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Ethical transformations: developing ethical competencies for the social professions through action research
- Author:
- RIBERS Bjorn
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 25(1), 2022, pp.65-77.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Results from a prolonged educational action research project - with the objective of bridging the gap between the micro and macro levels of ethical and values-based practices in welfare work - enquire the dynamic between individual, interpersonal and organisational dimensions of professional ethics. This article advocates that ethical responsibility is not only an individual concern, but equally collective and organisational. The research findings indicate that ethical issues tend to be individualised, whilst the organisational responsibility is not yet fully incorporated in the professional codes of ethics, the educational curriculum, nor in ethical interventions in work practice. Based on Danish action research in educational programmes, involving practiced-based internship periods in welfare institutions, the research results advocate for several prospective developments of professional ethics for the social professions. The following elements are apparent: continuous training at workplaces, further exploration of methods for processing complex ethical dilemmas through action research in collaboration with labour unions, and novel didactic approaches to ethics-based education. An imperative prospect is research and educational policy work. Hence ethics-education must incorporate specific methods for supervision and continue to innovate profession didactics in the education of the social professions which consolidate cooperation between all agents and institutions that affect learning trajectories and professionals' work-life. (Edited publisher abstract)
Social workers’ risk assessment in child protection: the problem of disagreement and a lack of a precise language about risk
- Authors:
- EJRNAES Morten, MOESBY-JENSEN Cecilie K.
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 24(5), 2021, pp.802-814.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Social workers make risk assessments in accordance with their obligation to safeguard and protect children against neglect and abuse. To prevent serious problems, it is necessary to make assessments about the likelihood that social problems emerge in the first place. We investigated 57 Danish social workers’ risk assessments. We used the vignette methodology, setting up a fictitious case and asking respondents to assess two children’s risk of suffering problems in connection with the suicide of their father. We focused on the respondents’ assessments of the magnitude of risk and on how they referred, in their own words, to the protective and risk factors they particularly noticed. There were three results of note. (1) The social workers’ assessments of risk were very divergent. This was the case whether they expressed the magnitude of risk in words or as a percentage. (2) There was no close correspondence between risk assessments expressed in words and as a percentage. Social workers lacked words to communicate the magnitude of risk adequately. (3) There were no significant differences in approach to the assessment of children’s risk between social workers who rated the risk as high, medium or low. All were attentive to both protective and risk factors. (Edited publisher abstract)
What can the use of Feedback Informed Treatment teach us about involving children, young people and caregivers in statutory casework?
- Authors:
- MacKRILL Thomas, STEENSBAEK Signe
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 24(4), 2021, pp.696-707.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This study explores the use of Feedback Informed Treatment to improve the involvement of children, young people and caregivers in statutory casework in Children’s Services in a Danish municipality. Feedback Informed Treatment involves monitoring a client’s wellbeing at the beginning of sessions and monitoring the working alliance at the end of sessions. Two years of fieldwork were undertaken in connection with researching and writing a manual for the approach. Data regarding how the approach affected the caseworkers’ involvement of children and caregivers in the field notes were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Five categories were generated. Key findings were that involvement required an individual commitment from caseworkers in each meeting and each case. Involvement was structured and viewed as a process that transpired over time, requiring a reliable and valid tool. Involvement had a dual ongoing focus on both the working alliance and change in wellbeing. The involvement was feasible and made sense to children and caregivers. The involvement was viewed as an organisational endeavour. The findings are discussed in relation to key models of participation. There is a need for more research on approaches to how professionals can involve children, young people and caregivers in statutory. (Edited publisher abstract)
The promise of assistive technology in institutionalized old age care: economic efficiency, improved working conditions, and better quality of care?
- Authors:
- SIREN Anu, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Rehabilitation: Assistive Technology, 16(5), 2021, pp.483-489.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- London
Purpose: Assistive technologies in care work are expected to alleviate the challenges related to population aging, namely the pressure on public budgets and a shortage of care professionals. This study examines how various stakeholders view the potentials of assistive technology in an institutionalized care setting in Denmark. Method: Using ethnographic field observations, interviews, and document analysis, we explore the residents’, the staff’s, and the municipality’s perspectives on the technologies and analyze whether they live up to the stated expectations. Results: We identify three parallel narratives representing each of the stakeholder’s perspectives. The municipality’s triple-win narrative emphasizes expected gains in terms of efficiency, improved working conditions, and better quality of care. The staff’s ambiguity narrative contains both negative views regarding the motive for using technologies to save resources and positive accounts of how technologies have reduced work-related pain. The residents’ limited agency narrative reflects an internalization of the staff’s perspectives. Conclusions: We conclude that, despite both the staff and the municipality highlighting the residents’ well-being and comfort as important outcomes of assistive technologies, the residents’ wishes have limited influence on whether and, if so, how assistive technologies are used. (Edited publisher abstract)
Time matters: changes in the time horizon in social services for vulnerable children and their families in Denmark in an era of productivity and competition
- Author:
- NISSEN Maria Appel
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 24(3), 2021, pp.430-441.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This article is concerned with the development of social work in advanced capitalist welfare states, where gaining competitive advantages has become the primary goal of public governance and management expressed in a strong focus on competition and productivity. The aim of the article is to contribute to filling out a gap in knowledge about how this affect social services and social work. More specifically, the article present findings from a qualitative study of social services and social work with vulnerable families in Denmark. The study shows how a focus on productivity and competition expressed in public reforms and incentives to promote short-term services fosters a subtle and almost invisible reorganisation of social services changing the time horizon of social work. Time becomes both expanded and compressed demanding social workers to include more potentialities for facilitating future change in the present, without getting more actual time, and consequently they must think and act differently regarding how they perceive and spend time. Certain forms of knowledge and practices regarding the families’ life world risk becoming ‘a waste of time’ if social workers do not compensate, either by ‘keeping the families a little longer’ or by being ‘a little disobedient’. Thus, time matters! (Edited publisher abstract)
