Whiting & Birch (E-Journals)
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Meeting unmet need?
Get PDFAbstract: Support for children experiencing bereavement varies considerably across the UK depending on organisational values and resources, the specific population and the individual expertise and experience of professionals. This paper describes a groupwork approach to meeting the needs of this population. It was developed by a hospice in central Scotland in response to a lack of formal support identified by both professionals and families within the community. It uses the Seasons for Growth loss and change education programme as a method of groupwork intervention. The paper discusses the initial evaluation of the groupwork service from when it was established in September 2007 to January 2010. It outlines the background to setting up the service, the sources and reasons for referral and the evaluation process and findings. Implications for group intervention with children who are bereaved are discussed in the conclusion
Group counseling for students transitioning out of postsecondary education
Get PDFThis paper proposes a narrative-based group counseling model for postsecondary students preparing to graduate and transition out of university life. The challenges associated with this transition are both psychological and career-related in nature. The author utilizes multiple transition frameworks to provide a conceptualization of the graduation transition, and offers an overview of narrative therapy, its use in transition counseling, and its use in groupwork. The proposed intervention calls for two facilitators and between six and eight members. An intervention overview is provided that includes recruitment and prescreening instructions as well as content for eight sessions
Health Literacy
Get PDFRecent research literature indicates that African Americans (AA) generally execute advance directives to a much lower degree than do non-Hispanic Euro-American adults. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the degree to which social and demographic variables are associated with knowledge of advance directives among AA aging prisoners. A combined sample (N=100) of AA Aging Prisoners generated from three randomly selected sub-samples were collected from three of five state correctional facilities in a Mid-Atlantic Region in the United States. Each prisoner completed the Jordan Advance Directive Measurement Scale©. Three categorical groups emerged from the combined sample. Those groups were based on the Health Status question regarding knowledge of advance directives Null hypotheses were tested and data were analyzed using Pearson’s Chi-Square Test of Independence. There was no significant degree of independence between any of the three pairs of sub-groups. The researchers informally discovered the prisoners’ lack of basic knowledge of advance directives
The Assault Awareness Course and New Drivers’ Initiative; Groupwork programmes for young people convicted of violent and vehicle offences
No full textAt the point that someone commits a crime and causes deliberate harm to others, that person must by definition have behaved irresponsibly and shown little or no empathy for their victims. Following the offence they may continue to avoid taking responsibility, hiding behind excuses to minimise their culpability and shift the blame on others – in order to avoid unpleasant consequences for themselves. Many will not consider the suffering to which their behaviour has led. Offending behaviour and restorative justice interventions will succeed only to the extent that a perpetrator is willing to accept responsibility for their part in their crime and shows some empathy for those they harmed. Oxfordshire Youth Offending Service has developed two innovative groupwork programmes, one for young people who have committed violent offences and the other for car crime. These programmes are designed to challenge participants to be accountable and provide conditions for an empathic response towards their victims
‘I once knew a team where all the workers called the manager ‘mother’ Some reflections on supervision within an integrated leadership and management programme
Get PDFIn 2010, an integrated Leadership, Management and Safeguarding training programme for adult and children’s services managers was created by a group of local authorities and a local university. Following Lord Laming (Department of Health, 2003 and Laming, 2009), the emerging reports of Munro (2010) and the Social Work Task Force (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2009) called for increased emphasis on supervision as a key mechanism for safeguarding children, and by implication, adults. Therefore on this course two different means for candidates to address issues of supervision and explore their practice were included: a discussion board, and a critical friend exercise using video. A feature of the programme was the learning and understanding which developed from adults and children’s sectors learning together. The work on supervision provided a shared space in which all could participate. Feedback indicates that the two methods were both valued in different ways for the opportunity they provided for exploring supervision and enhancing reflective practice. This article is a reflection by one of the course tutors on the methods used and the value of both adult and children’s services managers participating together
In the Loop
Get PDFThe question of how to protect children from non-accidental harm has dominated child welfare discourse in England since the death of Maria Colwell in 1973. For over 40 years, the history of child care policy and in particular, child protection policy has been the history of the policymakers’ responses to particular tragedies and scandals. The Munro Review of Child Protection (2011) is the most recent attempt to introduce major changes into the child protection system. This paper focuses on two particular aspects of the Review. Firstly, it examines how it constructs the meaning of ‘child protection’, as this is not clearly defined by the review. Secondly, the use of systems theory as the analytical framework is examined and some limitations of its focus on the organisational level of context are discussed. It is suggested that these two issues are interrelated and act to limit the possibilities of fundamental change in the child protection system. Drawing on the work of communication theorist, Gregory Bateson, and conceptual and practical developments within the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) approach, it is argued that social workers are required to operate simultaneously within multiple, and often incompatible, contexts. For radical change to take place in the child protection system, the utopian bias that the system should prevent all non-accidental deaths needs to be abandoned
Fluency in social work essays
Get PDFAs Paltridge (2004, p.90) has claimed, ‘there is no such thing as the one-size-fits-all academic essay that can be written in all areas of study’. Yet research on academic writing by scholars such as Ivanič and Lillis and ideas from social theory offer useful insights, which can be applied to the specific demands of essay-writing on pre-qualifying social work degrees. By failing to clarify how students may succeed, social work educators may misdirect their efforts to improve students’ written communication skills or make students feel falsely that they personally are not smart or hard working enough to meet the requirements of higher education. We close the article by proposing 22 unspoken requirements for success in social work essay-writing, and drawing out the implications of our analysis for social work educators
Healing illusions
Get PDFThis article focuses on the creative use of a magic trick to help children make sense of the effects of traumatic life events and the process of recovery