Although activists’ conservative estimate of the number of non-status people living in Canada is well over 500,000, the Canadian government, through its exclusionary immigration, civic, and public policies, has criminalized their existence and forsaken its responsibility for their human rights. It has been abetted by international law, which largely leaves it to individual states to resolve their own issues with unregulated migration by means of deportation or regularization. This anti-racist feminist research relied on multiple methods to collect 155 survey questionnaires distributed by service providers to non-status women within the Greater Toronto Area; it also relied on thirteen individual and two focus-group interviews with service providers and activists in order to: (1) explore the lived conditions of non-status women, and (2) examine how the activities of service providers and activists address these women’s needs. The results show that living without legal immigration status has dire consequences for non-status women, placing them at high risk of physical and sexual abuse, labour exploitation, sexual and mental health challenges, excessive caring responsibilities, and unstable housing conditions. Since most publicly funded human-service agencies come under governmental control through the process of funding allocation, practitioners must meet their non-status clients’ needs in an underground manner or on compassionate grounds, while facing dual workloads, limited referral sources, and work-related burnout. This adversely affects the quality of the care these women receive. As a result, in recent years, many frontline practitioners and human-rights activists have formed campaigns and networks to confront neoliberal state policies and act as the voice of non-status women. At the same time, non-status women’s resilient power, informal learning mechanisms, and social networks have enabled them to learn new skills, navigate the system, and make Canada their new home.

The aim of this study is to create an increased understanding of shared leadership and how it takes shape in the relationship between first-line managers in human service organizations. Shared leadership is seen as a complement to the traditional one-man leadership and briefly means that two managers share the role that usually is held by a single leader. The study has a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with managers in human service organizations. The interviews mention the mangers thoughts and experiences about shared leadership and gain approval in the hermeneutic science field. The study is analyzed based on symbolic interactionism where perspectives from the theoreticians Mead and Goffman are used. The relationship between the two managers is also analyzed using Foucault's meaning about the concept of power. The results show that shared leadership, on a voluntary basis, has great potential to create satisfaction, personal development, and provide higher quality of decision-making. Communication is seen in the result as one of the most important factors to a successful shared leadership. To share leadership implicate a requirement of clear power structures. The power structure lays groundwork for the shared leaderships success or failure.

The issue of sick leave and an increase of ill health in the workplace is a social problem inSwedenthat is currently an important topic. Public human service organisations are one of the sectors where this is a major problem. The aim of this study is to examine what significance the leadership in public human service organisations has on the health and sense of well being among the staff within the organisation. We have chosen to look at this issue from a health promoting perspective where we focused on health factors and to what extent the management can influence and promote the possibilities for a healthy workplace with healthy staff. The results of the study are based on interviews with three leaders within the public human service sector. Results shows that having staff that are content and healthy is a key ingredient in the organisations goal to provide the best possible care and service to their clients. The results also identify leadership qualities and tools that are important such as being present in the workplace and available for the staff and also setting a good example. Other leadership qualities such as being clear in their role as to what they expect from their staff, being goal orientated, and being strong and secure in their leadership proved to be important in relation to health in the workplace. Making sure that the staff feel that they have the possibility to influence their working conditions and given the opportunity to participate in changes were also identified as important health promoting factors. The study also shows that showing trust in the staff and allowing them to take responsibility as well as seeing them as individuals is also important health promoting factors. It became evident that achieving a healthy workplace is a process where all the factors are equally important.

Personal assistance from a welfare perspective, offering a variety of reasons is perceived as a different design assistance than is usually there in the public social assistance depending on the strong foundations of the handicap principle autonomy and influence is in terms of how, what and when the operation is performed. The aim of our study was to highlight the handicap principle influence and autonomy in the operation of personal assistance. It is intended both to illustrate the legislature's intentions and ideologues expectations and also to examine a number of managers and personal assistants experiences of the conditions that exist for realize these principles. In order to answer our purpose and our issues, we have chosen a qualitative approach. We have first conducted a literature review and secondly implemented six interviews with personal assistants and managers. As theoretical analysis concepts are used formulations in the process and legislation as well as previous research on the handicap principle influence and self-determination and also Hasenfelds theory of human service organizations. We chose an integrated performance analysis and reporting of our study materials. The results showed that the proportion of the disability, relationships and the organization is of importance for the realization of the handicap principle influence and autonomy. This indicates an intent which is diverse and complex since there are several aspects to consider in organizations where people are the raw material.

The purpose of the study was to gain a greater understanding of how the amount of stress and workload that exists in Swedish social services affect the clients. The study was based on interviews with socialworkers responsible for childcustody enquiries. I chose to interview socialworkers in two different cities that resembled eachother. One of the interviews was individual and two was in focusgroups. The socialworkers were interviewed with a semi structured interview manual. The results showed that one of the cities social services, the socialworkers had a more difficult worksituation than the other city. The reason to why one city was more well functioning than the other depended on how the organization had handled the past years amount of workload. Both differences and similaritis was found. In the city that had a more difficult work situation the socialworkers had to prioritize with their time more and their clients were more affected than in the other city. Prioritizing time is something that was found in both cities but the city with more difficult worksituation had to prioritize more with their time and that lead to less time with their clients. It also lead to lower quality enquiries.

