisions about suicidal clients and routinely refer them to psychiatric care.

Practitioner Perspectives on Agency Social Work in Children and Families Social Work in England

Abstract This article examines practitioner perspectives on agency social work in Local Authority Children’s Services Departments in England. There have been ongoing concerns about the use of agency workers, relating to cost, quality and impact on services, despite a recognition that temporary staff may be needed for a range of reasons. However, recent labour shortages and the escalating costs of agency staffing are fuelling calls for some form of regulation of agency workers. The article reviews literature on agency workers from the UK and elsewhere. It presents demographic survey data about agency workers drawn from a five-year longitudinal study on the recruitment and retention of child and family social workers and reports qualitative data from forty semi-structured interviews with social workers in Year 4 (Johnson et al., 2022) of the project about their experience of agency social work and agency social workers. The findings indicate several reasons for choosing agency work, pay being the most significant but by no means the only one. The advantages and disadvantages of agency work for workers, employers and service users are considered, and suggestions are offered about further research to assist in understanding how employers can identify and address recruitment and retention factors to reduce dependence on agency staff.

Thinking beyond the stomach: Fixing social work’s food aid provision in displaced environments

This brief note underscores the negative consequences of food aid monotony to mealtime dynamics among war-affected internally displaced families. The article argues that this is rooted in an unethical food aid practice in which social work agencies naively dole out the same food items over a period of time. Caused by monotonic diets, the meal table witnesses poor family commensal activities. Social welfare services have to think ‘beyond the stomach’ and reinvent their food assistance. The article therefore contributes by addressing food aid issues within social work practice and social care policy and urges those responsible to do better.

Speaking Against Silence: Examining Social Work’s Response to Genocide

Since October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed Israel’s unrelenting mass assault against the people of Gaza, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians. The response to this genocide in most sectors of professional society has largely been one of denial and suppression of solidarity with Palestine, unveiling extremes of the longstanding Palestine exception in progressive politics. This article contextualizes the social work profession’s response to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinian people after October 7, 2023, including responses from schools of social work, social work agencies and organizations, and academic journals. This examination finds that social work institutions continue to engage in three primary silencing tactics: passive silence, active repression, and the drawing of false equivalences. Despite the profession’s pervasive silencing, many of us in social work continue to engage in efforts toward a free Palestine, aligned with the profession’s stated values. This article highlights and juxtaposes the grassroots efforts of social workers and social work students for a free Palestine with the repression from our professional institutions. We demonstrate a range of existing and emerging possibilities for sustained solidarity among social workers seeking to end rather than manage state violence, with Palestine as no exception.

Research on the Intervention of Social Organizations in the Governance of Service Poverty for Rural Empty-nest Elderly: A Case Study of County S in Jiangxi Province

There are multiple dimensions of deficiencies in elderly care services for rural empty-nest elderly in China, necessitating the intervention of social organizations. Social organizations possess various advantages in participating in rural elderly care services, reflecting their importance and necessity in the governance of service poverty from the perspectives of governance concepts, governance subjects, and governance mechanisms. Combining the theory of collaborative governance and based on service cases of a social work agency in County S, Jiangxi Province, this study explores the collaborative mechanisms and governance effectiveness of the government, social organizations, villages, and social forces in the governance of service poverty for empty-nest elderly. It summarizes shortcomings, proposes countermeasures, and improves the multi-subject collaborative governance model for rural empty-nest elderly care services, which consists of government leadership, social organizations as operating entities, villages, volunteers, and other forces, aiming to promote the experience of the case to other underdeveloped areas.

