Social Work Practice Research Articles

Beyond the Dichotomy: Toward Decolonial Eco-Queer Theories, Imaginaries, and Praxes in Clinical Social Work Education and Practice

ABSTRACT At this pressing historical juncture, where escalating violence against queer and racialized bodies runs concurrently with the specter of wide-scale planetary collapse, social work is in dire need of reconceptualizing the moral parameters of its imagination. Recognizing that changes in thought both precede and extend from changes in behavior, this article advocates for a profound unlearning of supremacist modes of thinking wedded to hierarchical orderings, dichotomous and essentialist views, and categorical oppositions. By engaging de/coloniality and eco-queer feminisms, this article draws connections between the discursive violences targeting queer and racialized bodies and the parallel destruction of the animate Earth—bodies circumscribed, exploited, and rendered disposable by the power-logics of coloniality/heteropatriarchy/modernity and the untenable demands of global capitalism. With the interest of re-situating clinical social work within the broader context of planetary health, this article considers the criticality of decolonial eco-queer thought, praxis, and imaginaries as vital responses to the multidimensional power structures constraining our transformative potential. Ultimately, this paper discusses four tenets vital for a more holistic and revolutionary social work education and practice.

Rural Community Engagement In Higher Education Institutions – Revisiting the Existing Literature

In India, Social work education has been mainly Western-centric and failed to address societal needs and their problems. There is a growing realization of limitations of the Western model in the Indian context that calls for Indigenous social work practice. It is because of the borrowed teaching content from Western literature, and there is hardly any relevance in the Indian context. We are living in the era of global research and innovation, where one could not underestimate scale and important of the HIEs. To achieve goals of socio-economic development, HIEs can contribute effectively, through community engagement program. In 2018, UGC launched an ambitious Quality Mandate that emphasis to improve the societal linkages of HEIs which could be pivotal for students to become socially productive. In addition, there is constant need in the Higher Institute to develop better understanding and incorporating the issues which are very happening in the society and it could be achievable by bring in social responsibility and community in their vision and mission itself, in result of this definitely there will be improvements in the standard of research as well teaching. This paper center on works on indigenous knowledge reflects how the criteria for involvement to rural community could be pivotal within the local context by exploring vivid literature on indigenization and their influence on the paradigm of social work and its curriculum specially which is related to rural community engagement in Higher Education Institution.

Social workers' consideration of dental support for people living with dementia: Findings from interviews and care assessment documentation.

Social work assessments underpin support plans for many people living with dementia in their own homes in England, but it is unclear how they acknowledge that dementia places people at greater risk of mouth and dental problems affecting their wellbeing. We explored if and how dental needs are addressed during care assessments and social workers' perceptions of this aspect of personal care. This study analysed (a) semi-structured interviews with 14 social workers providing support to people living with dementia in their own homes, (b) data from 39 care assessments and support plans from two English local authorities. Interviews were recorded online, transcribed, and thematically analysed. Documents were analysed descriptively and presented visually. Participants acknowledged that oral care may be overlooked during assessments and reflected on various reasons, including assumptions of responsibility and role restrictions, limited training, and poor links with dental services. This was further evident in the analysis of assessment documentation. Participants identified potential strategies and practice changes to better integrate oral care in social work practice. These included increased awareness and more discussions around dental needs, skills training and streamlining of support. The findings have implications for social workers, educators, and commissioners or funders engaging with people affected by dementia in social work and beyond.

‘Earthquake of the century’ and its aftermath: Reflections on social work practices implemented in the first hours of the disaster at a hospital in Türkiye

This article presents the practice reflections of two social work academics who worked with individuals affected by a recent disaster in Kayseri, Türkiye. The study shares the experiences and insights regarding how hospital-based social work interventions were conducted in the first hours following the earthquake.

Enacting Social Justice: Exploring Applied Theatre’s Influence on Anti-Oppressive Social Work

As a profession committed to social change, social workers must engage in practices that encourage clients and communities to reflect on oppressive conditions to later envision and create new equitable and inclusive possibilities. Applied theatre, such as theatre of the oppressed, is an interactive theatrical approach that engages in ‘world-building’ across space, time, issues, and emotions. The embodied nature of applied theatre allows social workers, clients, and communities to imagine, dream, and practise new possibilities for social change. This paper offers a review of existing literature on applied theatre and theatre of the oppressed that promotes social justice and liberation in social work education and practice in the United States and globally.

