This study was prompted by a staff-shortage crisis in Social Work. Because it is apparent that this manpower crisis cannot be alleviated by an increase in professional recruitment, methods must be found by which to utilize effectively persons without professional standing. Our assumptions in this study, therefore, are firstly, that tasks presently performed by professionally-trained social workers can be categorized according to specific criteria and secondly, that these tasks can then be assigned to various levels of staff, both professional and non-professional. This study deals with the former assumption, the latter assumption will be left to further research. The agency from which our study was drawn was the Children's Aid Society of Vancouver, B.C. The specific area of study in the agency was Services to Children-in-Care. As criteria for differentiating tasks we chose "worker autonomy" and "task complexity". In essence these are, respectively, the functioning of the worker in relation to his internalized professional standards, and the relative amount of activity inherent in a task. We then devised a list of tasks which we presented to a random sample of line workers, with the major aim of determining whether or not the tasks were actually performed. The list of tasks was revised on suggestions from the respondents and presented a second time. This indicated the representative nature of the tasks. In order to rate each task as to its degree of complexity and the degree of autonomy required by a worker to perform it, we selected twelve judges at random six from Children's Aid Society Staff and six from a list supplied by the British Columbia Association of Social Workers. The judges rated each task on a five-point scale for each of our two criteria. In analyzing the data we were concerned primarily with the degree of agreement among the judges as to their ratings of each task on the two criteria of "worker autonomy" and "task complexity". Our findings showed a high percentage of agreement among judges on both criteria for most tasks. This indicates that the majority of tasks can be differentiated. The findings also showed a high degree of relationship between "worker autonomy" and "task complexity" -- that is, if a task was judged highly autonomous it was usually also judged highly complex. This points to the possible redundancy of the second criterion, "task complexity". In other words, it appears that "worker autonomy" may be the important measuring instrument by which tasks can be differentiated in order to be assigned to personnel of differing competence. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study is concerned with the social work man-power problem as it exists in the social assistance sector of the public welfare field. The purpose of the study was to determine if a rational plan for the deployment of social work personnel could be devised that would result in more effective and appropriate utilization of social work staff with varying levels of training and competence. The project is an exploratory study based on Richan's suggestion that a plan for worker deployment can be more effectively developed by first determining the degree of organizational or professional controls present or required in the performance of the various tasks in a public welfare agency. A list of tasks performed in the issuance of social allowance from initial contact through to termination was drawn up by the researchers on the basis of their knowledge and combined twenty-two years experience in this area. This list of one hundred twenty-eight tasks was presented in the form of a questionnaire to seven experienced social workers carrying urban and rural caseloads in three public welfare offices. The workers were asked to determine over a two week period, by noting their daily activities, if the list was accurate, complete and unambiguous. This validated list of tasks was presented to a panel of fourteen judges holding Master of Social Work degrees and at least two years' experience in the public welfare field for rating. The rating procedures were based on a five point scale of autonomy of worker functioning required in the performance of the different tasks. Beck's definition of worker autonomy was accepted as appropriate for the purposes of this study, as it incorporates the explicitness of guides to the workers, the visibility of worker activity and the degree of required organizational support for social work standards. This method of data collection, the use of the questionnaire and the rating scale, was considered the most feasible as they were easy to administer, flexible, allowed for fine definition with a specific frame of reference, inexpensive financially and in terms of worker-judge-researcher time. An analysis of our study findings revealed that only 9 per cent of the listed tasks received 80 per cent of judge rating agreement that was necessary to establish its reliability of the ratings. It was significant, however, that the judges' ratings usually followed a pattern tending to cluster at two adjacent ratings. While it is obvious that the instrument is not yet reliable, the fact that 42 per cent of the tasks received over 60 per cent agreement is encouraging and leads the researchers to conclude that the study is going in the right direction. It was also tentatively concluded that the closeness of the ratings seemed to indicate either that the rating scale of autonomy was not fine enough to allow distinctions between adjacent ratings or that the tasks were not defined with sufficient clarity for the judges to make distinctions regarding the amount of autonomy required in the performance of the task. The judges were queried on the problems they encountered in their ratings and their remarks led the researchers to re-examine the definitions of the tasks, and although they had been validated by the field workers in the initial phase of the study, it became evident that definitions of a great number of tasks could be unclear or confusing when they were rated by the employment of the autonomy criterion. This re-examination led the researchers to revise all tasks receiving less than 80 per cent agreement. It is concluded that there is no indication that the criterion of autonomy should be rejected. Rather, if the revised list of tasks can be given to judges to rate again, it is felt that a much higher degree of reliability can be established. Should the new ratings prove to be reliable, the way will then be clear to develop a task assignment scheme to be employed in a field study. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This research report on Social Workers' Orientation to Client problems is based on the theoretical framework worked out and presented in a monograph by Andrew Billingsley, The Social Worker in a Child Protective Agency (3). Briefly, Billingsley, in his doctoral dissertation, considered in depth the reasons for the lack of professionally trained social workers in child protective services. The data to be tested in our report was the result of material accumulated in a 1967 University of British Columbia, School of Social Work thesis entitled: Social Workers' Perceptions of Child Abuse and Neglect (4). The main hypothesis in our study is that professional education and/or work experience in the field of social work will tend to influence the social workers' cognitive and psychodynamic orientations and choice of reference group. Our findings indicate that social workers with substantial work experience appeared to be associated with low psychodynamic orientations. In parts, our results differed from Billingsley and these differences are discussed in our conclusions. Our findings have also indicated the need for further research in several areas. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Based upon the thesis that human functioning consists of affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes which operate interdependently, targeting all three areas should be more effective than targeting only one or two areas of functioning. The present study compared the Mutual Problem Solving Program, a marital therapy intervention with affective and behavioral components (MPS-AB), an MPS program with added cognitive components (MPS-CAB), and a wait-list control (WLC) condition. Forty-nine couples participated. Both treatments involved eight sessions. Assessment utilizing self-report questionnaires and observational measures was done at pre-test, post-test, and three-month follow-up. MPS-AB and MPS-CAB couples exhibited better dyadic adjustment (p =.006) than the WLC couples. MPS-AB was just as effective as MPS-CAB at improving irrational beliefs. The percentage of subjects who experienced statistically reliable improvement in dyadic adjustment from pre-test to post-test was 34.4, 35.3, and 9.4, for the MPS-AB, MPS-CAB, and WLC groups respectively, while for deterioration the percentages were 18.8, 11.8, and 37.5. Emotion was the best predictor of dyadic adjustment.