High stress, high demand and high pressure: Experiences of social work and human services agencies during Melbourne's COVID‐19 lockdowns

AbstractThe COVID‐19 pandemic has created major challenges globally. The social work and human services profession has been required to rapidly respond to policy and social changes. This research aimed to understand how the pandemic has affected social work and human services staff within Melbourne, Victoria. In this paper, we analyse the practice and policy implications of these responses, and outline learning for the human services sector. We draw on interviews with social work and human services practitioners, exploring their experiences during the pandemic, including social and economic impacts on service users and agencies, and organisational and practice changes. Participants highlight compliance requirements, digitalisation of services, loss of social connection for service users and service impacts. In addition, participants highlight how people from low socioeconomic backgrounds were immensely affected throughout COVID‐19 lockdowns. However, this research also identifies service benefits, resulting from the rapid adjustments made by agencies that need further exploration for future practice. This article highlights how, despite the challenges posed by COVID‐19, agencies and workers developed innovative responses to this crisis. Drawing on these insights can help to understand how such initiatives can be implemented in the future. This article contributes to knowledge about innovation in a time of crisis.

Managerial aspects in macro social work education: comparative analysis between MSW macro programs and nonprofit management education

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to evaluate the scope of management education within macro social work programs in the U.S. and to contrast this with similar nonprofit management education programs across various disciplines. This comparison aims to shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of management education in social work programs. For this purpose, a thorough list of macro-focused MSW degree programs in the U.S. was compiled using the CSWE database. We examined 521 courses from 86 MSW programs with a macro focus. These courses were analyzed and their content compared with that of nonprofit management education programs in other fields. Our findings reveal that while MSW programs in macro practice emphasize personal and interpersonal management skills, they often overlook crucial management tools like fundraising, marketing, philanthropy, and economics. Consequently, it is recommended that social work educators acknowledge the critical managerial competencies needed in social work agencies and incorporate a broader range of subjects to better equip future leaders in the field.

Anti-Asian Hate's Impact on Asian American Social Workers: Implications for Professional Training and Education.

This article explores the impact of recent incidents of anti-Asian hate and violence against Asian American social workers, clients, and communities. Asian Americans represent a small but growing proportion of the U.S. population. Yet, Asians are underrepresented in the social work profession-approximately 3.6 percent of the social work workforce and 2.1 percent of licensed social workers are Asian, and data on underrepresented racial and ethnic groups in the workforce continue to omit details on Asian people. Recent social and political framing of the COVID-19 pandemic as attributable to Asian people has fueled racist rhetoric and incidents of hate and bias crimes against Asian people. Through exploratory research to understand the experiences of Asian American social workers in the proliferation of anti-Asian hate, authors identified that more should be done to support and meet the needs of Asian American social workers, clients, and communities by improving social work education and training, by addressing the social work workforce and agency practices, and by expanding upon advocacy and community building.

Career Choice Motivations and Turnover Intention Among Chinese Social Workers: A Double-Mediator Model of Job Self-Efficacy and Job Satisfaction

ABSTRACT High turnover rate has been a challenge in social work practice and the predictive roles and mechanisms of career choice motivation on turnover intention have not been examined in China. This study examined the relationship between career choice motivation and turnover intention mediated by job self-efficacy and job satisfaction. A sample of 5485 participants was obtained from China Social Work Longitudinal Study (CSWLS) 2019. Results illustrate that internal motivation was negatively associated with turnover intention, whereas job efficacy and job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship. However, external motivation was positively related to enhance turnover intention and partially mediated by job efficacy and job satisfaction. The findings suggest that social work educators should develop students’ internal motivation and that social work agencies need to screen practitioners with higher internal motivation and to enhance their job self-efficacy and job satisfaction.

Briefing: U-turn on agency ban

Instead of banning agency social work teams, the government wants councils to monitor their use

Making an (in)appropriate client: Social workers’ use of storylines in gatekeeping processes in the context of collegial case conferences

ABSTRACT Research has explored how social workers in team constellations perform assessments of the needs of clients in case conferences. However, the process in which gatekeeping is applied in the categorization of clients as inappropriate receivers of support in collegial discussions has received less attention. This article presents findings from a case study of a complex case where a 64-year-old person with dementia was assessed by two teams of social workers handling the same case under two different forms of legislation (elder care and disability services). The data consist of recordings of two case conferences in one Swedish social work agency. The conferences were analysed using positioning theory. The findings suggest that the conferences contained different storylines where the social workers categorized the client as an inappropriate receiver of support. Furthermore, the discourses for gatekeeping differed depending on how the social workers positioned the client in the different storylines in the case conferences. The study shows that institutional and professional responsibilities are central to the assessments that the social workers perform, and that there is a risk that the client will be subject to gatekeeping when the case is handled on an ambiguous legal basis in different legislations, which may result in the client falling between two stools. The findings suggest that research needs to explore, in a more systematic manner, how social workers’ gatekeeping practices are performed in collegial team discussions.