Barriers and Facilitators to Pediatric Oncology Social Work Practice: A Qualitative Study

Background: Childhood cancer is significant due to its high prevalence and its impact on the entire family, resulting in various psychological, social, economic, and communication challenges for the families. Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the barriers and facilitators to pediatric oncology social work practices in Iran. Methods: This qualitative study used a content analysis method and involved 19 pediatric oncology social workers. We used a purposeful sampling method until data saturation was reached. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and field observations and then analyzed. Results: This study demonstrated that the factors influencing social workers' practice include personal characteristics and interpersonal communication at the micro level, while barriers mainly consist of cultural, social, economic, organizational, and structural dimensions at the macro level. Conclusions: In order to better support children with cancer and their families, policymakers and health system managers need to give special attention to the status of social workers. Strengthening support systems and addressing the challenges they face can be effective in protecting the professional practices of these caregivers.

Controlling care or caring control? Violent entanglements within UK immigration and counter-terrorism policies

This article explores contemporary tensions between care and control dynamics within social work practice through the analysis of UK immigration and counter-terrorism policies. Drawing from qualitative research conducted to examine the impact of ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF), a legal condition for those subject to immigration control, alongside the PREVENT agenda, designed to identify those at risk of radicalisation, this article explores the violent consequences created in this context. Understanding social work as biopolitical, we utilise the concept of entanglement to interrogate how these policies are enacted within UK social work and the effect this has on the individuals and communities subject to them. By exploring the interplay of care and control within NRPF and PREVENT policies, we conclude that the ability of social workers to act in an anti-racist manner is detrimentally impacted by the entanglement of neo-colonial violence, the criminalisation of safeguarding and a politics of confusion.

Social Work Practice During Times of Disaster: A Transformative Green Social Work Model for Theory, Education and Practice in Disaster Interventions

Social Work Practice During Times of Disaster: A Transformative Green Social Work Model for Theory, Education and Practice in Disaster Interventions

Evaluating ExpandED: Evaluating the effectiveness of a serious game expansion pack in teaching health professional students about interprofessional care.

The emergency department (ED) is a challenging fast-paced environment with high-acuity, undifferentiated patients who often require extensive interdisciplinary care. This paper introduces ExpandED, an expansion pack to the serious board game GridlockED, designed to enhance players' understanding of interprofessional collaboration in the ED and the diverse scope of practice of different ED professionals including physicians, residents, registered nurses, registered practical nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, and physiotherapists. This investigation evaluates the effectiveness of ExpandED as a teaching tool for medical and allied health professions students about interprofessional collaboration in the ED. A program evaluation harnessing a playtest framework was employed. Participants completed pre- and postgame surveys including quantitative measures (e.g., Likert scales) and qualitative free-text feedback that focused on participant familiarity with ED functioning, valuation of interprofessional collaboration before and after playing, and feedback on game usability and effectiveness. Recruitment was open to students in all health care and allied health professional programs at the institution. Forty-five participants were recruited from medical doctor, nursing, physiotherapy, and speech language pathology programs. ExpandED enhances participants' understanding of ED workflow (p < 0.001) and provides an enjoyable playing experience. However, participants' valuation of interdisciplinary teamwork did not change significantly before and after game play (p = 0.17). Participants expressed satisfaction with the game's accuracy in simulating the ED environment and appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with peers from different disciplines. Challenges reported included some tension among players, potential biases, and limitations of fidelity to a real-life ED. While this study has limitations regarding participant sampling and duration of gameplay sessions, it highlights the potential of ExpandED for teaching interprofessional collaboration in the ED. These findings will guide further development to optimize the expansion pack's effectiveness and its implementation into health care curricula.

Reflecting on Social Work Practice in the Northern Territory, Australia*

ABSTRACT At the core of practice for many non-Indigenous Australian social workers is learning how to work in deeply respectful, culturally appropriate ways alongside First Nations Peoples. Larrakia and Warumungu woman, and Northern Territory social work scholar, Dr Christine/Karen King’s (2011) writings provided the impetus for this inquiry. King (2011) invites social workers to critically reflect on their practice and worldviews. Responding to this invitation, 10 non-Indigenous social workers with policy, academic, and/or practice experience conducted a co-operative inquiry into the question “What have we learnt about practising social work in the Northern Territory, Australia?” We explored the uniqueness of the Northern Territory and identified three interwoven themes. The first theme grounds our practice to Place—on Country. Here, we identified the importance of engaging with the diverse histories of the Peoples we work alongside. Second, we reflected on our vulnerability as social workers and explored the limitations of our professional knowledge base for working with First Nations Peoples. The third theme relates to the importance of engaging with First Nations Peoples’ worldviews. We conclude by affirming the importance of social work practice being led by First Nations People on Country. IMPLICATIONS Social workers working in the Northern Territory alongside First Nations Peoples will benefit from engaging with vulnerability, reflexivity, and critical reflection on their values, understandings, language, and unexamined aspects of practice and cultural self. Social workers in the Northern Territory need to commit to ongoing learning and ground their practice with First Nations’ worldviews and wisdom.

