Postmodernism affects views and lifestyles, which in turn determine how an individual fulfils his roles, meets his needs, and grows and adjusts in his different systems. The nature of this impact on the social functioning of young adults from an ecological systems perspective is relevant for the social work profession and to social work practitioners working with young adults. Discovering more about this impact therefore formed the rationale for this study. In this study, the mixed methods research approach was utilised seeing that it comprises both a qualitative and a quantitative component which, when mixed, provided a comprehensive analysis of the research problem. Young adults’ experiences and views of postmodern society could be considered as phenomena in the ‘real world’ which necessitated a qualitative approach to this study. In order to claim scientific accuracy, the impact had to be quantified. This implied measurement within a quantitative approach in order to produce precise and generalisable statistical findings. The researcher started the empirical study with the qualitative approach. In this manner, rich data could be obtained to assist in the compilation of suitable questions to construct a questionnaire. Sequential timing, within the exploratory mixed methods design, with the qualitative data collected and analysed first, followed by the quantitative data, therefore allowed for the one dataset to build upon the other. Mixing the datasets by means of an exploratory mixed methods research design provided a better understanding of the problem than if either dataset had been used alone. Exploratory factor analysis was used to reduce the data and promote the measurement of the impact of postmodernism. From the conclusions it is apparent that global issues observed in the macrosystem affect all the ecological systems and impact the social functioning of the young adult. The reciprocal impact of people and environmental systems on the social functioning of young adults within a postmodern paradigm was evident in this research. Personal experiences were highly valued, as well as a tendency towards ‘own authority’. Postmodernism affects views and lifestyles, which in turn affects the young adult’s performance of roles and his interactions within all his different social systems. A strong attachment to family and home, as well as the importance of roles as sons/daughters were found. It was found that young adults focus on ‘the self’ and on own needs and satisfactions, with contrasting views on the significance of formal structures, image and consumerism, (electronic) communication and interaction, diversity and personal future. Views regarding an uncertain future and personal roles evolve and change constantly, depending on social and economic factors. An increase in a need for spirituality in postmodern times was found. The contemporary young adult between the ages of 18 and 25 years explores and experiments in terms of identity and lifestyle. Thinking, questioning, feeling and a strong focus on ‘self’ characterise this young adult. Views and values seem to be person-specific and based on emotions and experiences. / Thesis (DPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / hb2013 / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

This study focussed on the development and pilot testing of a research based preemployment core skills programme for young adults in order to equip them for the open labour market, to improve the young adults’ knowledge and application of employment core skills, which in turn could increase the likelihood of securing employment. This programme can also help to alleviate unemployment and poverty by contributing to the social development of young adults, enhancing human capital development, increasing opportunities to reach full educational potential, enhancing economic development and increasing the opportunity to be self-sufficient and raising the quality of life. The motivation for this study is based on the high unemployment amongst young adults, the lack of intervention programmes that address core skills for employment for young adults that are making the transition from school to work in South Africa and the apparent lack of core skills support for young adults at places of employment. The study was conducted from an ecological systems perspective which is relevant for the social work profession and to the “help professional” who engages with young adults. The applied research was used and a quantitative research approach was undertaken by using self-administered and group-administered questionnaires to collect data in a standardised way under controlled circumstances with procedures planned prior to the commencement of the study in order to test a hypothesis. The study was conducted in two phases namely (A) an exploration of core employment skills needed by young adults by using a quantitative descriptive survey research design and (B) the development and pilot testing of a pre-employment core skills programme for young adults by using a one-group pretest-posttest design to assess the change in knowledge of core skills of young adults through the deployment of an intervention of the programme. The discussion of young adulthood as a life phase highlighted the nature of human development. The discussion of the different development theories gave a good indication of what development tasks are of importance during young adulthood and especially in terms of preparation for entering into the labour market (career). Unemployment