This thesis explores state-society relations in China by focusing on the interactions between grassroots NGOs and local government departments. It presents the notion of positive-sum reciprocal engagement as one form of relationship that can emerge between the state and social organizations. Such engagement can be characterized as a dynamic and interactive process implying proximity, communication, joint action, mutual influence, mutual benefit and mutual empowerment, resulting in added value for society. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in six rural or semi-rural Chinese localities, including interviews and questionnaires with local government departments and indigenous grassroots NGOs, this study seeks to identify the conditions under which positive-sum reciprocal engagement is likely to emerge. It finds that the presence of reformist officials, the strengthening of NGO capacity in framing issues to open social spaces and to engage in effective action while communicating the results of such action are particularly important to establishment of reciprocal engagement. Significant structural or contextual factors include positive associational experience and openness in the locality. This study also explores the extent to which grassroots NGOs are able to affect the formulation and implementation of policy at the local level, and finds policy influence to be one of the significant outcomes of positive-sum reciprocal engagement. One mechanism through which policy influence occurs is in the context of a mass-line model of communication, in which NGOs participate in discourses on social issues and act as channels for the conveyance of policy information and suggestions. Grassroots NGOs are also able to model innovations and contribute to policy formulation and reform in carrying out concrete programs, which is made possible by an environment characterized by policy flexibility and amenable to experimental points.

This study examined the perceptions and behaviors of clergy and faith-based social service practitioners within the African-American faith community, in relationship to HIV/AIDS education and prevention. This study employed a descriptive exploratory design, utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the secured data. The independent variables were clergy and faith-based social service practitioners. The three dependent variables were identified as perceptions (composed of health beliefs, attitudes, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control), intended behavior and actual behavior regarding HIV/AIDS education and prevention. Findings revealed a lack of significant difference in the perceptions of clergy and church workers regarding HIV/ AIDS education and prevention. However, there was a statistically significant difference in their intended and actual behaviors to provide HIV/AIDS information to various age groups in the church community.

The purpose of this study is to examine collaboration between social services and secondary education in a municipality in Sweden regarding adolescents diagnosed with ADHD. Swedish legislative texts stipulate that authorities working with adolescents should collaborate in matters relating to children in risk of harm. Earlier research shows that children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD often behave contrary to how students are expected to behave in the classroom, that they may need support from social services, and that they rarely get such support to manage their education. The method used in this study was qualitative and the empirical data were obtained through semi structured interviews. Eight respondents participated in total, four social workers and four school counsellors. The results were analysed using profession theory and collaboration theory. The results show that the two professions both have a positive attitude towards collaboration, but that it rarely happens and when it does it feels unstructured and irregular, particularly for the social workers. Almost none of the respondents had any experience of working with students in secondary education diagnosed with ADHD, and instead spoke generally about their experience of collaboration. There seems to be a gap between the tendency to direct efforts, both divided and conjoined, to adolescents in an educational setting after they move on from elementary school.

The thesis offers and systematizes the knowledge of the social services provided by the Law Digest, number 108/2006. This thesis is focused primarily on the most significant conceptual changes. In particular, the provision of new social benefits - care allowance, contract for the provision of social services, registration of providers, social services inspection, defining of required qualified assumptions for the work in social services and, of course, financing the entire region. Main shortcomings of these institutes are solved separately. Of the many services offered the thesis deals with one particular - personal assistance, its treatment in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. The thesis brings information concerning the non-profit organizations, primarily because they belong to one of the leading providers of social services.

This study is focused on actual problems, which came up after the new Social Services Act came into force on January 1, 2007 and its updating, from the view of one group of the user sof social services- seniors. In the thesis is important charter, which described restrictive measures issues. Legislation is inadequate in this direction and even in comparison with international rules, which deals mainly with the protection of human rights. Fortunately, the situation is improving and with increasing demands on social service facility level of care is improving rapidly. In this work we find an important chapter focused on the gentle self-defense, which uses techniques of Aikido martial arts in conjunction with the restrictive measures and self- defense, so that the intervention was friendly to the client, but also the most effective. The basis, however, is the desire to avoid any physical intervention of moderate means, such as distraction, and active listening are. I attend to this topic more in in recent years and I add my lecture on this subject in Annex I, which was intended for workers in social services. Because I attend to volunteering focused on the old people till my high school years, is this study mainly about them and their view of social services. It is generally prohibited any...