Social media has proliferated throughout the nonprofit sector over the last five years and organizations use these new tools in a variety of ways. Little research is available on the use of social media within nonprofit human service organizations (HSO) specifically. This study is one of the first of its kind to explore how and why human service organizations are using social media. The aim of this study is to understand the current status of social media use among nonprofit human service organizations by exploring and describing the social media platforms in use, associated practices with social media, the frequency of use, general satisfaction, and plans for the future use of social media. A cross-sectional research design was selected and a survey instrument was created for the study. Data were collected from 125 nonprofit human service organizations in the Richmond, VA metropolitan area that were identified from a sampling frame of nonprofit organizations. The current status of social media use among nonprofit human service organizations is that HSO’s initially adopted social media to engage the community. Although many HSO’s continue to do this, promoting the HSO’s programs and services has also become a top priority. This is primarily done using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to share organizational newsletters and other information with their online community at least twice a day. On average, human service organizations have been using social media for more than five years and most plan to continue using social media in the future. Although HSO’s report using social media less than ten hours a week, they are generally satisfied with the outcomes, but admitted more assistance is needed. This study establishes a foundation for HSO’s to discuss the uncertainty of the future and to identify goals and strategies to help the HSO move forward. Increased understanding of why and how to use social media will also help HSO’s to determine strategies for using social media that can add to the sustainability of the organization. Additional implications for HSO’s and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

Our understanding of what factors contribute to the success of human service organisations is limited. Social workers often occupy leadership roles in such organisations, and so research is needed on how leadership influences success. This study explored how staff at a care home for older people perceive factors important for creating success, and the function of leadership. A case study design was adopted employing a qualitative approach, with data collected using semi-structured interviews. A care home identified as something out of the ordinary was chosen as the field site and three care staff and the care home manager selected as participants. A qualitative analysis indicated that a work environment characterized by solidarity generated resilience and satisfaction among staff. A focus on the residents, an innovative work approach and a visible, honest and accommodating manager were factors perceived as vital for creating success. / Vår förståelse för vilka faktorer som bidrar till framgång för människobehandlande organisationer är begränsad. Socionomer innehar ofta ledande roller inom dessa organisationer, därmed behövs forskning om hur ledarskapet påverkar framgång. Denna studie undersöker hur personal på ett vård- och omsorgsboende för äldre beskriver faktorer som är viktiga för att skapa framgång, samt funktionen av ledarskap. En fallstudiedesign användes vilken utgick från en kvalitativ ansats där datamaterialet samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Ett vård- och omsorgsboende vilket utmärkt sig som något utöver det vanliga valdes som plats för studien och tre ur vård- och omsorgspersonalen samt enhetschefen valdes som deltagare. Kvalitativ analys visade att en arbetsmiljö som kännetecknas av solidaritet genererade motståndskraft och tillfredsställelse bland personalen. Fokus på de boende, ett innovativt arbetssätt och en synlig, ärlig och tillmötesgående enhetschef var faktorer som uppfattades avgörande för att skapa framgång.

<p>The aim of this study is to illustrate, and analyze how social workers are able to more effectively pursue operative possibilities within their own particular organizations. The main question concerning this issue is: How are social workers, working within the same district organization able to realise any potential for co-operation with other social workers, in different locales and units, yet working within the same organization? Following on from this question, further issues arise such as: 1. How do the varying demands of the clients affect the workload of the social worker? 2. How does the organization facilitate or hinder co-operation between social workers? 3. How does the workload, staff turnover and delegation influence on the co-operation between social workers? To attempt to answer to the above set of questions a qualitative method was employed. A group interview was conducted bringing together a group of five social workers working within the same district administration of the city of Stockholm. The outcome of the interview has been examined using a theoretical framework based on organization theory, symbolic interactionism and social constructivism; all applied in accordance with post-modern research principles. The main result shows that the organization both hinders and facilitate co-operation through work load, staff turnover and delegation. The outcome of this particular study is associated to results of previous research within the same research field.</p>

The aim of this study is to illustrate, and analyze how social workers are able to more effectively pursue operative possibilities within their own particular organizations. The main question concerning this issue is: How are social workers, working within the same district organization able to realise any potential for co-operation with other social workers, in different locales and units, yet working within the same organization? Following on from this question, further issues arise such as: 1. How do the varying demands of the clients affect the workload of the social worker? 2. How does the organization facilitate or hinder co-operation between social workers? 3. How does the workload, staff turnover and delegation influence on the co-operation between social workers? To attempt to answer to the above set of questions a qualitative method was employed. A group interview was conducted bringing together a group of five social workers working within the same district administration of the city of Stockholm. The outcome of the interview has been examined using a theoretical framework based on organization theory, symbolic interactionism and social constructivism; all applied in accordance with post-modern research principles. The main result shows that the organization both hinders and facilitate co-operation through work load, staff turnover and delegation. The outcome of this particular study is associated to results of previous research within the same research field.

The background of this paper is the dual role that the social worker can have, of beeing both supportive and controlling in the meeting with clients. It is also about the power the social worker can have, how they handle the power in their profession and how they remain to it in the relationship with the client. The study is qualitative and built on interviews with eight social workers that work in different areas in the social services. We have chosen to see this dual role as if the social workers have to, in their daily work, handle the roles as one authority role and one supportive role towards the client. The purpose of this study is to understand how the dual role as the social worker has in the profession, as a helper and a authority, is expressed in the work and relationship with the client. We have turned this purpose into two questions: How do social workers with authority remain to the dual roles of the profession? How do the social workers describe and understand power? We don´t want to generalize in this study, we want to give an example of the social workers own experiences about the dual role. Our theoretical point of view is the pastoral power, street-level bureaucracy and human service organizations. We have also been using earlier research. The analyze and result is presented together, split into five themes. The result shows that the social workers does not see the roles as two different, they see it as one intertwined. The results also show that the social workers see power only when they take decisions that are negative for the clients. We finish of the paper with a discussion about our reflections on the results and some thoughts on how to proceed with research in this subject.