has various impacts on the young adult who in turn has an effect on the social system and the economy of South Africa. From the empirical findings of phase A and combining the literature study it became apparent that young adults who can communicate well, solve problems and work with others are more employable as they can assume an active, adaptive and responsible role in the workplace and society. This information was used to develop a pre-employment core skills programme for young adults. The conceptual programme model, the experiential learning approach and problem-based learning were used for the basis of the core skills programme. The aim of the core skills programme was to enhance the young adults’ knowledge and application of core skills necessary for employment and their employment opportunities. The findings from phase B indicate that the developed programme did enhance the young adults’ knowledge of core skills necessary for employment and that the developed programme can be implemented with young adults between the ages of 18-25 years. / Dissertation (MSW)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Social Work and Criminology / MSW / Unrestricted

In the service of child protection organisations, where services are focused on the protection of children within the preservation of families, social workers are exposed to the adverse conditions of children and families forming part of their caseload. Social workers must remain objective and make thoughtful decisions in the best interest of children and families, while they themselves might be traumatised by the circumstances of these children and families. Various studies have been done about occupational stress, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and the role of supervision in this regard. Less is however known about support as a function of supervision for social workers employed by child protection organisations and the social workers’ experience(s) of this support. The aim of this study was to investigate and to descripe, by means of a descriptive qualitative design, social workers employed by child protection organizations' experience of support as function of supervision. For the purpose of this study, the researcher used a purposeful non-probability sampling. Ten social workers from seven child protection organisations within the specific field of child protection were selected according to their willingness to participate. Unstructured, in-depth, one-on-one interviews, with one question to initiate the interview, were conducted with social workers to investigate their experience of the support as function of supervision. During interviews with the individual social workers the researcher made use of observations and field notes as tools for data collection tools. A focus group with eight social workers was also utilised to verify initial findings and to allow for any additional data that would emerge. The first theme deals with participants’ view of support as a function of supervision, which includes receiving guidance and emotional support. Theme two is about participants’ experience of support as a function of supervision in terms of task-oriented as well as emotional support. The third theme that came up was alternative sources of emotional support, including colleagues, external counselors, family members and selfcare. These themes were divided into sub-themes and categories and discussed according to relevant quotations from interviews and literature reviews. Conclusions and recommendations were made according to these results. One of the most important recommendations arising from the findings of the study, is that the support function of supervision should be used more effectively. Social workers and supervisors must develop a greater awareness of the importance to discuss emotions and the dangers of suppressing emotions. Social workers that receive the opportunity to reflect on their emotions, develop a sense of self-worth, appreciation and experience job satisfaction and motivation, which leads to an increase in service quality. / MSW, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

In the service of child protection organisations, where services are focused on the protection of children within the preservation of families, social workers are exposed to the adverse conditions of children and families forming part of their caseload. Social workers must remain objective and make thoughtful decisions in the best interest of children and families, while they themselves might be traumatised by the circumstances of these children and families. Various studies have been done about occupational stress, secondary trauma, compassion fatigue and the role of supervision in this regard. Less is however known about support as a function of supervision for social workers employed by child protection organisations and the social workers’ experience(s) of this support. The aim of this study was to investigate and to descripe, by means of a descriptive qualitative design, social workers employed by child protection organizations' experience of support as function of supervision. For the purpose of this study, the researcher used a purposeful non-probability sampling. Ten social workers from seven child protection organisations within the specific field of child protection were selected according to their willingness to participate. Unstructured, in-depth, one-on-one interviews, with one question to initiate the interview, were conducted with social workers to investigate their