This thesis is an examination of how significant features of context are linked to process in children’s participation in evaluation, using case study research. The cases vary in political and cultural contexts, institutional setting, timeframe and my own positionality in the evaluations. The rights-based evaluations revisited include: DFID funded Rights through Evaluation research in Nawalparasi in Nepal; evaluation of Phase 1 of the Saying Power scheme, run by Save the Children across the UK; and evaluation of the Croydon Children’s Fund in London. In addition to issues of context and timeframe, the cases were chosen for the author’s intimate knowledge of the evaluations, and access to participants who had been involved at different levels and roles. Issues of bias are therefore specifically addressed in the revisits and a dual approach of reflexivity and critical inquiry taken. The initial reflection builds on theoretical perspectives in children’s participation and historical perspectives of rightsbased approaches, providing a personal perspective that forms the basis of the questions for the critical inquiry. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with children and young people, project workers/ staff, and managers/ commissioners, all of whom previously participated in the evaluations. The critical inquiry was conducted in order to find out under what conditions participatory evaluation with children resulted in positive outcomes for children and transformational change. Critical realism, realist revisits and socio- and cultural ecological theories form the basis of a framework or model called ‘Change-scape’ that helped to explain the links between process and context in this thesis. How decision makers responded to children’s evidence depended on the context. Stratifications of context suggested in this analysis arose from realist revisits that incorporated external drivers, such as the political economy and dominant cultural practices, and internal drivers including the commitment and capacity of stakeholders in the evaluation process. Mechanisms of communication and collaboration were identified that helped to translate actions identified in the evaluations into outcomes for children and young people. Dimensions of power were also examined in terms of how they related to different aspects of the structure put forward. A final discussion reviews the progression from an emphasis on rights and individual behaviour change and action, to how context has to be taken into account to achieve more relational objectives that are incorporated in achieving improvements in children and young people’s wellbeing.

This study offers a policy-relevant psychosocial understanding of ways in which regeneration can affect the lives of older people. It examined the experiences of people over sixty in England of local regeneration through an in-depth biographical case-based methodology. The fieldwork was conducted in 2006/07 in Bromley by Bow/London and Burnley Wood/Burnley as two urban areas that had been experiencing substantial - and very different - regeneration activity. A review of the literature indicated that research with a focus on older people in regeneration was limited, and that much scope remained for an in-depth understanding of (older) individuals' experiences of regeneration as a basis for future policy and practice. The study addressed this gap in knowledge through a psychosocial approach. Older people were conceptualised as psychosocial beings in whose experiencing psychic and social dimensions interact. The study drew on the psychoanalytic theories of Melanie Klein and theorists in the British Object Relations tradition, as well as on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu as a framework for exploring experiences of regeneration in terms of psychic and social, conscious and unconscious dimensions. The interview-based Biographical-Narrative Interpretive Method (BNIM) was adopted as a method capable of yielding the kind of detailed data that can provide the empirical basis of a psychoanalytically-informed psychosocial approach. Sixteen interviews were conducted. Interview analysis involved panels. Three fully developed contrasting case studies are presented in the thesis. Further case material from the remaining interviews that supported or confounded the analysis arising from these three core cases is presented in the form of twelve summary vignettes. The study concludes that local regeneration can work well for older people and their communities where it provides containing structures that facilitate relations of recognition across difference and enable older people to experience a sense of well-being in contemporary mixed communities. It argues that, in addition to sustaining the rights of both older individuals themselves and others, it is crucial that regeneration initiatives foster bonds that unite people across difference. In this, the wider political context can play an important facilitating role by sustaining a reparative politics that places a premium on promoting justice, care and relations of recognition and solidarity. The study adds a psychosocial perspective to a limited body of existing work with a specific focus on regeneration and older people. Involving detailed attention to unconscious mechanisms and defences, it offers a complex understanding of the processes through which regeneration can become a beneficial or negative experience for older people in terms of an interaction of psychic and social dimensions of personal experience. The depth of this understanding has not been matched by policy-focussed research into how well regeneration has ‘worked’. The study thus makes an original contribution to knowledge that can inform future regeneration policy and practice.