The relevance of indigenous knowledge systems in social work education and practice in Zimbabwe: A human rights perspective

Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) are central to communities in Africa. They shape, influence, and define the behaviour of societies. Most communities in Zimbabwe have consistently recognised the human rights of individuals. Understanding how IKS can influence social work theory and practice to uphold human rights is important. Human rights are an inherent part of the social work profession. The article explores the views of social work educators in Zimbabwe on the intersection of IKS and human rights in social work education and practice. Data were qualitatively collected from ten purposefully selected social work educators using an instrumental case study design. Evidence from the participants shows four essential aspects, which are, the relevance of indigenous knowledge systems in social work education and practice in Zimbabwe, the role of indigenous knowledge systems in the application of human rights in social work in Zimbabwe, ways to utilise IKS best to uphold human rights; the challenges faced by educators in utilising indigenous knowledge systems in social work in Zimbabwe. The article concludes that IKS upholds human rights perspectives in social work theory and practice. The article recommends that IKS, informed by a human rights perspective, be integrated into social work education and practice in Zimbabwe and practised at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels.

Transcending boundaries on unequal ground: A critical reimagination of global North-South cooperation on social work practice and the Sustainable Development Goals

Using collaborative autoethnography, this article encapsulates the rich discourse that unfolded during a symposium titled: "Human Rights, The Sustainable Development Goals and Social Work Practice in Germany and Africa". The symposium was a testament to the collaborative synergy between Fachhochschule Dortmund in Germany, Midlands State University (MSU) in Zimbabwe, the University of Johannesburg, and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in South Africa. This scientific event was an academic convergence where researchers and postgraduate social work students shared research, experiences and insights from the Global North and South, offering a mosaic of perspectives on critical issues. It illuminated shared challenges that transcended geographical boundaries. Poverty, climate change, and social injustice were common but contextually unique across the three countries. In this paper, we employ critical and world systems theories to reflect on the symposium. The discussions and reflections underscore social work's strategic position to inform context-specific anti-poverty, climate change discourse, anti-racism and collaborative efforts to combat economic disparities. This paper encourages the power of sustainable partnerships, dialogue, and shared learning across geographical and socio-economic boundaries. Collaborative efforts between Global North and South universities provide a platform for cross-cultural learning and mutual capacity building amongst postgraduate students.

Climate change and vulnerable groups in Zimbabwe: Implications for social work practice

Social work is a practical profession that aims to improve problem-solving skills and social functioning, particularly for disadvantaged and marginalised vulnerable groups. The ongoing climate change is worsening the global social work burden since it increases the frequency of occurrence, magnitude, and duration of disaster events such as droughts, heat waves, diseases, tropical cyclones, and floods that negatively impact human beings. Specifically, children, people with disabilities, women, and the elderly are especially vulnerable, as they are often unable to move quickly and may have existing health conditions that make escaping from disasters difficult—meanwhile, the human rights perspective advocates for the inclusivity of all people in the disaster management process. The study used qualitative literature review analysis to explore social work-based strategies for managing the impacts of climate change in Zimbabwe while ensuring the participation of vulnerable groups in co-creating the strategy. The research involved a scoping literature review using African Journals Online, Google Scholar, and ProQuest Central search engines. The study followed specific steps, including formulating the research problem, developing and validating the reviewing protocol, searching for relevant literature using key search terms, screening for inclusion, assessing the relevance, extracting data, analysing and synthesising data, and reporting the findings. Conclusions and recommendations were based on the gaps and inconsistencies identified in the literature review.

Understanding empathy in Norwegian social work education

ABSTRACT Empathy is pivotal to social work practice when interacting with clients, patients and their families. It is thus also important in social work education. Still, empathy as a skill is usually addressed as one of many components of communication and relational work. This study therefore compares the empathy profiles of undergraduate social work students in Norway to those of teacher education students and experienced social workers. The focus is on how empathy is understood and monitored in educational settings, particularly through the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Data were gathered anonymously through an online survey (N = 417) and analyzed to determine significance and whether meaningful interpretations could be made. The findings suggest differences in empathy levels among social work students, their supervisors and teacher education students, with theoretical insights discussed to enhance empathy teaching. This paper argues for the importance of empathy in social work practice and education, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of empathic development in social work students.