experience of the support as function of supervision. During interviews with the individual social workers the researcher made use of observations and field notes as tools for data collection tools. A focus group with eight social workers was also utilised to verify initial findings and to allow for any additional data that would emerge. The first theme deals with participants’ view of support as a function of supervision, which includes receiving guidance and emotional support. Theme two is about participants’ experience of support as a function of supervision in terms of task-oriented as well as emotional support. The third theme that came up was alternative sources of emotional support, including colleagues, external counselors, family members and selfcare. These themes were divided into sub-themes and categories and discussed according to relevant quotations from interviews and literature reviews. Conclusions and recommendations were made according to these results. One of the most important recommendations arising from the findings of the study, is that the support function of supervision should be used more effectively. Social workers and supervisors must develop a greater awareness of the importance to discuss emotions and the dangers of suppressing emotions. Social workers that receive the opportunity to reflect on their emotions, develop a sense of self-worth, appreciation and experience job satisfaction and motivation, which leads to an increase in service quality. / MSW, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Increasingly, firms like Patagonia, IKEA, General Mills, or Barilla actively seek to understand their interdependence with nature, build innovative capabilities, and generate more radical shifts toward sustainability. This creates exciting opportunities to investigate exactly how these companies obtain knowledge about ecosystem dynamics and processes and how they use it both to cope with climate change or declining ecosystem resilience and contribute to maintain or even strengthen ecosystems. Despite the considerable potential to advance research on organizational strategy and corporate sustainability, the notion of ‘ecological knowledge’ has yet to enter the scholarly work of management and business organization in a substantive manner. At present, we know almost nothing about the processes, mechanisms, and routines that enable an organization to, first, recognize the value of such knowledge and to, then, systematically access, co-create, integrate and utilize such knowledge into its broader knowledge and resource base. My dissertation attempts to fill this gap and opens up new directions for research on the role of ecological knowledge in corporate sustainability management. More specifically, I ask: What are the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize ecological knowledge with current organizational knowledge and strategies? I link strategic and organization-focused concepts of knowledge and the perspective of absorptive capacity with the notion of ecological knowledge from modern ecology, especially from the social-ecological systems literature, to shed light on the processes through which organizations can effectively access, co-create, integrate and utilize new ecological knowledge into their operational and strategic decision making. I adopt a qualitative, emergent, and inductive strategy drawing on a grounded research approach to gain an in-depth, cross-validated, and processual understanding of the mechanisms through which organizations can promote and enhance ecosystem health including biodiversity. I undertook my study on the organic agriculture sector, a sub-sector of the modern agriculture and agri-food industry. I collected data from nineteen agriculture and agri-food organizations based in British Columbia (BC), the westernmost province of Canada, using multiple data sources including in-depth interviews, observations, company documents, reports, newspaper articles and field reports. Based on my analysis, I develop a grounded theory about the processes through which organizations can successfully deepen their ecological knowledge and then utilize this knowledge to more sustainably manage their relationships with nature and contribute to protecting or even strengthening ecosystem functionality. With my dissertation, I address the call from scholars in Organization and the Natural Environment (ONE) and Corporate Sustainability for more transdisciplinary cross-fertilization as an essential approach to building compelling new theory and models in the field. First, my analysis offers a more fine-grained understanding of the types, components, dimensions, and characteristics of ecological knowledge. Second, my analysis uncovers a micro-level account of the processes by which individuals as critical actors identify, evaluate and make sense of the organization-environment interrelationships across various scales of time and space. I also identify the multiple personal characteristics of individual actors that influence these processes in various stages and circumstances. Third, my study offers insights into the factors that can strengthen an organization’s relational capacity to build mutual trust and collaboration with holders of ecological knowledge. Fourth, it sheds light on how firms engage with and motivate multiple community stakeholders in building a collaborative process of mutual learning, knowledge sharing, and knowledge co-creation to build joint capacity for coping successfully with many complex challenges of sustainability, thus contributing to the wellbeing of the entire social-ecological system. Collectively, these contributions provide a deeper and more holistic understanding of the processes of acquiring and co-creating ecological knowledge that can allow an organization to transition successfully towards greater ecological sustainability. My dissertation also offers numerous practically relevant insights for businesses facing the challenges of economic, social and environmental sustainability, as well as specific guidance on how companies can protect or enhance their supply of natural capital and contribute toward greater stability of the broader human-nature systems in which they are embedded. / Graduate / 2023-11-15

