Social Work in Ghana

In contemporary Ghana, the traditional system and professional social work operate as two parallel systems within the field of social work. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how the teaching of contemporary professional social work in Ghana takes into account traditional actors and practices. The traditional system includes extended family members and traditional authorities such as chiefs or family heads. It formed the social institution that protected and cared for the vulnerable before (Western) social work was introduced as a formal profession in Ghana. A 10-week ethnographic field study was conducted at the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana. The study employed a qualitative, social constructionist approach, interpreting the results within a theoretical framework of social world theory. The empirical material consisted of interviews with students and teachers, participant observation at lectures, and various documents. The main findings of the study were that professional social workers and traditional actors can be seen as members of two subworlds – the subworld of professional social workers and the subworld of traditional actors. Students and teachers discuss interventions from the perspective of social workers and traditional actors. Their ability to take different perspectives seems to be crucial for localisation – the process by which social work is made relevant to local culture and traditions. The interviewees’ accounts reveal how localisation is not only about culture, but also about social structures and practical considerations. The poor state of the social work profession in Ghana affects interventions in a profound way

Rupture and social suffering. The perspective of Social Work students on the arriving of refugees to Sweden

Este artículo deriva de una investigación realizada en el marco del Proyecto Refugium: Building shelter cities and a new welcoming culture. Links between European Universities and schools in Human Rights, en el que participan la Universidad de Murcia (España), la Universidad de Salerno (Italia), el Instituto Universitario de Lisboa (Portugal) y la Universidad de Lund (Suecia). Proyecto ERASMUS+ KA2 nº 2016-1-ES01-KA203-025000 cofinanciado por el programa Erasmus+ de la Unión Europea.En el año 2015 el gobierno sueco dio un giro radical en sus políticas migratorias: cambió las leyes de asilo y protección de refugiados e introdujo el control permanente de las fronteras con el fin de reducir la inmigración de refugiados a Suecia. En este artículo, discutimos estos cambios desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes de trabajo social. Nuestro estudio se basa en material cualitativo recopilado durante una investigación realizada en el marco de un proyecto internacional, con el objetivo de desarrollar buenas prácticas en la recepción de refugiados recién llegados a Europa. Los estudiantes discutieron las respuestas de las autoridades suecas, expresaron sus inquietudes y preocupaciones sobre el impacto del cambio de política en los solicitantes de asilo, en la sociedad en general y en su propio entorno. Sus reflexiones expresan incertidumbre e impotencia, así como temor cuando constatan la creciente normalización del racismo, tanto en el espacio público como en su entorno inmediato. Identificamos los procesos descritos por los estudiantes como una pérdida creciente de identidad comunitaria. Los estudiantes sufren de esta pérdida al mismo tiempo que reducen sus interacciones sociales, contribuyendo de esa manera al reforzamiento de los mismos procesos que critican. Así, a pesar de que se posicionan en contra de las políticas de rechazo a los refugiados, cuando discuten la formación académica impartida en trabajo social en relación con la migración, mantienen la distancia entre los nacionales y los migrantes y refuerzan la división entre "nosotros" y "ellos".In 2015, the Swedish government made a shift in migration policy: In order to reduce the amount of refugees arriving in Sweden, the government changed asylum and refugee protection laws, and introduced permanent border controls. In this article, we discuss these changes from the perspective of social work students. Our study is based on qualitative material compiled within the framework of an international project, with the aim of developing good practices in the reception of refugees recently arrived in Europe. The students discussed the responses of the Swedish authorities, expressed their anxieties and concerns about the impact of the policy shift on asylum seekers, society in general and their own environment. Their reflections express uncertainty and impotence, as well as fear, as they meet growing racism, both in public space and their immediate surroundings. We identify the processes described by the students as an increasing loss of community identity. Students suffer from this loss, which reduces their social interactions, contributing to the weakening of social ties and the reinforcement of the processes they criticize. Thus, despite being positioned against refrugee resusal policies, when they discuss Social Work education in relation to migration they maintain the distance between nationals and migrants and reinforce the division between “us” and “them”.Proyecto ERASMUS+ KA2 nº 2016-1-ES01-KA203-025000 cofinanciado por el programa Erasmus+ de la Unión Europea

