This thesis explores the connection between policy creation and social work practices that are related to this policy. The main aim of the thesis is to fill a gap that exists in the research in relation to the connection between particular policies concerning the care and protection of children and the social work practices related to these. Primarily, I am interested in the experiences of social workers in community groups and the issues and problems they face in trying to integrate these policies into their everyday practice. The thesis presents four case studies that highlight the interactive relationship that exists between policy and practice. These case studies have been developed from the interviews I conducted with care and protection community workers in Christchurch in 1999. The first two case studies - the development of the Children, Young Persons and Their Families Act (1989), and the process of devolution that occurred through the 1980s and 1990s - look at particular policy developments that have impacted on care and protection social work, and explore the way that policy creation and implementation is contingent on the specific time and place in which it is developed. The second two case studies - Family Group Conferences and Strengthening Families - focus on two quite different forms of social work practice and provide an insight into the way that policy is implemented and used by practitioners at ground level. These four case studies form the basis of an argument around the idea that policy and practice are dynamic and interactive processes that will inform and change one another. Rather than seeing policy as something that is created by bureaucrats in the state and applied by practitioners at the ground level, I argue that the policy process is more complex than this. The case studies provide practical examples of this idea, and explore the complexities of policy development and the relationship between policies, policy actors and specific community social work practices - an area about which there has been little research.

This thesis is about a special form of asylum, which is uniquely found in Greece. Besides all other forms of asylum such as ecclesiastical sanctuaries, political and diplomatic asylum, in Greece, in 1982 "University Asylum" was established as a constitutional right. It prohibits any state authority whether police, fire-brigade or army from entering university premises without the express permission of the university authorities or exceptionally in life threatening situations. As a result for the last twenty years in Greece, university campuses have been "non-policed" areas where crime control and order maintenance is solely a matter for the university community to deal with. This thesis aims to analyse the historical and socio-political context which gave rise to university asylum and the consequences, for crime and disorder, of having non-policed areas. Accordingly the thesis starts with a discussion of the concept of asylum as has been found from antiquity. Different civilisations in different times and in different ways had exercised the concept of asylum, which basically is the protection accorded to pursued persons. The concept of asylum has been shaped in various forms corresponding to the needs of each historical period. The fundamental idea of the concept of asylum has been to create an intermediary inviolable place for those fleeing their persecutors, where the asylum seekers can enjoy temporary protection from the authorities or individuals pursuing them until negotiations begin. However, in practice with the Greek "University Asylum" many problems of crime and disorder occurred inside universities, especially in universities located in urban areas, which sometimes were so serious that fear of crime increased and the feeling of security declined inside university premises. This research analyses the problematic of university asylum and its impact on crime and disorder inside universities. This study aims to contribute to the body of knowledge about the concept of asylum particularly university asylum. The main purpose of this thesis is the exposition and analysis not only of the university asylum law as it appears in books but also how it functions in reality as a mechanism of social control on university campuses. Greek university asylum is linked with the student political movement and the crisis in French universities in May 1968, and of course the dark times of the Greek military junta (1967-1974) and especially with the Athens Polytechnic University revolt (November 14-17,1973) when the junta police fatally intervened within the Polytechnic premises causing the death of many students who protested against the regime. Accordingly, this research throughout does not aim simply to describe and graphically document the criminological situation inside Greek universities as it was in the past decades and as it is now, but also seeks to explain and to evaluate it, in the light of its symbolic, criminological, legal and political significance. In particular this study seeks to examine the consequences of asylum law for crime and disorder inside Greek universities. For the needs of this study fieldwork has been carried out and empirical data gathered, which shown that although crime and disorder inside Greek universities is a serious problem it is often overestimated by the mass media. However, the problem of crime inside Greek universities is of less significance if compared with the criminality occurring outside university grounds. In addition the problem of university asylum raises not only legal and practical issues, in relation to criminal behaviour, but also political issues since from 1982 when the university asylum law was passed educational and socio-political conditions have changed. Accordingly some reformation of the university asylum law, if decided upon, should be in such a way that the fundamental meaning, the symbolism and ideology of the concept of university asylum remains the basic element of academic freedom, university teaching and scientific research in Greece.

This is a study of the inter-relationship between welfare ideology, welfare mix and the production of welfare. It has been hypothesized that the welfare ideology of a state is likely to affect its choice of welfare mix and the kind of social relations produced in the wider society. In this study, normative theories of the welfare state were reformulated by an analytical framework into theoretical models of the welfare state as pre-test patterns for comparison with practical policies under study. Child daycare provisions in Britain and Hong Kong were chosen as the data to test the hypothesis. A multiple-case-embedded design was used in organizing this comparative study. It was found that practising ideologies are more predictive than idealized ideologies of state social policy. It was also found that state social policy in the realm of child daycare was related to its ideology : state ideology affects the choice of a mix of welfare sectors and the form welfare is organised in the production of social relations in the two societies studied. Nevertheless, the inter-relationship between state ideology, welfare mix and welfare production is constrained by three intervening variables. They are bureau-professional autonomy, interplay between opposing ideologies and flexibility of ideology in the interpretation of state welfare because of a changing environment. When the findings were examined from another perspective, welfare sector and welfare production were seen to carry ideological meanings. This implies that a transaction of welfare goods and services is not only a transaction of material or tangible social services, but it is also an ideological transaction of different social principles which underlie the welfare sectors. This has led to the development of a theory of the ideological production of welfare as an explanation of the relationship between ideology and welfare sectors in the division of care and welfare responsibilities in a society. Based on this theory, the limitations of instrumental theories about the welfare mix were discussed. In conclusion, in the light of wider social and economic changes within capitalism, an integrative strategy concerning the welfare mix in particular and welfare in general has been proposed which duly recognizes the importance of ideology in maintaining social relations in a society as well as the social context which these social relations underlie.

