Social Work's Commitment Research Articles

Mapping an Integrative Critical Race and Anti-Colonial Theoretical Framework in Social Work Practice

The social inequities highlighted by the racial injustice protests of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic challenge the social work profession to respond to the past and present social consequences that disproportionately impact Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). We argue that social work's commitment to social justice has not taken up an explicit anti-racism mission to eradicate white supremacy, racism, and coloniality in the profession. We further argue that although social service agencies often include a commitment to cultural competence/humility, practices continue to be rooted in color-blind approaches to service and treatment. Social work's failure to address racism poses challenges for those from racialized backgrounds experiencing psychological distress due to racism and other inequities. Building upon the theoretical foundations of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Anti-Colonialism, we provide a conceptual framework for practice and service delivery with BIPOC clients through social work praxis. This conceptual framework offers three overarching directives that include integrated critical race and anti-colonial theoretical concepts for social work practice and service delivery. We discuss the implications for application of this conceptual framework in practice and service delivery.

The Case for Mandatory Reporting as an Ethical Dilemma for Social Workers

Mandatory reporting of child abuse is a part of the civil legal system that can activate a policy cascade disproportionately criminalizing racialized and marginalized communities. While social work scholarship has explored ways to increase provider compliance with mandatory reporting laws, there is a dearth of research focused on how social work education guides future providers towards the praxis of mandatory reporting discourses. This article presents findings from a content analysis of social work textbook excerpts focused on mandatory reporting of child abuse in the U.S. We found that textbooks affirm social work’s loyalty to the State by approaching mandatory reporting through a deontological lens and systematically reinforcing risk management practices. Although some texts offer a nod to mandatory reporting as facilitating ethical dilemmas, none offer guidance for how to navigate competing social work commitments, and none actually treat mandatory reporting as an ethical dilemma. We argue that social work education should equip future practitioners to: a) have a nuanced understanding of mandatory reporting laws and requirements; b) contextualize mandatory reporting within broader discourses of criminalization, professionalization, and neoliberalism; and c) ground future practices in macro social work ethics.

Feminist Except for Palestine: Where Are Feminist Social Workers on Palestine?

Despite international social work commitments to social justice, human dignity, and individual worth, feminist social work remains silent on Palestine. Israeli settler colonial violence pushes us to revisit our responsibilities to stand against colonized militarism. We insist that collective liberation is a feminist ethical constant, a political bosom for decolonization, a compass for critical feminist social work. In this article, we extend previously made claims that Palestine is a feminist issue by highlighting four moral imperatives: 1) persistent sumud, (2) gendered impacts of Zionism's settler colonial violence, 3) commitments to justice and liberation, and 4) feminist praxis of narrating violence.

Social Work's Commitment and Leadership to Address Social Determinants of Health and Integrate Social Care into Health Care

In light of ongoing transformations in health care policy, pressing questions have emerged concerning how to integrate social care into clinical care and what workforce and physical/digital infrastructure will be required for this integration. In response to these questions, the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) 2019 Consensus Study Report on Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care: Moving Upstream to Improve the Nation's Health has challenged health and human sector leaders to systematically consider ways to integrate social care into health care delivery. Taking social work as a key profession for driving the integration of social care into health care delivery, the following article (1) outlines key components of the NASEM report and (2) articulates the necessary future steps that health and human sector leaders must take across administrative, educational, technological, and workforce arenas in order to sustainably integrate social care and health care sectors.

Committing to Breastfeeding in Social Work.

This article addresses the importance of breastfeeding for the social work profession. Because breastfeeding is a critical component of maternal and child health, persistent racial and socioeconomic breastfeeding inequality is a social justice issue in need of social work commitment. Even while breastfeeding rates have been increasing in the United States there are some groups of mothers who initiate breastfeeding less frequently or have trouble with sustaining breastfeeding for recommended lengths. These mothers and their babies thus miss out on the ample benefits of this nurturing interaction. Using social work's unique disciplinary perspective and commitment to social justice, the authors place essential understanding of breastfeeding health benefits within the core values of the National Association of Social Work ethical code. The practice context for early breastfeeding intervention with mothers and families is discussed with acknowledgment of the maternal-child health focus at the root of the profession. Recognition of the potential of contemporary social work to advance breastfeeding equity through practice, scholarship, and action positions breastfeeding support activities as integral to meeting the grand challenges of the social work profession.