Impact of visits on fostered children’s and families’ well-being: views of birth families, foster families and social workers

ABSTRACT This study explores the views of foster families and social workers, and often-overlooked parents of foster children on the benefits and drawbacks of visits. It also values changes in families’ perspectives after participating in a positive parenting program to improve visits quality. Findings from pre-post- semi-structured interviews revealed little progress in defining contact arrangements on a case-by-case basis and in engaging families in visits preparation. Comparison of the data collected rendered a more favorable appraisal of the visits after the intervention. Implications for social work practice highlighr ways to improve visits quality and the well-being of all those involve.

Calling All Leaders

ABSTRACT The U.S. Surgeon General recently published two reports highlighting the current public health crisis of unhealthy work environments that are contributing to mental health and physical, emotional, and psychological challenges for 161 million American workers. He identifies leaders as crucial partners in addressing this crisis. This editorial presents an approach to leadership assessment not often discussed in the human services sector, namely, using evidence-supported tools to assess a leader candidate’s qualifications prior to hire. Details of this approach, specific tools, as well as implications for social work practice, are reviewed.

Expansion of Digital Technology Use in the Korean Social Work Field

This study aims to examine the status of digital technology utilization in diverse social work facilities and to understand practitioners’ perceptions of digitalization in the social work field in South Korea. To achieve this, focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 32 social work practitioners from various social welfare organizations in South Korea. The results of thematic analysis revealed that there are four main factors affecting the usage of digital technology, five main types of digital technologies, four principal outcomes, and five challenges. To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the digital transformation that has occurred in social work, it is suggested that future in-depth studies should be conducted from the client’s perspective and that future quantitative research should include more cases. Altogether, this study contributes to establishing a foundation for future research to determine the directions of and challenges involved in social work practice in the digital age.

Integrating human rights in social work education in Europe

ABSTRACT The engagement of social workers with human rights is deeply embedded in the history of the profession and discipline. Therefore, incorporating human rights into social work curricula is paramount. However, comparative research on the integration of human rights in Europe is largely missing. This article addresses the gap by analyzing curricula in eight European countries. It is based on a symposium organized by the Special Interest Group on Human Rights in Social Work within the European Association of Schools of Social Work in 2022. The article focuses on three questions: What explicit references to human rights can be found? How are human rights linked to political and structural aspects? In what form is the significance of human rights for social work practice considered? The analysis encompassed the curricula of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Poland, Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Finland. It shows that human rights are an integrated component within all degree programs in these countries, albeit in different forms and to different extents. However, the critical analysis also shows significant shortcomings, e.g. missing emphasis on human rights topics within the curriculum and insufficient consideration of the practical applicability of human rights.

Interrogating the Meagre Response of Social Work to the “Social Question” Exposed by the COVID-19 Pandemic

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in South Africa in March 2020 unleashed not only a health crisis, but also a “tsunami” that disrupted every aspect of human and social life. Social work practice and education were not spared. The aftermath of the pandemic saw various services declared essential while the conventional delivery of others, including social work, were brought to a complete halt. In response, social workers elsewhere explored innovative strategies to continue rendering services remotely. In South Africa, some social workers embarked on consultative engagements through various formations whilst, others either remained mum or lamented the exclusion of social work as an essential service. Notwithstanding the fact that the above were not the only responses, the consequences of the lack of a unified professional voice and leadership may have far-reaching and negative consequences. This article presents a critical interrogation of the South African social work response throughout the pandemic. The interrogation reveals three explanatory factors behind the ineptness of social work, namely: professional decadence; a perpetual struggle for recognition; and the need to improve the status of the profession in society. These factors explain the unsatisfactory responses of the social work profession. The author argues that this amounts to failure to engage the social question, which inadvertently leads to the erosion of the value, status and societal recognition of social work. The author proposes serious professional reorientation to a focus on the social question which translates into focusing primarily on societal rather than disciplinary issues and problematics.

‘I do not know if I will have the energy to come to placement tomorrow’: Fast-Tracking Racially Minoritised Students to Failure in Social Work Education

Abstract We build upon previous work that explored the evidence base of ‘failure to fail’ on practice placements across professions. We found a lack of convincing evidence of ‘fail to fail’ within assessed practice learning placements and could not ascertain the extent of this issue. The literature was stronger about why it ‘might’ or ‘could’ be difficult to fail students on placement. We concluded that if there was a reluctance to fail students, that hesitancy was not shown when failing racially minoritised students. Using critical race theory, we noted instead, fast tacking to failure. Data were re-examined from two previous studies that focused on the experiences of Black African social work students in England. We identified two ways in which practice educators operationalised fast tracking to failure. Firstly, the speed at which negative judgments were made about students’ abilities, and related to this, asking personal and insensitive questions, and secondly, the speed of decision about placement failure. We argue that the debate needs to move away from fail to fail and instead, focus on who is being fast tracked to failure, and how racism and other discrimination is addressed forcefully in social work policy, practice and education.