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No description available.

This practicum report discusses the adaptability of problem oriented case planning to casework which is practiced in the Northeast Multnomah County District Office of the Children’s Services Division. Problem oriented case planning is an approach designed to make casework more explicit by specifying the target problem(s), goals(s), tasks and an evaluation scheme which are agreed to and stated in a written contract developed by the participants. Such explicitness is essential to permit agency collection of useful information about its casework and casework programs needed to respond to today’s accountability demands, i.e., demonstration that the agency operates at a reasonable level of problem solving effectiveness and efficiency based on the level of effectiveness. Two instruments were developed to be used in this exploratory study: 1.) the “Service Contract” which embodies the stated case plan and a means to develop it, and 2.) the Caseworker Questionnaire which solicits caseworker reactions to the Service Contract’s use. Caseworkers are asked to voluntarily use the Service Contract during a nine week trial-use period and report their reactions to its use. Data obtained in the study is incomplete because of very limited Service Contract use. The focus of discussion is on caseworker reasons for non-use. This discussion remains somewhat speculative because there is little agreement among caseworkers relative to reasons for non-use. Flaws in the research design e.g., insufficient formal training in Service Contract use and compensation for its use may have significantly impeded additional utilization. Because the data does not support any serious problem with Service Contract use in most caseloads, by most caseworkers, with most clients a more systematic study of the Service Contract using an experimental design is recommended.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1982. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-164). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006.

Thesis--University of Pittsburgh, 1966. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 340-343.