Understanding the meta-discourse driving homeless policies and programs in Toronto, Canada: The neoliberal management of social service delivery

Although Canada is one of the top 10 trading nations in the global economy, homelessness continues to be a significant social problem. To understand this paradox, we examine academic debates on best practices, the genesis and sociocultural contexts of recent policies, and community-based homeless services. Our critical review unveils the underlying ideology of service provision: the meta-discourse of neoliberalism, which results in time-limited programs, divorced from community needs, with an ad hoc development of services. We resist this discourse by highlighting how a social work commitment to social justice can mitigate the new neoliberal requirements in homeless services delivery.

Challenging workplace bullying: the role of social work leadership integrity

ABSTRACTThis research paper explores ethical and moral outrage provoked by the phenomenon of workplace bullying in social work agencies. Its aim is to identify formal and organic actions, motivated by leadership integrity, designed to implement organisational social justice. The paper presents two case studies which illustrate contrasting approaches to the phenomenon. The first depicts management collusion with intimidatory behaviour in which the burden of evidence was placed on the victim even while still interacting with the perpetrator. In the second, a self-efficacious team leader proactively confronted bullying by asking questions. Failure of leadership to address bullying is evaluated in the context of the International Federation of Social Work's recognition of management in 2004 as 1 of 13 core purposes of the profession [Sewpaul, Vishanthie, and David Jones. 2005. “Global Standards for the Education and Training of the Social Work Profession.” International Journal of Social Welfare 14 (3): 218–230]. The 12 remaining purposes express social work's commitment to social justice as the profession's defining value [Ife, Jim. 2010. “Human Rights and Social Justice.” In Ethics and Value Perspectives in Social Work, edited by M. Gray and S. A. Webb, Chap. 13, 148–159. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan]. This paper argues that the prime function of social work leadership is to implement organisational social justice, and concludes that socially just leadership is eminently practicable.

Reflections on the State of the Profession: A Review of the Norma Parker Addresses 1969–2008

This paper provides a thematic analysis of the Presidential Addresses delivered at conferences of the Australian Association of Social Workers from 1969 to 2008. It argues that although each of the Addresses needs to be understood within the context of its time, they are linked thematically by their focus on defining and defending the status of social work as a profession. In the early years, the Presidents, while recognising social work's commitment to social justice, sought to contain the Association’s more radical members in order not to threaten the profession’s respectability. However, as neo-conservative economics and managerial management practices eroded both the autonomy and the distinctiveness of the social worker, there was a call to embrace marginalisation.

Desigualdade racial nos espaços escolares e o trabalho do assistente social

O texto ora apresentado enfoca a reflexão acerca dos rebatimentos da desigualdade racial nos espaços do sistema educacional, que se configuram fundamentais, tanto para a reprodução, quanto para o enfrentamento da condição desigual. Dessa forma, considera-se o potencial da escola para o processo de construção da igualdade racial e o compromisso ético do Serviço Social na construção de outra ordem societária, buscando-se discutir as contribuições da inserção do assistente social na política pública de educação.

Making space for embedded knowledge in Global Mental Health: a role for social work?

The ‘Global Mental Health’ (GMH) movement, an influential driver of transnational knowledge transfer in the field of mental health, advocates evidence-based strategies to ‘scale up’ services in low- and middle-income countries. As with debates on global and local frameworks for social work, there are concerns about marginalisation of knowledge that does not neatly fit the GMH discourse. This article analyses the professional and disciplinary structures that shape knowledge transfer in GMH and the implications for social work's engagement with the movement. Analysis of key documents and secondary literature identifies three key issues for GMH: its potentially negative impact on ‘local’ knowledge production; the challenges of accounting for culture and context; and the selective forms of evidence that are ‘allowed’ to contribute to GMH. Finding ways to encompass more ‘situated’ perspectives could reshape GMH in accord with its aspirations for participation by a wider range of stakeholders. Social work's values-based commitment to rights and empowerment, emphasis on embedded knowledge emerging from close links with practice, and theoretical engagement with social, cultural and political context, enable the profession to contribute significantly to this task. Such engagement would bring improvements in care for those suffering from mental health disorders, their families and communities.