Bipolêre versteuring is ‘n kroniese, herhalende en ernstige siekte met ‘n voorkoms van 1 % wêreldwyd. Pasiënte kan psigoties word, selfmoordideasie hê en ook soms aggressief raak. Dikwels moet hulle gehospitaliseer word - ook teen hulle wil, want hulle mag soms geen insig toon nie. Pasiënte mag presenteer met ‘n ko-morbiede toestand, byvoorbeeld substansmisbruik of ‘n persoonlikheidsversteuring. Dit gebeur dikwels dat hulle nie hulle toegewysde rolle, byvoorbeeld dié van gade, broodwinner, ouer of volwasse kind, kan vervul nie. Versorgers van pasiënte gediagnoseer met bipolêre versteuring, word eweneens beïnvloed deur die siekte en die gepaardgaande stigma daarvan. Dit kan vir hulle baie moeilik wees wanneer hulle die verantwoordelikhede en rolle van die pasiënt moet oorneem. Beskou vanuit die oogpunt van ‘n ekologiese sisteemperspektief is die aard van hierdie impak op die maatskaplike funksionering van die versorgers relevant vir maatskaplike werk in die geestesgesondheidsveld. Die verkenning van hierdie impak en die ontwikkeling van ‘n intervensie om die impak aan te spreek het dus die rasionaal van hierdie studie gevorm. Die geïntegreerde biopsigososiale model, binne ‘n ekologiese sisteem perspektief, word aangewend by die psigiatriese instelling waar die navorser werk. Hierdie benadering het dus ook gedien as die vertrekpunt vir die betrokke studie. Die gemengde-metode navorsingsbenadering is tydens hierdie studie benut ten einde ‘n uitgebreide analise van die navorsingsprobleem te verskaf. Die voorgenome studie het binne die kategorie van toegepaste navorsing geval, want die doel daarvan was om ‘n program te ontwikkel om hulp te verleen aan versorgers van individue gediagnoseer met bipolêre versteuring. Die navorser het haar navorsing gerig aan die hand van Rothman en Thomas (1994) se intervensie ontwerp en ontwikkelingsmodel (D&D) deur gebruik te maak van kwalitatiewe en kwantitatiewe metodes. Na afloop van die analise van die kwalitatiewe data, is ‘n unieke psigo-maatskaplike opvoedkundige program, die SEE-SAW program, ontwikkel en toe geïmplementeer. Die konsep van balans versus wanbalans binne die sisteem is essensieel; die navorser se program het ten doel gehad om beter balans binne die sisteem van die pasiënt en versorger te bewerkstellig. Die gevolgtrekkings het duidelik getoon dat die versorger van die bipolêre pasiënt blootgestel is aan ‘n wye spectrum van behoeftes en uitdagings, maar dat intervensies soos die SEE-SAW program van groot waarde mag wees. / Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic, recurrent, serious illness that occurs in 1 % of people globally. Patients might become psychotic, suicidal and sometimes violent. They often need to be hospitalised, even against their will because they may have no insight. Patients may have a comorbid condition such as substance abuse or a personality disorder. They are frequently unable to fulfil their assigned roles of spouse, breadwinner, parent or adult child. Caregivers of patients diagnosed with BD are also affected by the illness and the associated stigma. It becomes very difficult for them when they have to take over the responsibilities and roles of the patient. The nature of this impact on the social functioning of the caregivers, understood from an ecological systems perspective, is relevant for social work in the mental health care field. Discovering more about this impact and developing an intervention to curb it therefore formed the rationale for this study. The integrated biopsychosocial model, within an ecological systems perspective, is being used at the psychiatric institution where the researcher works. This approach therefore also served as the point of departure from which this research was conducted. A mixed methods research approach was utilised to provide a comprehensive analysis of the research problem. The proposed study fell into the category of applied research, due to its aim of designing a programme to assist caregivers of people diagnosed with BD. The researcher directed the study according to Rothman and Thomas’s (1994) intervention design and development model (D&D), using qualitative and quantitative methods. After the analysis of the qualitative data a unique psychosocial educational programme, the SEE-SAW programme, was developed and then implemented. The concept of equilibrium versus disequilibrium in the system is central; the researcher’s programme therefore strove towards better equilibrium within the system of patient and caregiver. From the conclusions it is apparent that the caregiver of the BD patient is exposed to a wide spectrum of needs and challenges, but that interventions such as the SEE-SAW programme may be very helpful. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / Social Work and Criminology / PhD (Social Work) / Unrestricted