This research aims to explore the ways in which community-based mental health social workers assess the qualities of residential care facilities in order to make recommendations to their service users. The daily challenges of serving a marginalized population within the context of structural inequalities and neoliberalist service provision describe some of the contradictions that shape the work experiences of social workers. This research seeks to contribute to and further our understanding of critical social work practice, social justice, and structural oppression. In addressing the phenomenon of structural inequalities and neoliberalist service provision from the perspective of those affected, it will assist in a broader understanding of how social workers support service users to find supportive housing. Semi-structured interviews with community-based mental health social workers employed in Hamilton, Ontario were conducted and complement the existing literature on residential care facilities, the deterioration of the social welfare system, managerialism, and client-centeredness. This is an exploratory study as few previous research has been conducted with social workers in the context of lodging homes. Previous literature existed from the perspective of residents of lodging homes in Hamilton, Ontario. This research suggests that social workers are influenced by a complex number of phenomena in their daily work in order to make recommendations for supportive housing. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

The purpose of this qualitative study was to get a better understanding how professionals working with unaccompanied refugee children perceive and reflect on their emotions evoked by their work and on their preparedness to handle them. Therefore, I chose to investigate how the sample of professional recognised, expressed and managed their emotions at work; what role did support and self-reflection play in exploring emotions; how the professionals saw the role of emotions in their work with unaccompanied refugee children; and how the participants described their preparedness to handle their emotions from the social work education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine professionals working directly with unaccompanied refugee children. The findings indicated a lack of consistency in the views; where some said emotions could be utilised as a tool in social work, others viewed that expressing emotions might be seen unprofessional. Self-reflection and support of the colleagues and the counsellor in handling emotions were valued by the participants; it was seen to be helpful in working on emotions and becoming a better professional. Another emerging theme was the lack of discussion about emotions in social work education.

<p>The purpose of this study was to get a better understanding of how newly graduated social workers within the elderly care and the need assessment sector forms a professional identity through a focus on their experience of the socialization process.</p><p>The main questions concerned how work place culture socialized the newly graduated social worker in respect of her or his professional identity.</p><p>The study’s theoretical underpinning lies in Symbolic Interactionism. We have combined focus group interviews with follow-up personal interviews with the aim of deepening to our understanding of the socialization process of social workers and what it means for their professional identities.</p><p>Three main results were generated. First, that a well planned introduction and the teams’ significance to the formation of professional identity were shown to be important. Second that a needs assessment organization with a controlled and standardized professional role were noted to be too restrictive as they allowed little possibility for the new social worker to shape their own ways of working. This was particularly the case where new social workers were unclear about how to go about their work assignment. These results also showed that relation building and dialogue with clients was underemphasised and taken for granted.</p>

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about how a group of newly graduated social workers reflect on the practical daily work and their positions working with clients who are in need of social and/or economic resources. More precisely the purpose is to find out how these seven newly graduated social workers viewed working with clients during theoretical and practical studies. The aim is to analyze which techniques and methods could be seen in these narratives. Furthermore the aim was to find out if and how these seven social workers reflected on the power relation between social worker and client. The material of this study consists of seven semi-structured interviews. Throughout gathering the data and analyzing it, the qualitative method in form of narrative approach was used. Theoretical tools used in both creating the theoretical perspective and analyzing the data material consisted of social constructionism and main theoretical concepts of Bauman’s stranger, Foucault’s concept of power and discipline and Reamer’s paternalism. Results and analysis of data material showed how methods and techniques in social work are used when working with a client, maintaining an unbalanced power relation between social worker and client, for example in the form of creating alliances of social workers, use of language and categorizing the clients. The power relation was directly considered and reflected on by three of seven interviewed social workers. However, it was apparent that many of those interviewed reflected indirectly on the role of power in social workers’ daily work with clients.

TITLE: The Psychological Aspects of the Life in a Shelter AUTHOR: PhDr. Roman Čepelák DEPARTMENT: Katedra psychologie SUPERVISOR: Doc. PhDr. Miloš Kučera, CSc. ABSTRACT: The master thesis explores, by analytic way, the life of clients in shelter for families with children. The thesis describes the specific shelter home in Prague - Horní Pocernice and observes its specifics in a context of other shelters. It maps the target group of users, who are mostly clients from Roma population. The thesis aims at clients' motives to live in a shelter, their coping with shelter norms and their adjustment of shelter rules to clients' own needs. It notices individual behaviors in a community of clients, describing interactions with social workers and between each other. The specific chapter is devoted to children as the youngest users of a shelter, their coping with the environment and the possibilities shelter home offers to them. The last chapter implies a certain similarity in shelter clients thinking with thinking of people living in an oral culture. The thesis disputes declared purpose of shelter home(s) as training of their own home living, since their repetitive "coming home" returns to shelter(s) witness another motives for shelter life as well. KEYWORDS: Shelter, Roma, social worker

No description available.

Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / Heroin usage is on the increase in the Western Cape province of South Africa owing to globalization and to increased access to the drug in this province. The goal of this study is to explore the experiences of coloured heroin users in the Metro South area of Cape Town, which stretches from Simons Town and Muizenberg to Retreat, Lavender Hill, Grassy Park, Parkwood and Wynberg. These individuals have been found to congregate in the Wynberg CBD. The overarching theoretical framework for the purpose of this research is social constructionism and symbolic interactionism, using a qualitative means of inquiry. Snowball sampling was used to recruit prospective participants and data was collected by means of in-depth interviews, with a semi structures interviewing schedule. The questions informed the subsequent themes and categories that arise from the data collection process. Snowball sampling was employed in this case, a non-probability sample, in which participants were recruited via key informants. The sample distribution included 13 participants, 10 of which were heroin users (5 female, 5 male) and the remaining 3 were key informants which contributed to triangulation of the data. In terms of the findings, participants spoke of mostly being involved in intimate relationships, which according to participants had dual benefits. For female participants intimate relationships offered a form of protection on the often dangerous streets of Wynberg and for certain males, intimate relationships offered an opportunity to fund their habit, by trading their female partners to perform sexual favors for money to acquire heroin. While the study found females were mainly involved in trading sexual favors for money, heterosexual males were also implicated in having sexual relations with homosexual men for money. Furthermore, the study found that heroin users in Wynberg represented a surrogate family, where, because of their lifestyle, they were disconnected from their own family. This family surrogate was found to be supportive, caring to a large extent, shared a living space, protective of each other and shared a common language and understanding.

<p>Empati är att kunna uppleva och förstå andra människors känslor. Tre studier gjordes för att undersöka socialsekreterares empati för sina klienter och hur de upplever sin professionella och genuina empati. Två studier var kvantitativa och en var en mixed design. Deltagarna var 26 socialsekreterare och 57 socionomstudenter. Studie 1 och 2 visade att socialsekreterare och studenter på socionomprogrammet hade mer empati för en sympatisk person än för en osympatisk. Studie 3 visade en tendens till att socialsekreterarna upplevde mer distans vid professionell än vid genuin empati. Ju fler antal år en socialsekretare har arbetat desto mindre spelar det roll hur klienten uppträder vid mötet, detta gäller även för socionomstudenterna.</p>

<p>Förskola och skola kan upptäcka om ett barn far illa och anmäler till socialtjänsten som utreder fallet. Studiens syfte var att med kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer undersöka hur samarbetet mellan dessa instanser upplevs, samt vilka möjligheter och hinder som upplevs för att hjälpa barnet. Tio personer från de olika instanserna intervjuades. Studien visade att (1) möjligheter finns att hjälpa familjerna, (2) det är svårt då föräldrar inte samarbetar samt då samarbetet mellan förskola, skola och socialtjänst begränsas genom socialtjänstens tystnadsplikt och (3) samarbetet mellan instanserna är bra men kan förbättras med mer insikt i varandras arbete. Det framkom att ett behov av bättre samarbete behöver utvecklas. Åtgärder på ett tidigare stadium skulle vara resursbesparande.</p>

Förskola och skola kan upptäcka om ett barn far illa och anmäler till socialtjänsten som utreder fallet. Studiens syfte var att med kvalitativ metod i form av intervjuer undersöka hur samarbetet mellan dessa instanser upplevs, samt vilka möjligheter och hinder som upplevs för att hjälpa barnet. Tio personer från de olika instanserna intervjuades. Studien visade att (1) möjligheter finns att hjälpa familjerna, (2) det är svårt då föräldrar inte samarbetar samt då samarbetet mellan förskola, skola och socialtjänst begränsas genom socialtjänstens tystnadsplikt och (3) samarbetet mellan instanserna är bra men kan förbättras med mer insikt i varandras arbete. Det framkom att ett behov av bättre samarbete behöver utvecklas. Åtgärder på ett tidigare stadium skulle vara resursbesparande.