Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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An Application of CHAT Analysis to a Community-Based Action Team
Get PDFThis study applies cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) to a community-based racial equity and social justice action group in the American South. The community action group is referred to as a “team” by participants and by its host community. The CHAT framework applied incorporates Vygotsky’s mediated action triangle and holds that learning can occur within any activity system. Using CHAT, it is possible to clarify points of tension that occurred within the action team during the community-based team’s first year of development. Reflecting on points of tension within the CHAT framework supported appropriate modifications to the team’s development. This application of the CHAT framework demonstrates ways CHAT could be applied to support leadership assessment and constructive follow-up on areas of tension in a community group, thereby contributing to group maintenance and ongoing well-being.
Keywords: community action group, racial equity, social justice, CHA
Faith-based organizations' support for older adults in Vietnam: A comparison of Catholic and Buddhist efforts
No full textHow faith-based organizations (FBOs) take part in the social welfare system for older adults is of interest to policy-makers and researchers in the face of a rapid aging population. Since FBOs are underexplored in Vietnam, this study provides an insightful understanding and analysis of Vietnamese Catholic and Buddhist FBOs’ participation in social service provision to older adults. By conducting secondary data analysis, semi-structured interviews and field observation at some FBOs’ and public social protection centers for older adults, this article presents some insights into the way Catholic and Buddhist organizations provide short and long-term services to older adults, compare Catholic and Buddhist services, and discuss the challenges of sustainability. To advance understanding, authors also analyze the findings on the context of the complicated relationships between FBOs, government and the welfare state in Vietnam. Based on the findings, the authors suggest a coordinated and planned universalization strategy by the public/ private sectors. Further research is needed to leverage support for the implementation of a cooperative partnership approach in providing social service provisions within a Vietnamese context
Developing a framework of practice for social workers in HIV management in India
No full textThe pandemic of HIV is far from over, as is widely believed. Management of the infection is achieved through the provision of Ante-Retroviral Therapy, resulting in the longevity of the infected. This therapy implies an increased number of people living with the infection. However, the socio-psycho-cultural factors and resultant behavior that contribute to the spread of the virus still prevail, causing new segments of infected people. Transdisciplinary practice competencies are vital components of social work practice with HIV-positive persons. Sending an untutored and naïve social worker for care and treatment of HIV infected may damage the infected person psychologically and physically. Evidence-based research establishes the need to develop theory and practice exposure to social work students. The evidence-based practice framework is required for social workers to equip themselves. Here is an effort to develop an evidence-based practice framework on the cascade of psycho-socio-cultural issues affecting life from HIV infection to ART adherence. This framework emerges from lessons from the field research considering the multi-level interventions for the infected
Uncovering social workers’ knowledge use: A study of the tacit-explicit dimension of social workers’ professional judgements
Get PDFThe aim of this study was to explore whether social workers can become more explicit about their knowledge use if they are assisted in analyzing the rationales underlying their conclusions about diagnosis and treatment. By dissecting the rationales provided by 46 Swedish social work practitioners and students in response to two case vignettes describing vulnerable children and their families, and by systematically comparing the rationales generated by two methods of data collection, the study arrived at mixed results. At the general level, the analyses showed that the social workers were indeed more explicit about their knowledge use when assisted in analyzing their rationales. However, there was substantial variation across different types of argument components. While a majority of the respondents spontaneously provided basic level arguments, prompts were often required for them to make explicit the level of uncertainty associated with a conclusion, and to elicit information about specific knowledge sources. Further, most social workers failed to provide a more general explanation for why they inferred a specific conclusion from the data, even when queried. Finally, the results indicated that the knowledge underlying conclusions about treatment was more prevalent and/or explicit in social workers’ reasoning than the knowledge used for arriving at conclusions about diagnosis
Containment and beneficence in psychoanalytically informed social work research
Get PDF This article adds to literature addressing research beneficence from a psychoanalytic perspective, providing reflections focussing on notions of containment and container-contained dynamics as derived from the Kleinian/post-Kleinian tradition of psychoanalysis. It does so by reference to the accounts of participants in a study which explored how professionals working in local authority children’s services in England experience the suffering of parents. In this research, a psychoanalytically informed interview approach was used, and space was provided for participants to reflect on the experience of participation. The variable representation of this experience is considered along with the experience of the researcher carrying out the interviews. Questions are raised about using the language of containment in the context of this research approach and whether this may say more about a researcher’s desire to be helpful to participants and less about participants’ actual experiences (and a genuinely psychoanalytically based understanding of them)
Older Caregivers of HIV/AIDS Children in Namibia: The Association between Loneliness, Depression, and Life Satisfaction
No full textNamibia has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. Older relatives in Namibia are taking the lead role in caring for children living with HIV, or orphaned as their parents had HIV. There has been a growing attention to the well-being and mental health of these older adult caregivers in sub-Saharan Africa; however, there is a lack of information on the intertwined factors such as loneliness and depression to their life satisfaction. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the relationship between loneliness and depression on life satisfaction among older caregivers of children living with HIV or AIDS in rural Namibia. This cross-sectional study recruited 100 Oshiwambo speaking caregivers over age 60 in the Omusati region to complete a study instrument measuring their levels of loneliness, depression and perceived life satisfaction. Using hierarchical regression method, this study found that both loneliness and depression were significantly associated with lower levels of perceived life satisfaction among our sample. Medical care or insurance and awareness of social services were both associated with higher levels of perceived life satisfaction. Social service professionals and policy makers in Namibia should consider designing culturally appropriate interventions aimed at addressing these important mental health related concerns of older rural caregivers
Understanding polyamory as a form of concurrency to enhance HIV programmes in South Africa: The need to re-conceptualize the partner reduction policy
Get PDFA conceptual framework derived from three inter-related theories of social cognitive theory, constructivism and the meaning-making model, was used to investigate the group of relations between polyamorous relationships, safer sex practices and HIV. Using purposive sampling seven participants who were in polyamorist relationships in three provinces in South Africa: Gauteng, Cape Town and Northern Cape were interviewed to collect data. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was employed as the data analysis method. The findings of this study revealed that many of the participants who were involved in polyamorous relationships were concerned about their health and well-being. Therefore, in most of these relationships, the participants required of their secondary partners to disclose their HIV status and also test for STDs. Also, in all of the participants’ polyamorous relationships there were sexual rules and agreements that were set up in order to limit exposure to HIV. Furthermore, high level of communication strategies was employed to improve honesty and trust among all of the partners involved. The coping strategies that were adopted by all of these participants in order to deal with familial and societal rejection of their involvement in concurrency included forming psycho-social support networks. These findings show that there is a need to re-conceptualize the partner reduction policy in order to accommodate the perspectives and needs of people who are involved in concurrent partnerships. Further, social work is called upon to be aware and sensitive to polyamorous relationship in both education and practice