Austerity, personalisation and older people: the prospects for creative social work practice in England

In common with other European countries population ageing in England creates particular problems for social care and social work. This is exacerbated by the continuing financial crisis, which has led to an unprecedented assault on the resources needed to maintain older people within the community. At the same time, a policy of ‘personalisation’ is being introduced within social care that is intended to change the nature and balance of services. The effect of financial cuts means that there is substantially less money to respond to people's needs, despite the demographic changes that indicate there will be an increasing number of vulnerable older people in society. As a result the need for stringent rationing of resources will continue to be a priority, as it has been for many years. This has particular implications for the development of social work practice with older people: there are distinct possibilities that it will reduce in size and scale. This is despite the international recognition that has been given to the specific circumstances of older people, as well as social work's commitment to challenge injustice. If the needs of older people in England are to be more effectively addressed the implications of these factors needs to be considered and strategies for the full engagement of social workers within them need to be agreed.

Prevention in Social Work Scholarship: A Content Analysis of Families in Society 2000-2010 (Research Note)

Powerful issues, including persistent health inequalities, increasing chronic disease rates, and health reform, have reignited a national conversation on the need for prevention. Despite social work's commitment to promoting well-being, little is known about its involvement in prevention and the extent to which prevention is present in the professional literature. For the present study, a content analysis of Families in Society from 2000 to 2010 was undertaken. Of 649 articles reviewed, 9.2% (n = 60) met the criteria of prevention articles, and a significant increase of prevention content was observed. While still a minority interest area, there appears to be welcome growth of prevention in Families in Society. This important emergent prevention scholarship will help broaden the profession's impact on the many public health issues facing 21st-century families.

Are Social Work Educators Bullies? Student Perceptions of Political Discourse in the Social Work Classroom

Social work's professional commitment to working toward social justice for vulnerable groups is well known. However, as a profession, social work has been criticized for proposing professional perspectives that may be interpreted by some as political indoctrination. The purpose of the current study was to examine social work students' perceptions of political debate in the classroom. An additional goal was to examine whether students believed that colleagues who hold certain sociopolitical beliefs should be prohibited from receiving a social work degree. Four hundred and ninety-seven undergraduate and graduate social work students from 10 programs were surveyed. Results show that a majority of respondents were comfortable with the discussion of sociopolitical content in the classroom. Nevertheless, students who self-identified as politically conservative were more likely to report that they perceived the classroom environment as less open and hence less conducive to debate. Finally, overt racism was identified as the only attitude that should prohibit someone from receiving a social work degree. Implications for social work education are discussed.

Considering Nancy Fraser's Notion of Social Justice for Social Work: Reflections on Misframing and the Lives of Refugees in South Africa

This article explores the implications of cross-border migration for social work's normative commitment to social justice. Specifically, it interrogates Nancy Fraser's conceptualisation of social justice in guiding social work practice with refugees. The paper is grounded in an ethnographic study conducted from 2008 to 2009 in a South African church which had provided shelter to a group of refugees following their displacement by an outbreak of xenophobic violence. The study's findings reveal that various kinds of misframing created multiple forms of voicelessness amongst its foreign participants. These filtered out to justify, perpetuate and deepen other types of injustice, particularly misrecognition and maldistribution. There was some evidence of resistance, solidarity, recognition and small acts of redistribution. However, such positive practices proved difficult to sustain. The paper confirms the central importance of the notion of misframing for conceptualising and responding to social injustice in the absence of citizenship—as required of practitioners in the field of social work with refugees and indeed other groups rendered vulnerable within current economic, social, political and cultural constellations. In this regard, Fraser's contribution looks set to enrich social work's commitment to social justice both in normative and practical terms.

Social Work Interest in Prevention: A Content Analysis of the Professional Literature

Every day in the United States, over halfa million social workers provide services to people with health, mental health, and substance abuse problems in a fragmented system that emphasizes disease treatment over prevention. Powerful issues--including health inequities, population aging, globalization, natural disaster, war, and economic downturn--make the need for preventive approaches more critical than ever. Despite social work's historic commitment to enhancing human well-being and public health involvement, little is known about how social work currently views prevention or whether it is being addressed in the social work professional literature. To determine whether, and to what extent, prevention is addressed, discussed, and published in social work journals, the authors--all public health social work researchers-undertook a content analysis of nine peer-reviewed journals, analyzing all articles published from 2000 to 2005. A total of 1,951 articles were reviewed and coded for prevention according to specified criteria. A relatively small number--109 (5.6 percent)--were found to meet the criteria for being a prevention article, suggesting that prevention is still a minority interest area within social work.A renewed conversation about prevention in social work can enhance opportunities for strong social work participation in the transdisciplinary collaboration needed in this new era of health reform.

