Thesis (PhD. (Social Work)) --University of Limpopo, 1989 / Refer to document

Thesis (M.A. (Social Work)) -- University of the North, 1996 / Refer to document

The professional social worker needs to understand, wide social issues, including the culture and cultural background of minority persons and groups in the United States. One mlnorlty group wlth whlch soclal work has not much contact, and thus has llttle knowledge about, ls the Chlnese. Regarding professional social work knowledge about minority groups, the Chinese could be considered a "silent minority."

This follow-up study of 1970-73 graduates of the Portland State University School of Social Work was aimed at identifying the community organization and social welfare planning skills that M.S.W.s are using in their current practice. The study sought information from graduates that could be useful in evaluating the current Social Welfare Planning concentration and planning future curriculum. Two groups of graduates were surveyed utilizing a mailed questionnaire. The first group consisted of the universal sample of former students identified as community organization concentrators; the comparison group was a sample of graduates who had majored in direct services. The study explored and compared the educational backgrounds of the two groups and their employment histories following graduation. More importantly, it sought the opinions of former students on the usefulness or relevancy of specific community organization and planning skills in their actual practice. At the outset of the study, it was assumed that graduates who had concentrated in community organization would consistently rate community organization/planning skills higher than graduates who had majored in direct services. Overall, the results of the study substantiated that assumption. However, the agency setting of the practitioner appeared to be a more important determinant of the types of skills he found relevant than his area of specialization in graduate school. Thus, community organization concentrators who were in organizing or planning positions at the time of the survey rated the associated skills as having much greater utility in their practice than did direct service concentrators who held direct service positions. Further, direct service concentrators who were also in administrative or planning positions rated the skills higher than did their counterparts in direct service positions. It was also found that community organization concentrators were more conservative than direct service majors in crediting the School of Social Work with having contributed significantly to their attainment of community organization/planning skills.

During first year field placement, we worked with a number of rural families, most of them Mexican-American. It seemed to us that rural families in general and Mexican-Americans in particular were not being very well served by social service agencies. We questioned whether this might be due to a lack of Mexican-American perspective in traditional services or perhaps a lack of Mexican-American manpower or at least Spanish-speaking manpower. This study, then, developed out of a general area of interest that can be stated as three questions: (1) Do rural people (especially Mexican-Americans) feel there is a need for various social services and what do they identify as needs? (2) Do they know about social service agencies that exist and what their services are? (3) How available are those services? i.e., an existing agency may be "unavailable" because people don't know about it, because of lack of transportation, because of language/cultural barriers, because of an inappropriateness of services offered, etc.

This is a descriptive, partially exploratory study which examined the date obtained from interviews with socials workers in selected social welfare programs in regard to the father in treatment. Explored were descriptive information concerning the agency's characteristics, the type and extend of treatment offered, the involvement or resistance of the father in therapy, and the provision made for a surrogate male model in the event of the father's absence. The literature revealed that currently there is a growing body of knowledge and theory related to the father's role in the psychosocial development of the child and the consequences of his absence. It might be noted that in the past more attention has been given in theory and research to the mother's role. Through personal interviews with one professional social worker in each of eighteen selected programs in Multnomah County data were obtained with a data collection schedule used as a guide. The findings indicated that the father was interested in his child's development and more willing to participate in treatment than is generally appreciated. Although the philosophy and policy of all of the agencies recognized the importance of the father in therapy, in actual practice only a minority had been able to implement this in treatment to an extensive degree due to the lack of staff time and training. A few programs, however, did report a ratio of staff to clients which enabled them to sustain the father and his family in intensive, meaningful therapy. There are indications that more flexible agency hours need to be implemented to better enable social workers to involve the father. An emerging emphasis on innovative new methods such as total family group therapy which tends to involve the father in therapy, was reflected in the study. The data indicated that several agencies in the last few years have begun to use new methods to a significant degree, with the leadership of trained social work therapists, and that other agencies are using new methods in a moderate degree or are planning to implement these methods in the near future. The majority of agencies did recognize the need for the use of substitute male models, in some cases of father absence, but they found few available resources for the provision of this service. Although this was a general, descriptive paper only, some trends in practice regarding the father did emerge. Indications are that the father has a vital interest in his child's development, that he has shown an increasing willingness to become involved in therapy, and that there is a growing emphasis, in agencies, for the use of new treatment methods which emphasize the involvement of the father.

