published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

<p>The aim of this study was to enlighten social workers experiences of social networks direct influence in Swedish social services, and in which ways those influences are manifested. Some of the issues that are being explored in this study are: The separation of the private sphere and professional duties; boundaries and dual relationships that occurs inside social networks; the use of social networks as a control-instrument in authority exercise towards clients; and social networks arising impact on social work. The empirical material was collected with nine qualitative interviews with social workers stationed at different social service departments in a Swedish municipality. Also one qualitative e-survey was sent out to, and answered by four social workers with a managerial position in the same municipality.</p><p>The results reveal that several informants have experienced different problematic situations involving clients within the social networks. This study shows that the informants are very restrictive with what information (text and pictures) they publish on their facebook-profiles, because of their position of authority and the awareness of the possibility of always being watched. Several informants reveal a strong attitude against the use of social networks in social work and argue that information about clients fetched at social networks cannot be used. Yet some social workers use social networks at work to search information about clients and verify suspicions, for example in decision-making of governmental economical support. The power that the social workers hold against their clients is being exterritorialised inside the social networks and makes further way for an expanding control-society.</p>

This study focuses on social workers‟ perceptions regarding life story work with children in child and youth care centres in South Africa. Life story work is an established form of intervention utilized by social workers with children in care mostly in the United Kingdom. Limited research has been conducted on the subject in South Africa. The research hoped to discover how social workers perceive life story work as a therapeutic intervention technique to be utilized with children in child and youth care centres. Qualitative descriptive design was conducted inductively, through semi-structured interviews and one focus group discussion. A total of six registered social workers at registered child and youth care centres in the Northern and Southern suburbs of Cape Town in the Western Province of South Africa were purposefully selected to participate in this study. All of the interviews and the focus group were audiorecorded. Recordings were transcribed by the researcher to ascertain certain emerging themes and categories. Thematic data analysis was utilized to transform the transcribed data into meaningful information. The principles and strategies for enhancing the trustworthiness of the data were done through crystallisation. The findings of the study revealed that social workers initially perceive life story work as time-consuming and are unaware of what the concept truly entails, but once examples were shown to the social workers, they recognised that they were using some of the activities already and perceived life story work as valuable, effective and essential in child and youth care centres. Life story work was perceived as useful for identity formation, a sense of belonging, relationship-building and family reunification services, for example. It was discovered that the social workers were utilising aspects of life story work, but that there is a shortage of social workers to act as facilitators to possibly complete life story work processes with each child in child and youth care centres. The recommendation was, therefore, made that childcare workers be trained in life story work in order for it to be implemented in child and youth care centres effectively. Further research studies were, therefore, recommended to ascertain how life story work could be practically implemented as a holistic programme with the children in child and youth care centres. / MA (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Statutory social work is a mode of intervention within social work which poses many emotional and physical challenges to social workers. Social workers execute the implementing of the Children's Act (Act 38 of 2005) through the statutory removal process and they are the primary facilitators of this process. The goal of the statutory removal process is to protect children from abuse, neglect and exploitation by their biological parents or carers. Although research has been done previously about the experiences of social workers with regards to the statutory removal process, the research was limited to studies in America and England. The goal of this study was to explore the experiences of social workers concerning the statutory removal process in South Africa in order to determine what the influences of these experiences were on the implementation of the statutory removal process. The research study is a qualitative study and a phenomenological strategy was followed to determine the social workers' experiences of the statutory removal process. The researcher made use of non-probability sampling through purposeful sampling to select participants for the study. Unstructured interviews were conducted with 26 social workers who are directly involved with the statutory removal of children. Interviewing took place until a saturation point was reached in the study. All interviews were transcribed for the purpose of data analyses, after which themes and sub-themes were identified. The themes and sub-themes were verified against existing literature, after which conclusions and recommendations were made. / MSW, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Pendant longtemps, l’assimilation a été la manière privilégiée par le gouvernement canadien pour intégrer les communautés autochtones à la société canadienne. Les pratiques des intervenants sociaux non-autochtones se situaient alors principalement dans cette idéologie et, par conséquent, ils ont contribué à opprimer les Autochtones. En raison de ces événements historiques, l’intervention sociale non-autochtone n’a pas très bonne réputation dans les communautés autochtones du Canada. En effet, bien que l’intervention sociale s’actualise dans le présent, elle est teintée d’une histoire et réinterprétée à partir des mémoires collectives et individuelles. Cette recherche s’inscrit alors dans une réflexion sur les fondements et la nature du travail social non-autochtone en milieu autochtone au Canada. L’objectif de ce mémoire est donc de comprendre comment des intervenants sociaux non-autochtones se perçoivent dans le contexte de leur pratique auprès des populations autochtones au Canada. Les données furent recueillies lors d’entrevues semi-dirigées réalisées auprès de onze intervenants sociaux allochtones pratiquant dans des contextes différents, mais tous auprès des Premières Nations ou Inuits au Canada. La théorie des représentations sociales nous a guidée dans l’analyse qualitative des données collectées. Au terme de cette recherche, nous avons constaté que les intervenants sociaux non-autochtones rencontrés ont des représentations assez critiques envers le travail social non-autochtone en milieu autochtone. Cela les amène à se percevoir différemment, voire plus positivement, par rapport à leurs perceptions de leur profession dans les contextes autochtones. Leur univers de représentations professionnelles influence donc le développement d’une pratique qui se situe en marge des approches occidentales dominantes actuelles. / For a long time, assimilation was the government’s method of choice when integrating Indigenous communities into Canadian society. Non-native social workers’ practices figured predominantly within this ideology, and consequently, they contributed to the oppression of the Natives. Due to these historic events, non-native social intervention has a poor reputation in Indigenous communities in Canada. In fact, even though social intervention is presently evolving, it is still tainted by its history and reinterpreted by the collective and individual memories of the oppressed. It is therefore deemed important to study the way in which non-native social workers situate themselves with regards to these issues. This paper focuses primarily on the fundamentals and the nature of non-native social work in an indigenous context in Canada. The purpose of this research is to understand how non-native social workers situate and perceive themselves during their work with Natives. The data were collected during semi-structured interviews with 11 non-native social workers in various social environments, but all with First Nations people or Inuits of Canada. The social representation theory guided this research to a qualitative analysis of the data collected. During this research, it was found that social workers have a critical representation of social work in a non-native context. This brings them to perceive themselves differently, even more positively, compared to the perceptions they have of their professions in this Indigenous context. Their professional representations therefore influences the development of a practice situated on the periphery of current dominant Western approaches.