Social service organisations have integrated information and communications technologies into their daily work in many different ways. Yet, social work literature has tended to frame technology as an externally created driver of neoliberal values and goals that are not necessarily in the best interests of service users or the professional values base. This thesis seeks to expand this narrow framing by reflecting on the mutually shaping relationship between technology and society, which includes social service organisations and social work, using cross-disciplinary perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and other relevant fields. This thesis begins with a review of existing social work literature, highlighting the fragmentary state of current research. Cross-disciplinary research is used to identify and reframe gaps as potential areas for future collaboration, including examining issues in specific practice contexts, incorporating relevant critical theory, and collaborating with like-minded communities of practice in the IT field. Based on these recommendations, the thesis explores issues in one specific practice context – violence against women shelters – using case study organisations in Ontario, Canada. A discussion of the research design ensues. Two cases studies were researched using critical ethnography methodology. Data was collected using multiple methods, including participant observation, unstructured interviews and documents; and, grounded theory was used to identify key themes. This is followed by a discussion of the history of the shelter movement, and the policy and social contexts impacting shelters’ use of technology. The data is organised according to the guiding research questions, in four analysis chapters. First, the technologies being used in the shelters are discussed. Although social work research suggested technology use was largely caused by external policy and social factors, the data suggested that the shelters actively made decisions about their own use and were engaged in this process for many years. This is followed by a discussion of internal issues within the shelters related to technological values and knowledge, and finally, a discussion of technological issues relevant to their work with service users. This thesis concludes by discussing the benefits of using cross-disciplinary approaches to reframe technology use in social service settings. Throughout the thesis, three broad concepts – the shelters’ agency in the processes of technological decision-making, the materiality of shelter practices and social work, and the changing nature of ‘presence’ in service delivery – are the focus of discussion. This analysis suggests that technology should not be treated, theoretically or practically, as an external force over which social work has no control.

The aim of this thesis was to investigate, using the real-time test case of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, whether the realist synthesis methodology could contribute to the making of health policy in a meaningful way. This was done by looking at two distinct research questions: first, whether realist synthesis could contribute new insights to the health policymaking process, and second, whether the 2014 Commonwealth Games volunteer programme was likely to have any significant, measurable, impact on health inequalities experienced by large sections of the host population. The 2014 Commonwealth Games legacy laid out ambitious plans for the event, in which it was anticipated that it would provide explicit opportunities to impact positively on health inequalities. By using realist synthesis to unpick the theories underpinning the volunteer programme, the review identifies the population subgroups for whom the programme was likely to be successful, how this could be achieved and in what contexts. In answer to the first research question, the review found that while realist methods were able to provide a more nuanced exposition of the impacts of the Games volunteer programme on health inequalities than previous traditional reviews had been able to provide, there were several drawbacks to using the method. It was found to be resource-intensive and complex, encouraging the exploration of a much wider set of literatures at the expense of an in-depth grasp of the complexities of those literatures. In answer to the second research question, the review found that the Games were, if anything, likely to exacerbate health inequalities because the programme was designed in such a way that individuals recruited to it were most likely to be those in least need of the additional mental and physical health benefits that Games volunteering was designed to provide. The following thesis details the approach taken to investigate both the realist approach to evidence synthesis and the likelihood that the 2014 Games volunteer programme would yield the expected results.

This thesis explores the impact of neoliberalism on the political identity of social workers. It discusses social work as an inherently political activity that has been under attack since the advent and domination of neoliberalism since the early 1980s. It explores social work's roots in social reform and social justice and how today social work has become a depoliticised and technocratic activity. The thesis explores these phenomena through an empirical study of fourteen social workers who have a declared and enacted political identity, such as parliamentarians. It takes a biographical inquiry approach to examining their identity from early development of social reformist and social justice perspectives to facing the dilemma of neoliberalism in social work. It also deploys a constructivist grounded theory analytical process to analyse the biographical interviews and construct a substantive theory. What emerges is a study of social workers managing their social work identity in the face of changes within the social work profession and sustaining a stable social reformist political identity throughout their life course to date. It also demonstrates how strongly attached the participants are to their social work identity during their political careers. The thesis has importance for the social work profession not least because this cohort can advocate on behalf of the profession in powerful places.

Despite the plethora of literature regarding the cause and characteristics of homelessness, there has been relatively little discussion regarding causal explanations emanating from policy makers and practitioners. This research sought to address this gap by examining the dual practice of support and sanctions introduced under the Labour Administration 1997 - 2007.Conducted within and between five local authorities in the North West of England and inspired by the philosophical arguments of critical realism (Bhaskar, 1989) alongside Elder-Vass’s (2010) concept of relational emergence, a qualitative approach was adopted in which eighteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior managers in Supporting People and Community Safety teams. The overall aim was to examine professional beliefs and understandings of homelessness and explore its impact on practice. A primary contribution of this study to the literature on homelessness is the framework used in which emergent properties, or causal powers, which construct a particular ‘reality’ of homelessness, were identified. Utilising this framework, the analysis explored how taken for granted assumptions about the pathological and deviant behaviour of homeless people not only informed policy, but also had a significant impact on practice which, in turn, served to maintain and reinforce the exclusion of people in acute housing need. This research also extends the current literature by recommending a move away from what could be described as ‘traditional’ methods in homelessness research and towards an approach which, by utilising the dialectic arguments of critical realism, seeks to develop transformative practice. This approach would not only challenge prevailing orthodoxies of homelessness, but, following the seminal work of Gramsci (1971 cited Joseph, 2002) could also support the development of a counter hegemonic discourse.

