Social Work, Risk, Power

Contemporary ideas and strategies of both \'risk\' and \'power\' are significant and dynamic influences in social theory and social action, and they can therefore be expected to have a substantial impact on the ways in which social work is constituted, practiced and evaluated. In this article, I shall articulate distinct conceptualisations and debates about each of these, before considering their inter-relationships and the implications of these for our thinking about what social work is, and what it should be. Firstly, I will consider social work\'s contested and problematic place within the broader welfare domain. It is recognised as being a form of activity which inhabits an ambiguous and uncertain position at the interface between the individual and the social, and between the marginalised and the mainstream. Building on this, \'power\' will be shown to infuse social work ideas and practices in a number of distinct dimensions, linking and bridging \'personal\', \'positional\' and \'relational\' domains. This discussion will be juxtaposed with a discussion of \'risk\' and the part it has come to play in shaping and infusing social work practices, especially but not exclusively with children. The deconstruction of contemporary understandings and uses of risk as a central and \'authoritative\' feature of assessment and decision-making will inform the argument that it can be viewed as a vehicle for the maintenance and legitimation of power relations which disenfranchise and oppress those who are most vulnerable. In conclusion, I will summarise the ways in which conventional understandings and inter-related material realities of power and risk are often hierarchical, uni-directional and oppressive; and on this basis, how they can be laid open to challenge. The reconceptualisation and remaking of power relations will be shown to have direct consequences for the ways in which risk is defined and addressed as a social work \'problem\'.Social Work, Risk, Power, Social Justice, Authority, Legitimacy Left_arrows

Contextualizing the business responsibility to respect: How much is lost in translation?

As the work of the UN Special Representative (UNSR) for business and human rights moves towards its conclusion in mid-2011, the core principles of the UNSR’s ‘responsibility to respect’ framework have received widespread endorsement from businesses, NGOs and governments. The translation of these general principles into specific obligations governing business activity will need to differ according to context. The reasons why overarching regulatory principles can get ‘lost in translation’ when applied in practice have important implications for understanding how the UNSR’s responsibility to respect framework can be meaningfully implemented across widely varying regulatory contexts. The central goal of this chapter is to understand why and under what conditions this loss is likely to arise, and how regulatory standards for business and human rights might be designed to enable the responsibility to respect principle to be applied in context-sensitive ways, without losing regulatory force

Exploring the promotion of youth voice and activism by youth development workers in community-based programs.

Youth-adult partnerships (Y-APs) and youth voice promotion are best practices within the youth development sector, but youth development workers receive little training or guidance in employing these concepts. A scarcity of research explores the relationships between organizational supports, as demonstrated by training, supervision, evaluation, and worker engagement in promoting youth voice. The two studies within this dissertation investigated the social processes of how and why youth development workers promoted youth voice. Program participants were primarily youth of color living in areas of high multidimensional poverty. They also explored how and why organizational factors impacted the promotion of youth voice within programmatic contexts. Three aims were established in pursuit of this goal: 1) describe the relationship between organizational support, as demonstrated by job clarity and supervision, and youth development worker promotion of youth voice 2) develop a context-specific framework describing the necessary conditions for high youth voice promotion and 3) develop a context-specific framework describing the social process of youth development workers promoting youth voice while experiencing varying degrees of organization support. Questions supporting these aims included: 1) What processes do youth development workers engage in when promoting youth voice? 2) What strategies do youth development workers employ when they face barriers in promoting youth voice? Furthermore, 3) How do youth development workers make meaning of their role within the organization and program? The approach to these studies was Constructivist Grounded Theory aided by Situational Analysis, which included methods of coding, memoing, relational and positional mapping, using in-depth interviews with 19 youth development workers. Results of Chapter 2 indicated that sharing experiences and internalizing social justice youth development principles resulted in adopting roles more congruent with high youth voice promotion. Organizational policies and restrictions acted as barriers for workers in promoting youth voice when they restricted flexibility in programmatic development. A context-specific framework entitled Internalizing Social Justice Youth Development Principles: Conditions for Promoting High Levels of Youth Voice Programs” was produced. Results of Chapter 3 indicated a relationship between job role clarity and perceptions of self-efficacy for youth development workers in navigating conflict within programming. Higher levels of perceived self-efficacy led workers to adopt the stance love them through it and promote higher levels of individual youth voice. External factors, such as funding entities and youth development models, influenced the conceptualization of job roles for workers and led to the adoption of more educationally based foci. A context-specific framework entitled Promoting Youth Voice: The Influence of Role Identity and Self-Efficacy in Youth-Adult Relationships” resulted from findings