Measuring Empathy in the 21st Century: Development of an Empathy Index Rooted in Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Social Justice

Instruments currently being used to measure empathy do not reflect the recent neuroscientific scholarship on mirror neurons and the importance of self-awareness and emotion regulation in experiencing the fullest extent of empathy. The authors describe a theoretical framework for the initial development and pilot application of an empathy self-report instrument, the Empathy Assessment Index (EAI). The EAI is based on a comprehensive definition of empathy that is rooted in social cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social work's commitment to social justice. The authors present reliability, concurrent validity, and data reduction and refinement results from the first administration of the index. Four of the five EAI subscales had excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Three subscales were tested for concurrent validity. The exploratory factor analysis identified six factors that explained over 43% of the variance. KEY WORDS: affective response; emotion regulation; empathic attitudes; empathy; self-awareness ********** Recent breakthroughs in neuroscience, particularly social cognitive neuroscience, have given social scientists unprecedented opportunities to observe and attempt to measure various aspects of human thought, feeling, and behavior (Doidge, 2007). Among these psychological phenomena is empathy. The importance of empathy for effective social work practice is commonly accepted within the profession (Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, Strom-Gottfried, & Larsen, 2006; Shulman, 2009) .Twenty-first century technology has allowed neuroscientists to demonstrate that empathy can be empirically observed and quantified (Jackson, Brunet, Meltzoff, & Decety, 2006; Lamm, Batson, & Decety, 2007; Schulte-Ruther, Markowitsch, Shah, Fink, & Piefke, 2008). Zaki, Weber, Bolger, and Ochsner (2009) conducted one of the first studies to cross-check and validate the correlation between three different empathy-related phenomena: (1) the subjective experience of people telling an emotional autobiographical story, (2) the empathic response of people watching the storytellers, and (3) the brain activity of the story viewers. This study suggests that brain activity can be used as an empirical measure of affective sharing and cognitive processing and that accurate empathy may be physically differentiated from projection or other emotional reactions. Such research can enrich our ability to cultivate greater empathy in social workers and their clients. As all the social sciences reorient themselves to accommodate the mounting empirical evidence of the brain's neuroplasticity (Rakio, 2002) and the interpersonal neurobiology of empathy, we would like to help open social work research to a richer, more multifaceted examination of empathy. Most social workers do not have access to technologies like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines, nor do they have sufficient funds for expensive and labor-intensive neurological workups of themselves or their clients. In an ideal world, social workers would have a reasonably accurate, affordable, and user-friendly way of quantifying empathy that incorporates new findings from social cognitive neuroscience. We believe the best initial approach is the development of a self-report index that can be tested and validated by ongoing correlation of phenomenological observation, self-report responses, and specific brain activity. The findings reported in this article represent a first step toward that end. We describe a theoretical framework for the initial development and pilot application of an empathy self-report instrument, the Empathy Assessment Index (EAI). The EAI is based on a comprehensive definition of empathy that is rooted in social cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, and social work's commitment to social justice. Finally, we present reliability, concurrent validity, and data reduction and refinement results from the first administration of the index. …

Self-Determination, the Right to Die, and Culture: A Literature Review

Self-determination is a primary ethical principle underlying social work practice in health care settings. Since the 1970s, a right-to-die movement that shares the social work commitment to self-determination has grown and influences end-of-life care decisions. However, the role of culture is notably absent in discussions of the right to die. A literature review was conducted to explore self-determination and the role of culture in the context of the history of the right-to-die movement. A total of 54 articles met the criteria for inclusion in the review. Of the total, 21 related to self-determination, and 12 related to ethnicity and culture at the end of life. A history based on the review of the right-to-die movement is presented. The review found that social workers support passively hastening death and that views of self-determination are affected by both law and culture. In response, social workers will face three tasks: (1) becoming more public in their support for client self-determination as an important standard in end-of-life care, (2) being more explicit in support of diverse cultural traditions in end-of-life decision making, and (3) expanding their traditional educational and bridging roles between families and medical personnel.

Equality-of-oppressions and anti-discriminatory models in social work: reflections from the USA and UK

Although the equality-of-oppressions paradigm in the USA and the anti-discriminatory framework in the UK are progressive steps in affirming the lives of many groups, they are limited in their ability to highlight the continued significance of racism in contemporary social work education. This comparative paper examines how universal frameworks of oppression in social work have helped to diminish the significance of racial oppression and begins by discussing their evolution in both countries. The next section is concerned with the rise of postmodern theory and its influence in reshaping issues of oppression. Finally, a model of differential vulnerability is offered as a way of identifying how the multiplicity of oppressions varies in frequency, intensity and pervasiveness. The authors suggest that this model can make a difference by reconfiguring models of oppression which interweave differential vulnerability to not only make the necessary connections between forms of oppression but also to reaffirm social work's commitment to racial equality.

