Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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Understanding and improving discretionary judgment and decision-making in child protection practice: Towards a whole-of-system policy evaluation
No full textDiscretionary judgment is a necessary and desirable attribute of child protection practice and decision-making. Increasingly, approaches towards accountability in child protection services act to constrain the use of practitioner discretionary judgement through ever increasing layers of standardisation and technical-rational approaches to practice. This situation is at odds with the need for professionals to adaptively respond to practice environments that are characterised by uncertainty and complexity. At the same time, there are known weakness and problems that are reported in the decision-making literature, begging questions about how to best support and evaluate for effective and accountable discretion and decision-making across a whole system. In this paper discretion is conceptualised as a structural and epistemic phenomena that is constrained and restricted under the weight of standardisation. A five-part conceptual framework for a systems approach to policy evaluation is presented, and it is argued that this framework would support the capacity for effective discretionary judgement and decision-making to emerge as a property of the system overall. This paper is a theoretical and conceptual argument for a systemic policy evaluation framework that is supportive of discretionary judgment and decision-making in child protection systems shifting the emphasis away from technical-rational compliance
Controversies in preparing for end-of-life in Nsukka town of Nigeria and suggestions for Nigerian based social work practice
Get PDFDeath is regarded as a natural phenomenon of life, but its consequences for the bereaved are often times very bitter. One way to circumvent this bitter experience is through making plans before dying. However, not everyone seems to appreciate this, which has generated lots of controversies. Thus, end-of-life planning attitude among adult residents in one of Nigeria’s Igbo area was examined using cross-sectional survey. Data was collected from 587 adults and also analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative tools. Age, level of education, marital status and sex were shown to have statistically significant relationships with attitude toward end-of-life planning, while cultural beliefs were discovered to also exercise overbearing influence. The study further discovered some cultural practices that deter people from planning for end-of-life and therefore advocates for social protection and reorientation which should principally involve social workers. Suggestions were made for introduction of end-of-life planning education in the curriculum of institutions of secondary and tertiary learning in Nigeria, as a measure to help reform attitudes of persons toward preparing for end-of-life in future.
Action Learning and professional formation of youth and community work students
No full textThis paper follows 3 cohorts of students 2012 -2015 and maps their perceptions of professional development using Action Learning sets as a pedagogical tool . It looks at learning immediately after the Sets have taken place and builds on this up to 3 years after graduating. The research found that Action Learning Sets as a pedagogical tool make a valuable contribution to professional formation of youth and community workers by enabling participants to:Consolidate learning from the courseBecome more confident and assertive about their professionalizationReflect together on practice as a learning community and learn about themselves within the group process Understand how and when to use appropriate questions to enable reflection by othersUnderstand different ways people perceive issues, their different thought processesCritically understand the importance and benefits of opening up people's thinking/gaining new perspectivesBe open and willing to listen, best for developing relationships Learn to listen in order to understand others and in so doing developing self-knowledge and problem solving skills.Practise some educator / facilitator skills Action Learning Sets outcomes appears especially important where they helped students develop confidence in their professional identity and in their ability to challenge to achieve recognition and change. However some participants discussed how an organisational culture that is not based on critically reflecting or even discussing professional approaches has impacted negatively on them as developing youth work professionals, echoing Stark’s (2006) similar findings from research on the impact of Sets used with nurses and educators. Many students commented that there was no supervision in the workplace and no mechanism for group reflective learning so individuals were left to self-reflect without the benefit of alternative perspectives which they had come to value as a result of taking part within the Sets. This implied a desire on the graduates’ part for continuing professional development . Further research into critically reflective practice using action learning sets in the workplace could be explored within organisations and any demand developed within HE programmes .
The Role of Interprofessional Learning in Developing Transformative Health & Social Work Professionals
Get PDFInterprofessional learning (IPL) is an integral part of all health and social care undergraduate education programmes at our university. It is widely considered that IPL encourages health and social care students to learn from and about one another and that this process underpins a better understanding not only of their own professional roles but also those of others. This in turn promotes more effective teamwork, enhances integrated service user pathways and therefore provides improved care for service users. IPL is transformative as it enables students to consider their role in the interprofessional team rather than focussing on themselves (Schmitt et al., 2011). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the experience of delivering IPL at our university by using examples from our modules in order to highlight and debate the importance of IPL in preparing health and social care students for their professional roles. The article will describe two IPL modules where students work in interprofessional groups exploring and discussing practice-based case studies. All of the staff and students involved completed a feedback questionnaire which evaluated their experiences of undertaking the case study exercise. The impact of these experiences will be discussed in terms of professional development for the students involved and the impact that these learning experiences have on their future roles. We will argue that these IPL experiences allow students to develop their own professional roles and identity, understand the roles of others and are enabled to provide more holistic care for service users. We believe that working together in interprofessional groups to look at practice-based service user case studies is transformative in that it enables the students to learn from and about other professionals, it equips them with knowledge about one another’s roles and enables them to work together more effectively with other members of the interprofessional team (CAIPE, 2008). This in turn enables the students to work together for the good of their service users and thereby becoming more compassionate and person-centred professionals