Resilience as health promotion in action: University students who grew up amid violence directed towards their mothers

Abstract Violence against women is among the greatest threats to the health of our population. An estimated three hundred and sixty thousand children in Canada, and over two million worldwide are exposed to violence in their homes (UNICEF, 2006). Growing up amidst such violence seriously compromises children’s capacities for healthy development. Violence against women is not limited by culture, geography or socioeconomic status. It constitutes one of the most pervasive and yet least openly discussed human rights violations and public health issues known today. Researchers and allied health professionals generally agree that children whose development has been interfered with by exposure to violence against women experience more adjustment problems than non-exposed counterparts. Cognitive, emotional and behavioural mechanisms employed in children’s adapting to such experiences are as varied as the children themselves. Children have incredible capacities for resilience but it is a social process that requires efficacy of person and of place. There is a need to understand the dynamic process of navigating a pathway to health promoting resources during and in the aftermath of exposure to violence against women during childhood. This study utilized Charmaz’s (2000) constructivist grounded theory to co-construct with participants a theory of resilience to childhood exposure to violence against women and subsequent transition to university. Based upon their own experiences of self-identified resilience to growing up amid such violence, the outcome of this research was that the basic social process of resilience to the aforementioned is resolving the dialectical tensions of tolerance and transformation. This process unifies the three core categories of assessing needs and accessing resources, experiencing solidarity despite isolation and oppression, and acceptingthe present while dreaming of the future. At any given moment during the process of resilience participants oscillated between willingness to accept their experiences and willfulness to change them. The health promotion framework influenced generation of possible applications of findings including combating censorship, creating policy that protects and serves the needs of children, and enhanced social services that address the impact of growing up amidst violence against women on children

Music Therapy and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Literature Review

Autism spectrum disorder is a complex neurobiological disorder that affects social interaction, communication, and behavior. While there is no cure, MT has emerged as one of the most effective ways to improve the quality of life for individuals with autism. Music can help with communication, emotional expression, and reducing anxiety, providing a structured and predictable environment. MT can be used as a tool for self-expression, learning new concepts, and improving motor control. However, more research is needed to develop disease-modifying therapies that target the core deficits of the disorder.A perturbação do espectro do autismo é uma condição neurobiológica complexa que afeta a comunicação, a interação social e o comportamento. As causas exatas desta condição não são totalmente compreendidas, mas está estabelecido que se baseiam numa combinação de fatores genéticos e ambientais. Nos últimos anos, a prevalência da perturbação do espetro do autismo aumentou, gerando mais atenção e pesquisas. Atualmente não há cura para o autismo, mas existem muitas maneiras de controlar e tratar os sintomas associados, por exemplo através da musicoterapia. Este tipo de abordagem surgiu como uma intervenção promissora que pode ajudar indivíduos com autismo a melhorar sua qualidade de vida, especialmente a desenvolver capacidades sociais a nível de comunicação e interação com outras pessoas, dentro ou fora do círculo familiar. Os musicoterapeutas usam uma variedade de instrumentos e ferramentas para ajudar estes indivíduos a expressar as suas emoções e comunicar os seus sentimentos. Além disso, a música fornece um ambiente organizado e previsível que pode ajudar a melhorar o foco e, consequentemente, reduzir a ansiedade. A musicoterapia também pode ser usada como meio de ensino ativo ou passivo, visando explorar e desenvolver a autoconsciência e a autoexpressão. Do ponto de vista neurofisiológico, a música pode também ser um caminho para desenvolver a plasticidade cortical em indivíduos autistas, ou seja, pode ajudar a reconectar os circuitos sensoriomotores cerebelares e cerebrais, melhorando o controle motor e reduzindo comportamentos repetitivos. Isto deve-se ao facto da música ter a capacidade de fortalecer as conexões sinápticas entre diferentes áreas corticais somatossensoriais do cérebro, destacando a importância do sistema de neurônios-espelho e da ínsula anterior. Embora os mecanismos do funcionamento da musicoterapia ainda não sejam totalmente compreendidos, a pesquisa sugere que pode influenciar positivamente a comunicação, a interação social e a expressão emocional em indivíduos com autismo, e isso deve motivar a novas investigações, mais precisas e direcionadas ao indivíduo em questão

