Search results

The article seeks to analyse the potential contribution of social work to integration debates. Social work has tended to be seen as marginal to these discussions despite the potential of social work expertise and leadership to help forge effective approaches to joined-up care. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how social work is well positioned to help lead and support practice focused change across social care and health. It also seeks to show how professional leadership can be a powerful vehicle for changing professional and organisational cultures.

The paper draws on practice and research evidence to demonstrate the proposition that social work can make a powerful contribution to debates about integration.

Three things could help build the cultural capital that is a pre-requisite to building integrated and joined-up approaches. First, the author needs to invest in developing the role of social workers and GPs working together as local professional and practice leaders. Second, there is a real risk that in any discussion about professional leadership and partnership, the author eclipses the singularly critical importance of engaging and involving users and carers in non tokenistic ways. Finally, the author needs to utilise better social work’s skills and knowledge in managing risk, building resilience and promoting social inclusion.

Further evaluation and research is needed about the potential for GPs and social workers to develop joined-up approaches to care for and support older and disabled people.

Social workers need to be provided with the tools, support and space in which to develop their practice leadership role, including but not exclusively with GPs.

This paper does not purport to offer any specifically originally research but rather some reflections on how social work expertise might better contribute to integration debates.

The purpose of this paper is to expose and dispel some outdated dilemmas and straw men that have drawn attention away from debates of substance in social work. The paper presents what Frontline believes to be the substantive dilemmas facing the social work profession, as it looks into the future.

The paper draws on the insights and experiences of the past four years during which Frontline has been innovating in the field of social work education and leadership development.

Building a better social work system requires addressing several important questions, namely, whether social work; first, is a practical or intellectual task; second, is a generic or specialist profession; third, focuses on social or therapeutic change; fourth, requires bureaucrats or change agents; and fifth, involves measuring inspections or measuring outcomes.

The paper sets out the key dilemmas facing the social work profession, which must be debated and addressed in order to build a better social work system.

The purpose of this research is to provide an overview of the management skills and competencies required by a director of social work as they perform their multiple roles and functions in order to effectively manage a medical social work team to better serve the needs of patients through the new hospital‐based case management model.

This is a conceptual paper that reviews the literature on managerial roles, management functions, and skills and competencies of directors of social work. Management frameworks that are applicable under the case management model are discussed. Interviews with five directors of social work and their perceptions are described.

Managing a department that is going through continuous changes is often difficult.

This paper has practical implications for general health care managers and specifically, directors of social work, to develop skills and gain competencies to be successful in today's evolving health care environment. This research also has practical implications for social workers to gain insight into productive and effective ways to collaborate with members of an interdisciplinary team.

This paper is original and of value to those working in social work and in the health care field to develop their skills and competencies as they perform new roles and functions in the complex health care environment.

Information technology is a facilitator in knowledge diffusion by enabling individuals to communicate directly in personal exchange. This includes interactive communications through newsgroups and discussion groups. Two discussion groups were analysed, the Social Work Discussion Group SOCWORK, and ABUSE‐L, a professional forum for child abuse issues. Three types of communication were identified: information transfer, requests for information and discussion of issues. The discussion of issues was the main type of communication in both discussion groups, followed by the request for information and then information transfer. Communications in the discussion groups were dominated by a small number of people. Policy issues were the main topic of discussion in both groups. The control of information technology by academics appears to limit the participation of social work practitioners in determining the agenda of the discussion group or the contents of the communications. Social worker practitioners have not increased their access to information even though the technology to make it accessible exists.

This paper aims to provide an analysis of the mental health social work role, its contribution to social inclusion, and its ability to translate this into practice.

The paper considers national policy, research and theory to consider the nature of social work and the mental health system.

While social work is ideally placed to challenge the biomedical model and promote social inclusion, organisational and other failings would appear to seriously undermine its ability to do so.

The paper considers some important issues facing social work and mental health, and raises points for thought and discussion.

The purpose of this paper is to explore an Australian social worker's experiences of beginning work in the field of neurodisability in the voluntary sector in the UK.

This paper documents the social worker's experiences of the differences in practice between Australia and the UK; between working in the statutory and voluntary sector in the UK; and between different fields of social work. It also documents the social worker's initial thoughts about working in the field of acquired brain injury (ABI).

Through this journey, the social worker reflects upon their own development as a practitioner.

The social worker identifies points which may help other social work professionals who are new to this complex area of practice.

This paper provides an insight into a social worker's experience of working in different settings and in different countries. It also illustrates how for this social worker, varied experiences cannot always prepare you for working in ABI.

SI offers a distinctive theoretical language for practice: a vocabulary and a grammar for identifying the personal troubles and joys of group members and for locating these experiences in shared symbol systems and in associated social arrangements (Weigert, 1995). SI can provide the ideal base for social work and sociological helping work (Forte, 2004a, 2004b). It is a coherent organizing language that can guide practitioner thinking, acting, and feeling especially when professional action is blocked.

According to extensive analysis, employee agility is influenced by teamwork, coordination and the organizational environment. However, less consideration has been given to the role of work stressors (challenge, hindrance) in influencing employee agility. To address this research gap, this study sheds light on how the use of enterprise social media (ESM) for social and work purposes influences employee agility through work stressors.

This research also explores how ESM visibility enhances the interaction between work stressors and employee agility by using primary data obtained from Chinese workers. A total of 377 entries were analyzed using AMOS 24.10 tools. All the hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The findings revealed that ESM use (social and work) negatively impacts challenge and hindrance work stressors. The results also reflect that challenge stressors have a significant impact on employee agility, whereas hindrance stressors are negatively related to it. Furthermore, the outcome also indicated that increased ESM visibility reinforces the connection between challenge stressors and employee agility. However, ESM visibility did not indicate a significant moderating impact on the link between hindrance stressors and employee agility.

This study describes how ESM usage effects agility of stressed employees. This research also explores how ESM visibility improves the interaction between work stressors and employee agility. The study results contribute to growing research on social media and employee agility and suggest several points of guidance for managers.

This chapter considers the mobilities of families subject to child protection involvement at the threshold of the birth of a new baby. The author presents data arising from an ethnographic study of child protection social work with unborn babies. This study aimed to draw near to social work practice within the Scottish context through mobile research methods and included non-participant observations of a range of child protection meetings with expectant families. Research interviews were sought with expectant mothers and fathers, social workers and the chair persons of Pre-birth Child Protection Case Conferences. Case conferences are formal administrative meetings designed to consider the risks to children, including unborn children. This chapter focusses on the experiences of expectant parents of navigating the child protection involvement with their as yet unborn infant. The strategies that parents adopted to steer a course through the multiple possibilities in relation to the future care of their infant are explored here. Three major strategies: resistance, defeatism and holding on are considered. These emerged as means by which expectant parents responded to social work involvement and which enabled their continued forwards motion towards an uncertain future.