State of Modern Measurement Approaches in Social Work Research Literature

The need to develop measures that tap into constructs of interest to social work, refine existing measures, and ensure that measures function adequately across diverse populations of interest is critical. Item response theory (IRT) is a modern measurement approach that is increasingly seen as an essential tool in a number of allied professions. IRT-based measurement uses a model-based approach that has several analytical and explanatory advantages over classical test theory. In particular, IRT-based techniques facilitate the process of specific item selection, allow for increased measurement precision with fewer items, and provide greater capacity for understanding and accounting for measurement bias across diverse populations. A survey of the top (as rated by impact factor) 20 social work journals revealed that few measurement articles in the social work literature use IRT or other modern measurement approaches. The benefit of incorporating more IRT-based approaches for developing, refining, and ensuring the application of measures to diverse populations is discussed. KEY WORDS: bias; classical test theory; item response theory; measurement; social work ********** The state of measurement within the social work literature is integrally related to knowledge base development and, ultimately, the extent to which research is able to meaningfully inform practice (Holden, Nizza, & Weissman, 1995). Scholarship highlights at least three measurement-related research domains within the field of social work. The first concerns the development of valid and reliable measures that capture the diverse set of phenomena relevant to social work, particularly those phenomena that may not be adequately represented by existent standardized instruments. The second is the assessment and validation of such measures. In particular, high-quality intervention research hinges on the validity and reliability of measures used to assess outcomes (Rosen, Proctor, & Staudt, 1999).Third, a growing body of literature challenges the extent to which well-validated measures adequately account and adjust for within- and across-population sources of diversity (see Ramirez, Ford, Stewart, & Teresi, 2005; Snowden, 2003), and such concerns are highly salient to social work's commitment to diversity-sensitive and -responsive research and practice. During the 1980s and 1990s, social work researchers outlined the relative benefits of item response theory (IRT) over classical test theory (CTT) measurement models, calling explicitly for IRT-based models' increased utilization to address measurement problems in social work research (DeRoos & Allen-Meares, 1993, 1998; Nugent & Hankins, 1989,1992). Indeed, IRT models have largely subsumed CTT approaches within a wide range of allied fields and disciplines (for example, medicine, psychology, nursing, public health, education) (see Dunn, Resnicow, & Klesges, 2006; Embretson & Reise, 2000; Fries, Bruce, & Cella, 2005; Lord, 1980; Ware, Bjorner, & Kosinski, 2000). Given early interest among social work researchers and the recent proliferation of IRT methods within other applied social sciences, our overall objective in the present study was to assess the extent to which these methods are represented within social work research. This review thus realizes three overlapping aims. First, it provides a description and comparison of IRT and CTT models and outlines the potential contributions of IRT methods to social work scholarship; it also briefly discusses IRT more generally as a latent variable model and its overlap with confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) and multi-level modeling methods. Second, it presents the results of a structured review assessing the penetration of IRT-based methods into the field of social work as reflected in key social work research journals. Third, using these results as a launching point, we highlight particular lines of inquiry within social work research where the application of IRT methods would likely yield substantial innovation. …

UN Disability Rights Convention and Implications for Social Work Practice

The central argument of this paper is that social work should consider strengthening the rights-based practice of the profession by referencing it more specifically to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD) and the concept of citizenship as it applies to people with disability. The CRPD has placed people with disability on the global agenda, highlighting their need for greater inclusion in society and recognising them as citizens to be valued and respected. How the CRPD deals with the issue of exclusion of people with disability in society has important implications for social work practice. The argument is that social work has been slow to respond to the opportunities made available by the ratification of the CRPD to strengthen its rights-based practice, and has thus left disability rights as a missing component in social work. This paper takes the view that seeking to achieve full citizenship for people with disability by applying human rights standards, methods and rhetoric, will not only reaffirm disability-inclusive practice for social work but it will also assert greater influence in national and international institutions and demonstrate that social work is more than a charitable, residual, or therapeutic profession. The paper also discusses how major principles advocated by the CRPD may interface with the concept of citizenship inherently embedded in the value commitment of social work.