A Qualitative Investigation of the Strategies used by a Sample of Native American Older Adults to Cope with Race-Related Stressors

The present study explored how racism-related stress was characterized by respondents and investigated the ways in which these respondents coped with this type of stress. Using content analysis, four broad themes of race-related stress emerged: 1) Institutional, 2) Intergroup, 3) Bicultural, and 4) Intragroup. Race-related coping strategies, which included the cognitive, emotional and behavioral strategies respondents used to reduce and/or manage their experiences of racism, were also explored. Eight overarching coping strategies were described: 1) Taking action, 2) Acceptance, 3) Escaping, 4) Collective coping, 5) Meaning making, 6) Affective coping, 7) Returning to what Indians did before , and 8) Creative coping. This work has important implications given the evidence that suggests that racism is a unique source of stress that contributes to the reduced quality of life for racial/ethnic minorities as well as to the race/ethnicity-based disparities in mental and physical health. As such, this study begins to expand our awareness of the sources of race-related stress among this population as well as begins to improve our understanding of the coping strategies that are effective in helping these Native American individuals cope with racism. In the present analysis, results were compared to the existing race-related stress and coping literature in an effort to understand the unique and common experiences of racism across different racial/ethnic minority groups. The findings indicated that for this sample of Native American older adults the welfare of the group/tribe and maintaining a sense of belonging to the group were important values that influenced coping behaviors. These findings suggest that appropriate and effective clinical and social interventions for this population should take into account the values, attitudes and customs of a Native American worldview that recognizes the central importance of belongingness/interconnectedness. However given that this study did not specifically ask about racism, future studies will need to employ a more direct line of questioning since it is quite possible that specific questions regarding respondents\u27 experiences with racism could lead to different and/or more complete responses

Effects of Mediation on Employee Efficiency in Human Services Centers and in Other Organizations that Serve Vulnerable Populations

Social workers and other professionals who offer caring services to vulnerable populations are oftentimes exposed to stressful environments. Employee burnout, vicarious traumas, and other stressors jeopardize worker’s efficiency. According to previously conducted research studies, organizational and interpersonal conflicts may be effectively addressed through mediation. However, the studies do not address the use of mediation for the resolution of workplace disputes in centers of human services. This study explores effects of mediation on worker’s efficiency in such centers, and this study proposes that mediation positively affects worker’s efficiency. The proposed methodology for testing this proposition involves a single case study with the mixed method design that entails quantitative and qualitative methods of studying documentation and the qualitative analysis of interviews. The goal of this dissertation is to enhance the understanding of the mediation potential in human services; thusly, advancing worker’s improvement in human services. The findings of the quantitative study demonstrate visible declining tendencies of work stoppages with the continuous use of mediation. However, significant correlations are only recorded between four out of ten studied variables; causality may not be concluded. The findings of the analysis of three subcases show the connection between mediation and workplace performance. The findings of the interview analysis demonstrate positive effects of mediation but warn that other variables should be considered. This researcher intends for the findings to advance the knowledge of mediation for caring professionals