In the current policy, commissioning and delivery environments for services aimed at improving the lives of children and their families, increasing priority is placed on the ability to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness of social welfare intervention. This is particularly acute for voluntary sector services that increasingly provide services on behalf of local authorities and operate in a highly competitive environment in which the ability to demonstrate effectiveness and value for money can ultimately determine survival. However, social welfare intervention is delivered in the context of complex social systems in which a multiplicity of factors interplay between those individuals who are managing, providing and using social services. This complexity presents significant methodological challenges in terms of understanding the effect of intervention on individuals’ lives. Often the pressures to produce highly aggregated data about outcomes mean that the experience and the voice of those using services is overlooked and the connection between data and lived experience is lost. This thesis describes the evaluation of an approach to measuring outcomes known as Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS). This places the service user at the heart of measuring outcomes whilst collecting data that can be used to evaluate effectiveness within a service, or comparatively between services, or between service user groups. The approach was implemented with practitioners and young people within the context of a leaving care support service provided by a voluntary sector service. The GAS implementation was evaluated using a realist research strategy in order to understand the ways in which a complex policy and operating environment interplayed with the challenging contexts of transition for young people and their heterogeneous pathways in leaving care. For a variety of reasons, explained within this thesis, participation levels in the trial were low and therefore quantitative data regarding outcomes was too limited to be conclusive. Nevertheless the study represents a useful pilot of this approach and highlights the importance of context in determining results when introducing new approaches to outcomes measurement into practice environments. The findings that emerge from the evaluation betray a concerning picture of the pressures and constraints on practice experienced by a large leaving care service in the current climate of cuts to local authority funding and statutory services. As opposed to being an independent or somewhat removed undertaking, this study was concerned to frame ‘evaluation’ and ‘outcomes measurement’ as participatory and reflexive activities that should be embedded within service delivery. By so doing, it aimed to facilitate reciprocal or ‘bi-directional’ learning between providers and the users of services to underpin interventions, particularly with vulnerable populations of service users. Given that the support provided by leaving care services may represent the last intervention before young people disappear from the system’s view, this is particularly significant in supporting them to develop agency and self-determination to take them through the often compressed and accelerated journeys that characterise adolescence for this group.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilket stöd ensamkommande ungdomar upplever sig få från socialtjänsten och hur de anser att de inkluderas i arbetet som rör dem när de ankommer till Sverige. Sex stycken ungdomar intervjuades i vår studie, samtliga kom hit som ensamkommande ungdomar för minst tre år sedan. Intervjuerna utgick ifrån ungdomarnas egna upplevelser av socialtjänsten. Det inhämtade materialet kodades och delades in i fyra kategorier. Dessa var: Äntligen framme, Förtroendet för socialtjänsten, Lyssna och förklara samt Tack Sverige. Resultatet analyserades i sin tur utifrån Eides fasmodell. Resultatet och analysen visar att stödet upplevs olika beroende på relationen ungdomen har gentemot sin socialsekreterare. Det visar att ungdomarnas förtroende för socialsekreteraren är av vikt för att de ska ta tillsig stödet som erbjuds. Således visar resultatet att majoriteten av ungdomarna upplever att socialsekreterarna lyssnar på dem, men inte inkluderar dem i själva beslutsprocessen. Slutsatsen av studien är att den enskilde socialsekreteraren har en viktig roll då ungdomarna som haft en bra kontakt med sin socialsekreterare upplever stödet positivare än de som inte haft lika god kontakt. / The purpose of this paper is to examine what support unaccompanied young refugees feel they receive from the social services, and how they believe they are included in the work regarding them as they arrive in Sweden. Six youth were interviewed in our study, all came here unaccompanied at least three years ago. The interviews were based on their own experiences of the social services. The collected material was coded and divided into four categories. These were: Finally arrived, Trust in the social services, Listen and explain as well as Thank you Sweden. The results were analyzed according to Eides phase model. The results and analysis show that the support is experienced differently depending on the relationship the young person has with his or her social secretary. They show that the youths trusting in the social secretary are important for them to be able to accept the support offered. Therefore the results show that the majority of the youth feel that social workers listen to them, but do not include them in the decision process itself. The conclusion of the studies is that the individual social secretary plays an important part as the youth that has had a good connection with them experience the support more positive as opposed to those who hasn’t had an as good of a connection.

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze the social services financing from the region point of view. Considering to the wide topic the thesis is focused on allowance organizations which are mostly founded by the regions for this purpose. Allowance organization as a provider of social services, must be in accordance with the specific law because the social services comes under the public services as it is written in the thesis. This fact namely influences financing in this area thereby economy and allowance organization function. The whole system is difficult because of many things takes a part here the fact that allowance organizations are influence by its activities but also it is their legal form. In the theoretical part these facts are brought closer which leads to comprehensive and systematic understanding of the application part - which is understanding of the system where regions provides through its allowance organizations social services. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze providing of the social services on the real example and show the problems which providing of the social services brings. This thesis could work as a white-paper for improving and finding better ways namely of financing social services. The conclusion of this thesis is basically a summary of gained findings which are showing that there is a lot of to do and think about in area of social services.

The thesis deals with the scope of the local government bodies in the field of social services. The work focuses not only the legal regulations, but also their genesis and the methods of financing. For better understanding the providing of social services is described od the examples of town Sokolov and Karlovarsky's district. The main sources of information was the analysis of relevant literature, legal regulations, statistical yearbooks and free materials of the town Sokolov and Karlovarsky's district.

A report on a study project presented to the Department of Social Work, School of Human and Community Development, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Arts by course work and research report in Occupational Social Work. September 2016. / Social work in South Africa is challenged by high caseloads, dangerous working environments and poor remuneration (Social Work Indaba, 2015). These challenges combined with high voluntary staff turnover rates (40.4% in 2006) have negative consequences for the protection of South Africa`s vulnerable children (Earle-Malleson (2009). In this context, supervision is often proposed as a potential cure-all for the tensions in social work. This study utilises an instrumental case study design to describe and explore child protection social workers’ perceptions of supervision and retention. The key aim of the study is to interrogate the role of effective social work supervision on a social worker’s decision to leave the employment of a child protection organisation in Gauteng. Twelve participants were identified through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. Utilising a semi structured interview schedule, face to face interviews were conducted with each participant. The data obtained from the interviews was transcribed and analysed thematically. The research findings yielded concerning results on the supervision the participants had received with only 25% of the participants indicating that they found their supervision supportive and educational. High levels of organisational disengagement were noted, which created an organisational climate of neglect. This contributed indirectly to ten participant’s decision to resign as a lack of supervision heightened their frustrations with the system and their increased perceptions of child protection work as monotonous. A lack of a supportive and educational focus also closed off opportunities for participants to grow as social workers and learn adaptive coping skills. This led to some participants feeling emotionally overwhelmed. Both of these factors were cited as reasons for exiting child protection organisations. These findings reaffirm the importance of supervision as a reflexive process and provide insight into the targeting of interventions aimed at retaining child protection social workers in South Africa. Keywords: Child protection; retention; effective supervision; job embeddedness; social worker; disengagement; voluntary staff turnover / GR2017