The outputs chosen for inclusion for this PhD by publication comprise seven articles published in peer reviewed journals, two book chapters, one research paper and two resource guides commissioned by professional bodies. These outputs explore two major themes. The first concerns the nature of resilience in social workers and identifies the inter- and intra-individual competencies associated with the concept. The second concerns how resilience and its underpinning competencies can be enhanced in social work education, both pre and post qualification. The report begins by contextualising the research within the existing literature, outlining my epistemological and methodological position and highlighting the importance of a pragmatic mixed-methods approach to research design, data collection and analysis. A critique of the outputs is subsequently provided together with a discussion of how I developed as a social work academic and a researcher during the research programme. Finally, the significance of the contribution to the body of social work knowledge provided by these outputs is demonstrated by identifying how the research has enhanced understanding of improving wellbeing in social workers though the development of a tool box of strategies to manage stress and foster resilience in social work training and practice.

No description available.

This thesis explores the ways in which professionals (in particular, social work professionals) define, produce, transfer, use, develop and disseminate knowledge of and for their profession and their practice. The thesis considers the issue(s) of professional knowledge from three related but distinct perspectives: philosophical, methodological and professional. From a philosophical perspective, the thesis articulates and examines the underpinning principles of epistemology and considers to what extent the professional social work knowledge debate has been informed by reference to these, and whether the application of appropriate epistemic principles has anything to offer the professions(s) in terms of its knowledge requirements. Methodologically, the thesis is informed by the history of the philosophy of science regarding the nature of inquiry. These considerations provide a clear paradigmatic rationale and context for the utilisation of a mixed-methods approach to the empirical content, with Q-Factor analysis being the quantitative method of choice, supported by semi-structured interviews. From a professional perspective, the thesis explores the views of those professionals actively engaged in those processes of defining, producing, transferring, using, developing and disseminating knowledge of and for social work. These three perspectives are here combined to provide a means by which the views and understandings of professionals can be articulated in meaningful ways and used to inform future discussion and practice regarding professional knowledge forms. The findings within this thesis reveal the differing ways professional social workers both theorise about and engage with knowledge in its many and varied forms. The findings also highlight the ways in which influences external to the individual affect how knowledge is, or is not used, and how some forms of knowledge appear to have preferential status. The conclusions suggest ways of responding to and addressing these issues by reference to a new pragmatic epistemology for the profession(s), which takes cognisance of the contemporary professional zeitgeist.

The study is located within a Scottish human service context, with human services being defined as predominantly work directly with people (service users; patients; volunteers; clients) across public and third sector settings. It draws on narratives from six distinct disciplines including social work, education, police, community learning and development, educational psychology and nursing. Whilst participants reflected on their journeys to becoming a professional, they explored how opportunities, both given and taken to lead throughout their careers, may have influenced their understanding and experience of professionalism, professional identity and leadership. Narratives frequently identified participants’ overwhelming desire to enter and remain within human service professions being driven by a social justice agenda, with an inherent desire to ‘make a difference’. Participants articulated how leadership opportunities had provided them with greater confidence and an ability to improve standards within their field, often from an early stage in their career. This in turn had often strengthened their sense of professional identity. Findings suggest participants made very strong connections between the concepts of professionalism and leadership, particularly when leadership was understood as distributed throughout the organisation. Distributed, dispersed, collaborative or ‘leadership at all levels’ are terms often used interchangeably to describe ‘a pooling of ideas and expertise to produce services and leadership energy that is greater than the sum of individual capabilities’ (Patterson, 2010:6). This type of leadership therefore, not only recognises the ability of people within non-traditional positions of power or who are not at the top of their organisational hierarchy, to become leaders, but also recognises the collaborative nature of such interactions. Based on the findings, a key recommendation suggests that within human service contexts, a re-conceptualisation of professionalism, which incorporates models of distributed leadership, should be adopted. This would have the capacity to unleash latent leadership potential within professionals who want to ‘make a difference’ and would be like ‘pushing on an open door’. It is further argued that such a consideration could support the development of leadership strategies in human services although the author cautions that organisational cultures can both promote or inhibit effectiveness and impact.