What happened to field practicum in social work education during COVID‐19? Evidence from Bangladesh

AbstractField practicum is an integral part of social work education, and students of bachelor's and master's levels need to gain the requisite experience of field practicum to achieve the degrees. Like many practice‐based disciplines, social work has been facing enormous challenges in arranging field practicum during COVID‐19. This qualitative study aims to understand the experiences of social work faculties, students, and agency representatives for field practicum in the time of the COVID crisis in Bangladesh. Four public universities having social work schools were selected purposively and a total of 18 in‐depth interviews and four Key Informant Interviews were conducted with different stakeholders related to field practicum. The study finds that though theoretical classes were conducted using online platforms, students faced many hurdles in completing their field practicum. Several innovative strategies, such as community‐based field practice, delaying completion of field practicum, reducing daily working hours, etc. were followed to adapt to the new normal situation. This pandemic seemed to be a lesson for everyone to think of an alternative arrangement for field practicum, such as developing a flexible curriculum, virtual fieldwork, community‐based field practice, field meetings, concurrent fieldwork, etc.

Feeling Competent isn’t Enough: The Social Worker’s Role in Creating Positive Space and Promoting Trans-Affirming Practices

Both the physical environment and cultural climate of a human service agency can prevent individuals from obtaining services. As such, it is important for health and social care service agencies to develop positive spaces that affirm individuals’ identities. This cross-sectional study explores master’s-level social work (MSW) practitioners’ perceptions of competence and comfort in working with persons who identify as transgender and highlights ethical and cultural considerations that impact service participation for transgender and nonbinary persons. Surveying a national sample of MSW level practitioners, we explore practitioners’ 1) education, training, competence, and comfort of social workers when working with transgender persons; 2) perceptions of artifacts used as part of the culture of their agencies (e.g., language on intake forms, brochures, pamphlets, and wall art); and 3) awareness of organizational, state, and federal policy pertaining to persons who identify as transgender. Based on our findings, we suggest that social work agencies and the social workers within them need to take a leading role in assessing their agency’s culture to ensure that they are providing a safe space for transgender, nonconforming clients and employees. Additionally, social workers should continually assess their competence and ability to provide trans-affirming services and practices using validated standardized tools. Keywords: Transgender, nonbinary, gender non-conforming, transgender nonbinary (TNB), environmental culture, trans-affirming social services, social work, positive space

Supportive Relationships with Trusted Adults for Children and Young People Who Have Experienced Adversities: Implications for Social Work Service Provision

Abstract Adverse childhood experiences encompass both direct harm, such as abuse and neglect, and indirect harm via family issues, including parental substance abuse and mental illness. They create significant risks for problems in later life, including mental health problems, substance abuse, interpersonal violence and self-harm. Due to these enduring and damaging consequences, interventions are essential to prevent or mitigate impact. One form of support is the role played by trusted adults in the lives of vulnerable children and young people. Employing a scoping study methodology, this article examines the role of the trusted adult and explores implications for social work agencies and practitioners. Whilst the idea of a supportive relationship may reflect the social work value base, there can be legal, procedural and bureaucratic barriers to directly providing such relationships in the child and family social work workforce. However, other adults associated with formal services such as teachers and youth workers, as well as extended family and community members may potentially be able to do so. Social workers can assist by becoming recruiters and facilitators of supportive adults for children and young people from their wider family or community and by partnering with organisations to stimulate provision of such services.