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No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

Botswana occupies an unenviable position of having the highest HIV / AIDS infection rate in the world, and this has generated pressures on health facilities as they are over stretched beyond their coping capacities to attend to the ever-increasing numbers of people who are infected. To relieve the health care system, the Botswana government has adopted the CHBC programme as an instrument for taking care of the infected and affected people. The CHBC programme, which is care given to long term and terminally ill people adopts the approach that, the family and the community assisted by the health professionals are the primary source of support and care. CHBC has always been in existence, though it was not given the attention it deserves until the realities of HIV / AIDS pandemic striked and doubted the ability of the health facilities to accommodate the ever increasing HIV / AIDS cases. CHBC gained more support as a result of the HIV / AIDS pandemic. This is the case because of the programmes' rationale that, the home is the best place to care for many of the people with terminal illness. The programme gives patients chance to be looked after in a familiar environment and by their relatives. The aim of this study is to establish the existence of a CHBC Policy in the Good hope Sub-district in Botswana, and if it exists to find out whether implementation is congruent to the Policy guidelines, whether its implementation is done in the most effective way, and if not, to identify obstacles to effective implementation of the Policy in the Goodhope Subdistrict. The hypothesis of this study is that, CHBC for people living with HIV / AIDS is ineffective in the Good hope Sub-district of Botswana because of shortage of resources, the unexpected (low) support the Programme gets from the community and the incorrect understanding of HIV / AIDS issues especially the modes of transmission by the community. The sample used consisted of 57 research participants (10 HIV / AIDS patients, 10 care-givers, 10 Policy makers, 10 health professionals, 5 traditional doctors, 5 spiritual healers, 5 village headmen, 1 village chief and 1 NGO representative). The literate respondents were given structured questionnaires to complete while those who are illiterate were helped by the researcher to fill in the questionnaires. The focus group discussion and participant observation methods of data collection were engaged. The study's findings were that, the CHBC Policy does exist in the Good hope Sub-district of Botswana. The study further discovered that, implementation of the Policy is not as effective as expected, and this has been attributed to the following problems; shortage of resources (manpower, transport, food etc) and the community's reluctance to give it support. The study recommends that, the government should provide resources to train more professionals who would address the problem of manpower inadequacies. There is need for communities to be mobilised so that they join hands in the fight against HIV / AIDS. The Government has to see to it that enough resources are allocated to the CHBC Programme. There is need for HIV / AIDS education in order to equip the community with the necessary information on HIV / AIDS issues. All caregivers need to be given relevant training on HIV / AIDS issues. Lastly there is need for further research in this field in order to find better ways of improving CHBC Programme. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

This thesis addresses a significant gap in Australian social policy literature about the relationship between the impact of economic rationalism on social policy and interest representation during policy implementation. Michael Pusey, for instance, argues that economic rationalism displaces social values in social policy. However, other theorists, such as Robert Alford and Rod Rhodes, caution that policy often changes when it is implemented. With a foundation in Weberian social theory about participant values, the analytical framework incorporates three institutional policy implementation concepts to capture the dynamic characteristics of the policy process. These are: policy stages to describe policy change over time; structural interests of policy organisations; and policy networks within which participants act. The thesis tests this framework to explain the impact of values of economic rationality in the Australian coordinated care policy. The policy attempted to coordinate the care of people with chronic care needs, using a funds pool, case managers and care plans. The research methods are interviews with policy participants; analysis of public documents; and participant observation as an evaluator in one trial. Data about the policy process from 1994 to 2001 are analysed with a critical interpretive approach. The study reveals that central agency officials acted primarily on values of economic rationality. In contrast, health agency officials acted primarily on organisational values. The transfer of responsibility for the policy process from a central agency to the health agency after the policy statements reinforced health provider organisational interests, rather than either the rationalist interests of central agencies or the social interests of consumer groups. The policy consequently changed away from economic rationality. The policy process in the planning, implementation and revision stages was in no sense an instrumental application of the values of economic rationality apparent in the policy statements stage. Neither, however, did social values predominate in any policy stage. The study argues that insights from policy implementation research can refine the literature on economic rationalism. This research further advances policy network theory. It recognises that understanding which organisation is responsible for the policy, at various policy stages, advances our understanding of whose values shape social policy.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2003. / I publikationen även felaktigt tryckår: 2001. [Ny tr.], 2005, Uppsala : Universitetstryckeriet.