No description available.

This study explores how one highly institutionalised organisation, namely The Salvation Army engages with policy discourses, how it responds and how it is shaped by its engagement with government. The move from a unified public service to the use of third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army to deliver public services represents a major shift in institutional relationships. This study focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as ‘customers’, and the Salvation Army’s response to this reconstruction. By exploring the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organisation sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, this study seeks to reveal the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organisations which increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM). The altered relationships brought about by the shift in institutional relationships depend upon new institutional forms to deliver government services, and these new relationships are manifestly displayed in the Job Network. This study focuses on the ways in which The Salvation Army mediates social policy within this new institutional relationship. The changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 to 2007 is explored in this study. Neo-institutional theory provides the theoretical framework of this study. Neoinstitutional theory addresses the impact of shifts in the relationships between government and third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army via contracting out of government employment services. This changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as played out in the specific institutional field of the employment service through the creation of the Job Network is explored in this study. Within a constructionist approach, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is deployed as the analytical technology. This study uses textual material as its main source of primary data, including extracts from job network contracts, internal and public Salvation Army documents, and utterances by government. The study explores the ways in which The Salvation Army has attempted to mediate social policy and the organisational tensions that arise as the Army seeks to maintain organizational independence. This study reveals that though government as the creator of the new quasi-market and purchaser of services in that market is perhaps the most powerful actor, the new institutional relationships are not completely a master/servant relationship; third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army do have the capacity to influence government. Additionally, this study calls into question the notions that the third sector and the government sector are differentiated realms and suggests that new paradigms should be developed to explore the institutional relationships that are now developing in the provision of welfare services in Australia. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study explores how one highly institutionalised organisation, namely The Salvation Army engages with policy discourses, how it responds and how it is shaped by its engagement with government. The move from a unified public service to the use of third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army to deliver public services represents a major shift in institutional relationships. This study focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as ‘customers’, and the Salvation Army’s response to this reconstruction. By exploring the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organisation sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, this study seeks to reveal the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organisations which increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM). The altered relationships brought about by the shift in institutional relationships depend upon new institutional forms to deliver government services, and these new relationships are manifestly displayed in the Job Network. This study focuses on the ways in which The Salvation Army mediates social policy within this new institutional relationship. The changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 to 2007 is explored in this study. Neo-institutional theory provides the theoretical framework of this study. Neoinstitutional theory addresses the impact of shifts in the relationships between government and third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army via contracting out of government employment services. This changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as played out in the specific institutional field of the employment service through the creation of the Job Network is explored in this study. Within a constructionist approach, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is deployed as the analytical technology. This study uses textual material as its main source of primary data, including extracts from job network contracts, internal and public Salvation Army documents, and utterances by government. The study explores the ways in which The Salvation Army has attempted to mediate social policy and the organisational tensions that arise as the Army seeks to maintain organizational independence. This study reveals that though government as the creator of the new quasi-market and purchaser of services in that market is perhaps the most powerful actor, the new institutional relationships are not completely a master/servant relationship; third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army do have the capacity to influence government. Additionally, this study calls into question the notions that the third sector and the government sector are differentiated realms and suggests that new paradigms should be developed to explore the institutional relationships that are now developing in the provision of welfare services in Australia. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis critically analyses how social work practitioners construct moral-ethical decision-making in systems that are constituted as legal-rational authority and political-socioeconomic interests. Notions of moral-ethicality in practice are represented in social work literature and codified ethics in certain ways and this thesis argues that such representations do not conceive of ways in which the claimed ideals of social work might be achieved in the face of structural oppressions and power imbalance that facilitate disadvantage. A notion that there are possibilities for challenge and resistance by social work practitioners to the power of cultural pedagogy that is inherent in the discursive field of social work is articulated. This is a critical postmodern work with a postmodern approach and this thesis is premised on the works of Zygmunt Bauman, and his perspectives on morality, ethics, responsibility for the Other and power relations. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2003