Relationships and reciprocity in learning: a Palestine field trip for social work and youth and community students

For over ten years now, social work and youth and community students from a university in England have travelled to Palestine to be hosted by families and conduct a study tour of the West Bank. They have visited governors in the West Bank, community centres, camp committees, art centres, social work agencies, museums and faith and political heritage sites across the West Bank and Jerusalem. This article reports on the reciprocity between host families and university staff in addressing student learning for social justice in a community that seeks international recognition and action in respect of the injustices of an illegal occupation. We argue that the goals of the host community in respect of extending their voice and reaching a constituency beyond their borders are compatible with experiential learning goals for students in developing political and cultural awareness through engaging with community experiences of responses to social injustice.

MAXIMIZING OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEARNING ABOUT RESEARCH-BASED SOCIAL WORK DURING PLACEMENT THROUGH AGENCY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS

This paper provides an exploration of the ways in which partnerships between universities and social work agencies can deliver a research-based approach for students during their placement. The placement/practicum/field education has been recognized as the “signature” pedagogy of social work. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has forced practitioners and educators to explore different and creative ways of delivering learning outcomes during placements. This paper provides illustrative ways in which the research elements of placements can be enhanced.

No choice? Hiring agency social workers in the Swedish personal social services

ABSTRACT The practice of hiring agency social workers, i.e. social workers who are employed by for-profit staffing agencies but rented out to the social services, has been questioned and depicted as legally complex, costly and unsustainable. Nevertheless, it continues to be an institutional way of handling vacancies and understaffing in the social services. In this article, professionals’ reasoning about the use of agency workers is investigated through qualitative interviews with 21 social workers/managers in the social services. According to the interviewees’ descriptions, agency social workers are hired in order to achieve numerical stability, i.e. to maintain services notwithstanding staff absence and vacancies. Similar to findings in previous literature, the interviewed professionals describe that workload, turnover and recruitment difficulties are reasons behind the use of agency workers. However, they also highlight other aspects that are associated with the use, such as chronic understaffing and a large proportion of newly qualified social workers. Throughout, the use of agency workers is described as reactive, i.e. as an acute (and often unwanted) solution, and not as deliberate and planned.

Connecting children with birth defects to health and social service programs: A collaboration between the Texas Birth Defects Registry and agency social workers.

Timely referral to services for children born with birth defects can improve health outcomes. Birth defects surveillance registries may be a valuable data source for connecting children to health and social service programs. Population-based, state-wide data from the Texas Birth Defects Registry (TBDR) at the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) were used to connect children 9-18 months old, born with select birth defects with DSHS social workers. The social workers reviewed developmental milestones and referred children and their families to various health and social service programs. We tabulated the proportions of children meeting milestones and referral characteristics by referral program type and type of birth defect. Social workers reached 67% (909/1,362) of identified families. Over half of children (54%, 488/909) were not meeting the developmental milestones for their age. Social workers provided over 3,000 program referrals, including referring 21% (194/909) of children to Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) and 28% (257/909) to case management. Our results illustrate a method of leveraging a birth defects surveillance system for referral services. Given the large number of referrals made, our findings suggest that birth defects registries can be a valuable source of data for referring children to programs.

Using conversation analysis to develop reflective practice in social work

The need for professional reflection has been argued extensively in social work literature. A separate literature has demonstrated the potential of using conversation analytic research (CA) in interventions seeking to inform professional practice in social and health care. Nevertheless, we know little about how social workers actually do ‘reflection’ and how CA can be used to facilitate reflection, specifically. The objective of this paper is to examine how CA can be used in interventions that develop reflective professional practice. Our dataset consists of audio recordings of 21 mutual learning and innovation platforms, taking place as part of a collaboration between researchers and five Danish social work agencies. We use CA to examine how researchers and professionals reflect on social work interactions. We find that the use of CA (a) makes professionals aware of aspects of practice that are often performed in routinised ways and (b) provides concrete starting points for the non-evaluative reflection on such practice. The paper has implications for researchers and professionals looking to utilise CA in developing reflective practice as it outlines one model for intervention, demonstrates the detailed ways in which reflection may be accomplished in interaction and discusses the organisational requirements of such interventions.