The Swedish community and social services face major challenges regarding the management of honor-related violence and oppression. Lack of knowledge and an ambiguous understanding of violence affect the work of social services and may complicate the situation of vulnerable individuals. The main purpose of this study was to investigate social workers, within the section of children and family in a Swedish municipality, perceived knowledge and confidence in honor-related cases and the need for support in their work. The social workers’ views on honor-related violence and oppression were also investigated. The survey was based on a quantitative approach and questionnaires were used for data collection. The main results demonstrate that the social workers to some extent perceive themselves as having expertise in the field of honor. Nevertheless, they feel insecure in the work with honor-related cases. Furthermore, it appears that social workers are in need of specific support from the organization such as education and case supervision. Regarding the view of honor violence, a majority indicated that a gender perspective and a cultural perspective were important to understand the problem. / Samhället och socialtjänsten står inför stora utmaningar gällande hanteringen av hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck. Bristande kunskap och en tvetydig förståelse för våldet påverkar socialtjänstens arbete och kan komma att försvåra situationen för utsatta individer. Det huvudsakliga syftet med denna studie var därför att undersöka hur socialarbetare, inom sektionen barn och familj i Falu Kommun, upplever sin kunskap och trygghet i hedersrelaterade ärenden samt behovet av stöd i arbetet. Vidare kartlades socialarbetarnas syn på hedersrelaterat våld och förtryck. Undersökningen utgick ifrån en kvantitativ ansats, där enkäter användes som datainsamlingsmetod. Resultatet påvisar att socialarbetarna i viss mån upplever sig ha kunskap inom området hedersvåld. Dock känner de sig otrygga i arbetet med hedersrelaterade ärenden. Vidare framkom det att socialarbetarna är i behov av specifikt stöd från verksamheten såsom utbildning och ärendehandledning. Gällande synen på hedersvåld angav majoriteten ett könsmaktsperspektiv och ett kulturellt perspektiv som viktiga för att förstå problemet.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur nyutexaminerade och erfarna socialsekreterare upplever sin nuvarande arbetsroll inom socialtjänsten. Tidigare forskning visar att stöd från arbetsgivaren och erfarenhet är två viktiga aspekter för hur socialsekreterare hanterar sitt arbete. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna för studien är ”krav- och kontrollmodellen” samt ”coping”. Med dessa teorier kan vi få en större förståelse för strukturer och individens egna strategier för att hantera krävande arbetssituationer. Studien utgörs av en kvalitativ ansats med sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med personer som arbetar inom socialtjänsten. Resultatet visade att erfarenhet inte behöver betyda att man har den bästa copingstrategin eller förmågan att hantera pressade arbetssituationer. Hantering av krav var det som var viktigast för att klara av att arbeta under pressade arbetsförhållanden. Slutligen konstaterar vi att både de nyutexaminerade och erfarna socialsekreterarna använder sig av känslomässig- och problemfokuserad coping. De som använde sig av problemfokuserad coping var de som kunde lämna arbetet utan att tänka på sina klienter under sin fritid. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how graduates and practiced social workers experience their current job in social services. Previous research shows that support from the employer and previous job experience are two important aspects of how social workers deal with their work. The theoretical basis for the study is ”demand- control model” and  ”coping ". With these theories, we can gain a greater understanding of the structures and the individual's own strategies for dealing with demanding work situations. The study consists of a qualitative approach with six semi-structured interviews with people working in the social service sector. The result showed that the experience does not necessarily mean that you have the best coping strategy or the ability to handle stressful work situations. Being able to manage set standards and demands was of most importance when working under stressful conditions. Finally, we noticed that both the newly graduated and the experienced social workers use emotional- and problem focused coping. Those who used problem focused coping were those who could be off work and not think about their clients.

