Statutory social work, the voluntary sector and social action settings : a comparison of ethics

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Making Interprofessional Working Work: Introducing a Group Work Perspective

Teams are an established part of organisations and are, by definition, ‘groups’—but the business discourse within which they are conceptualised, and within which teamwork takes place, discounts key aspects of groupwork, essentially related to its values. Hence, we argue, the true potential of teamwork is stifled. This is compounded in relation to interprofessional ‘teams’, by the top-down, prescriptive, policy drivers which have led to their setting-up and because of ‘new managerialism’ embedded in their operation. In other words, they are essentially ‘business’ teams and, as such, constricted. Groupwork, we argue, has the potential, first, to liberate interprofessional teams to function more successfully and hence, second, to deliver better to the service user and, third, we believe, to contribute to reducing the risks of failure in interprofessional working as exhibited in recurring ‘tragedies’. Social workers, with their values, knowledge and training in groupwork, have potentially a special role to play in facilitating interprofessional teamwork. In turn, this role, if they carry it out well, might help improve their status in the interprofessional team, where currently they often feel marginalised

One method, two worlds: An Exploration of Group Work across Two Jurisdictions in North America

This article is in an Open Access journalLooking at practices in different locations is benefi cial since it helps challenge assumptions that we may take for granted. Groupwork, as a method of social work, is specifi cally interesting to explore in the light of different contexts since, like social work, it may or may not translate well across cultures. This paper draws from data collected in the context of a research project that aimed to describe the current state of social work with groups in Quebec and to explore trends within social work with groups elsewhere in the world. Specifi cally, it focuses on the exploration of practices in Quebec and discusses them in relationship to those found in the USA, as a counterpoint. Our fi ndings highlight some differences and similarities between Quebec and the USA with regard to groupwork, which leads us to discuss a range of factors that may impact on groupwork in the different contexts. Of these, the differences of organisational context and organisation of services have emerged as particularly noteworthy, which echoes fi ndings in general social work literature with regard to the importance of local contexts on the defi nition of practice itself

Working with Parents of Gender Independent Children: using social action as an emancipatory research framework

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.This article examines and reflects on the methodology used in a research project that involved group work activities with parents of gender-variant children. Gender variance in children remains a topic people talk little about. Discussions about people who express themselves differently from the social norms attached to their birth sex, to a large extent, remain rarely discussed. They challenge a society organized largely on the basis of a binary understanding of identity, one that belongs to either male or female. This article discusses the concept of oppression as being central to the experiences of gender-variant children and young people and their parents, and it proposes social action research as a compatible and appropriate research framework for exploring their experiences. We describe the research process, identify its achievements, and explore issues that had to be confronted. We suggest that traditional research structures may benefit from being revisited in order to allow emancipatory research to more fully achieve its potential for both research and social action