Årsbok 2016 : Socialhögskolan, Lunds universitet

Denna årsbok presenterar Socialhögskolans verksamhet för 2016och in mot 2017

Social Work in Ghana : Engaging Traditional Actors in Professional Practices

In contemporary Ghana, the traditional system and professional social work operate as two parallel systems within the field of social work. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how the teaching of contemporary professional social work in Ghana takes into account traditional actors and practices. The traditional system includes extended family members and traditional authorities such as chiefs or family heads. It formed the social institution that protected and cared for the vulnerable before (Western) social work was introduced as a formal profession in Ghana. A 10-week ethnographic field study was conducted at the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana. The study employed a qualitative, social constructionist approach, interpreting the results within a theoretical framework of social world theory. The empirical material consisted of interviews with students and teachers, participant observation at lectures, and various documents. The main findings of the study were that professional social workers and traditional actors can be seen as members of two subworlds – the subworld of professional social workers and the subworld of traditional actors. Students and teachers discuss interventions from the perspective of social workers and traditional actors. Their ability to take different perspectives seems to be crucial for localisation – the process by which social work is made relevant to local culture and traditions. The interviewees’ accounts reveal how localisation is not only about culture, but also about social structures and practical considerations. The poor state of the social work profession in Ghana affects interventions in a profound way.<br /

Förhöjd vardaglighet : Unga på landsbygden gör vardag

Today, the terms ‘young people’ and ‘rural Sweden’ are automatically associated with problems. Young people are associated with various worrying issues, such as mental illness, stress, pressure at school, or internet risk. Being young and living in a rural community is often regarded as especially problematic. Rural life is thought dull, and bracketed with isolation, lack of meaningful activities, and being inferior to urban spaces. In this thesis, these well-known problematics are set aside in favour of studying young people’s everyday lives in a broader sense.This thesis investigates how young people in rural areas do everyday life in interaction with their wider surroundings. Young people’s doings are interpreted against those of adult ‘interveners’, the professionals and volunteers who work with the young and intervene in their activities and places. Applying a symbolic interactionist approach, youngsters’ everyday activities and their doing of everyday life were investigated by ethnographic fieldwork in a Swedish village. The thesis is based on data from observations and interviews with young people and interveners in the village. The thesis introduces an analytical framework for interpreting everyday life. A ternary framework, it comprises three dimensions of everyday life: heightened everydayness, unnoticed everydayness, and dull everydayness. The framework has been created in response to the study’s empirical material, and serves as an analytical lens throughout the study.The results show that young people and interveners portray everyday life in the village differently. Interveners focus primary on the problematic aspects of rural life. Youngsters instead highlight heightened everydayness. In accordance with young people’s representations of everyday life, the thesis thus focuses on heightened everydayness. The analysis shows how youngsters accomplish heightened everydayness by being on the move, physically and virtually; engaging in indeterminate or problematic situations; and being with cared-for people, animals and things. Based on the study’s results, it is found that everyday knowledge emerges as crucial for heightened everydayness. The thesis concludes that everyday life is valuable. Contrary to general understandings of everyday life as grey and dull, the study shows everyday life as rich in content, meaningful, and fun

Social Work in Ghana at the Intersection of Two Systems. Engaging traditional actors in professional practices.

The objective of this study has been to investigate if and how traditional actors and practices are taken into account in contemporary professional social work in Ghana. A ten-week ethnographic field study was conducted in the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana where the research objective was investigated from a perspective of social work education. Traditional actors refer to extended family members and traditional authorities, which are included in the traditional system. The traditional system was a social institution that protected and cared for the vulnerable in Ghana before colonialism introduced social work as a formal profession. In contemporary Ghana, the traditional system and the social work system operate as two parallel systems within the social work field. The coexistence of these parallel systems¬¬¬ as well as researchers’ request for more knowledge about how traditional actors and practices may be involved in professional social work in Africa were departure points for this study. The study employed a qualitative, social constructionism approach, interpreting the results within a theoretical framework consisting of social world theory, postcolonial theory and social constructionism. The empirical material consisted of 19 interviews with students and teachers as well as course outlines and participant observation at lectures. The main questions addressed were how students and teachers talk about traditional actors, practices, and professional social workers, as well as how they take traditional actors and practices into account when reasoning out social work interventions. The main findings of the study were that professional social workers and traditional actors can be seen as members of two subworlds existing in the larger social world of social work. Social workers have a hybrid position between the subworlds and an ability to handle cases from the perspective of social workers and traditional actors. They blend ‘old’ and ‘new’ ways to conduct social work, a process interpreted as localization. From rationales provided for taking traditional actors and practices into account, three models of explanation were identified: the cultural, practical, and structural models of explanation. Yet, it was suggested that the students and teachers primary reason for taking traditional actors into account in interventions is that social workers need to stay on good terms with traditionalists. To stay on good terms was interpreted as the social workers’ strategy for gaining ground in the larger social world of social work