This study explores and assesses the attitudes of the personnel of welfare-oriented governmental bureaucracies toward the poor. To fulfill these goals, a treatment and a control group were selected to compare their attitudes toward this group. They were measured by a disguised-structured instrument using the survey approach. It was found that the majority of respondents in both groups have a pro-poor attitude but it is more prevalent among the bureaucrats than among the students. In light of the knowledge we have of the effect of attitudes on the execution of policies, these results suggest that the policies governing the different programs studied are being executed to the advantage of the client.

Children and youth in state or statutory care (children-in-care) are at a higher risk of not having their health needs met than the general pediatric population. A literature review found a paucity of evidence on the health information needed for initial assessments of children-in-care in health record information systems in Canada, particularly when compared with information collected in the comparator countries the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. This qualitative research reviewed six forms currently used in British Columbia (BC) for assessing the health needs of children-in-care, and for planning future health care delivery for these children. The forms were reviewed with social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers to understand how the forms met their needs for health information for initial assessments when a child first enters care. One researcher conducted 31 interviews with 37 participants —a mixture of social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers allowed for source triangulation— in urban and rural communities using a 19-question, nonvalidated interview tool. NVivo-10 was used to inductively encode participant interviews relying on Pava’s 9-step, nonlinear sociotechnical systems approach to identify themes and concepts raised by the interviews. The researcher conducted an informal review of relevant Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) organization documents and method triangulated the results to the interview findings to identify similarities, differences, and gaps. Findings from these two analyses were compared with the literature review findings. The six forms were found to document most of the required information for typical children-in-care provided the forms were available to the care team and completed in full prior to the initial assessment. Additional forms were used for children-in-care with complex health needs. Key health information included parents’ relevant health and social information, prenatal and birth records, medical and social history of the child, immunization record, whether the child had experienced adverse childhood events, and anything that might remind the child of a stressful situation and cause the child an adverse mental or physical outcome. Complexity in acquiring the needed health information comes from a variety of circumstances. For example, the child may transition in and out of care, parents may be unavailable, and social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers may each change while the child is in care. To overcome information-sharing challenges and barriers, research participants recommended several improvements including funding changes to support medical care provider participation, an information-sharing framework, and electronic options such as a centralized child-in-care record with secure email capability. Introducing some practices from other jurisdictions, notably a senior medical advisor role and a medical assessment model, might help address process challenges when health information is missing during the initial medical assessment. These resources would help round out MCFD’s existing conceptual child-in-care health-care framework. Together these changes may support social workers, foster parents, and medical care providers to provide care to and plan for children-in-care. / Graduate / 0723 (Information Science), 0769 (Health Care Management), 0452 (Social Work) / cdthomps@uvic.ca