Nature is just around us! Development of an educational program for implementation of nature-based activities at a crisis shelter for women and children exposed to domestic violence
- Authors:
- POULSEN Dorthe Varning, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work Practice, 35(2), 2021, pp.159-175.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Being in nature and doing nature-based activities has been shown to reduce stress-related illnesses such as trauma and post-traumatic stress disorders. In 2016, the crisis shelter Danner in Denmark decided to implement a programme based on the therapeutic use of nature as a recovery method for their residents: women and children exposed to domestic violence. This was done in collaboration with the research group of University of Copenhagen. This paper describes the objectives of the project, the development of an educational programme and the implementation of nature-based therapy. The Danish model for qualifications in education developed by the Danish Ministry of Education was the overall structural framework for the programme. The education programme contained four overall elements: (1) a theoretical part on the nature–health relationship; (2) performance and development of practical nature activities in collaboration with staff; (3) case stories about the challenges of implementing nature-based therapy for the residents in the crisis shelter; and (4) the implementation phase of nature-based therapy at Danner. Developing qualifications related to the use of nature-activities and the use of nature-environment might be useful for social workers and strengthen their competences in their work with battered women and children. (Edited publisher abstract)
“We have two different agendas”: the views of general practitioners, social workers and hospital staff on interprofessional coordination for patients with chronic widespread pain
- Authors:
- SCHULTZ Rikke, KOUSGAARD Marius Brostrom, DAVIDSEN Annette Sofie
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Interprofessional Care, 35(2), 2021, pp.284-292.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Patients with chronic widespread pain (CWP) are often unfit for work and go through lengthy treatment. In Denmark, this includes contacts with the job center in their municipality, their general practitioner (GP) and one or more hospital units. Little is known about how coordination around patients with CWP functions and is perceived by professionals. Therefore, our aim is to explore how GPs, social workers from municipality job centers and hospital staff experience interprofessional coordination for patients with CWP. Interviews with 7 GPs, 12 social workers, and 10 hospital staff were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The participants experienced challenges with coordination, primarily in the relations between social workers and GPs. There was an over-reliance on written communication in situations where the actors had divergent agendas, opposing professional roles and conflicting approaches to time. GPs tended to lengthen the time spans for treating patients, while social workers tried to shorten them so that patients could get back to work. Applying the theory of relational coordination (RC), the findings correspond to a low level of RC, indicating a need for shared accountability, and strengthened interpersonal communication between professionals. (Edited publisher abstract)
Does social work care? Practising care in social work with vulnerable children and their families
- Authors:
- ENGEN Mie, et al
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 24(1), 2021, pp.34-46.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This article investigates how care is practised and made possible in social work with vulnerable children and their families in Danish child welfare and protection services. It seeks to contribute to our knowledge of forms of professional care in social work by examining two case-examples of, how social work practice is performed in interaction with families who are subjects of a child examination or a family network-based intervention. By examining caring practices in situations marked by potentially conflicting values, interests and needs in this particular social and political context, the article contributes to illuminating how changes in the relations between the state, family and child on a macro level, are reflected in the way care is practised on a micro level. (Edited publisher abstract)
Disability, socialism and autonomy in the 1970s: case studies from Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom
- Author:
- RYDSTROM Jens
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 34(9-10), 2019, pp.1637-1659.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
In the 1970s, grassroots disability movements in many countries changed the thinking around disability and disability politics. Nonetheless, they were also part of larger political upheavals in the western world. How were they inspired by the socialist, feminist, and gay and lesbian movements? In addition, how did they relate to non-disabled allies? Organisations in Denmark and Sweden are investigated and compared to early disability-rights movements in the United Kingdom. Independently of each other, all groups developed materialist models, although only in Sweden and the United Kingdom did this lead to a linguistic distinction between ‘impairment’ and ‘disability’. Danish activists would rather use provocative language, while developing a social understanding of disability. They were also the only ones to discuss gender and sexuality. There are more similarities than differences between the movements, although the Danish specificities contributed to improvements in how Danes with disabilities can develop a positive sex life. (Publisher abstract)
Social work professionals’ management of institutional and professional responsibilities at the micro-level of welfare-to-work
- Author:
- DALL Tanja
- Journal article citation:
- European Journal of Social Work, 23(1), 2020, pp.30-42.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Tensions between professional knowledge and values, and institutional rules and regulations in welfare-to-work practices targeting vulnerable clients have been well established. How these tensions are managed at the frontlines of welfare services is crucial for the effects on both clients’ and frontline workers’ own professional roles. However, there is little insight into the ways this is actually done in routine practice. Based on a micro-discursive analysis of 97 team meetings in 3 Danish municipalities, I examine how social work professionals manage their professional responsibilities within the institutional context of welfare-to-work. Findings suggest that team members enact a dual orientation to professional and institutional responsibilities, characterised by the shifting between professional and institutional discourses. Second, when a dual orientation cannot be managed, the institutional obligations overrule the professional ones. This is characterised by contrasting discourses and giving primacy to ‘documenting’ the case. The findings suggest that the question of how frontline workers manage institutional/professional tensions is less about an inherent opposition between institutional and professional rationales than a matter of the structured enactment of these rationales in interactions between professionals within the institutional complex. (Edited publisher abstract)