Helping others or a rewarding career? Investigating student motivations to train as social workers in England

• Summary: Understanding why people want to be social workers is important both for developing social work education and for the profession as a whole. This article presents evidence about the motivations of students enrolled on social work degree programmes in England and draws on data from 3000 responses of three successive intakes of students responding to six online surveys and 26 focus group interviews involving 168 students from nine different social work programmes in six case study sites. The article locates these data in the context of earlier studies of social workers’ motivations, the changing policy context and the changes introduced by the new degree.

• Findings: Similar to previous studies, the current analysis shows that altruistic motivations dominated, but students were also influenced by career issues and the day-to-day aspects of social work. The data highlight continuities with the former qualification in social work in the UK (the DipSW) and provide evidence that the introduction of the social work degree has not dramatically changed the underlying motivations of social work students.

• Applications: Understanding student motivations is important in terms of recruitment to social work qualifying programmes and subsequent retention within the profession. Social work educators and employers need to pay attention to the consequences of mismatches between motivations and expectations about what professional practice involves.

Sticking around : why and how some social workers stay in the profession

Although much is known about why social workers leave the profession, much less is known about what enables some social workers to remain working in highly stressful situations for many years and retain a passion for their work. Based on in-depth interviews with six Australian social workers with at least 10 years practice experience, factors associated with retention included self-awareness, a sense of perspective, having a strong professional identity, a sense of humour, the ability to recognise and respond to the emotional impact of the work, clear separation of work and home, and a mental interlude of some intermediate activity between leaving work and arriving home. Whereas previous research has depicted job change as a sign of burnout, for participants in this study changing jobs was regarded as a preventive measure which enabled them to continue in social work.

Entrepreneurial training project in China : retraining laid-off workers

Despite the tremendous economic progress made by the Chinese economy, averaging a nine percent growth per year, one section of the community remains outside the economic boom. As state-owned enterprises (SOEs) restructure into more efficient organisations able to compete in the global economy, the plight of workers within these enterprises has become a pressing issue. No longer able to depend on a job for life, these workers present challenges for local governments. One initiative proposed by the International Labour Organisation called the Start Your Own Business (SYB) Program has been identified as a way to retrain laid-off workers, xiagang. By focussing on one city in China, this paper analyses some of the key issues associated with this program. Using anecdotal evidence from workers who have undergone the retraining, the paper has identified at least three areas of concern for workers participating in the SYB retraining program. Access to seed funding, the implementation of knowledge and skills into practice, and furthering support and guidance in market analysis remain issues for the continued success of this program.

Sustainable farm families : future directions

The health and wellbeing of all Australians is pivotal for economic and social success of the nation. Current data reveals that the health status of people living in rural and remote populations is poorer than their metropolitan counterparts. However there is a lack of understanding of the specific health statistics of rural farming populations.

The Sustainable Farm Families (SFF) Future Directions program aims to fill this gap by providing ongoing evidence-based information and support to Australia’s agricultural industries, to gain insight into the health, wellbeing and safety of Australia’s rural farming populations.

Construction pathway : attracting the missing students and workers to university

The Commonwealth Government has the increased participation of under-represented groups to a 20% diversity target for Australian universities. It also has minimum targets of 40% of all Australians (25-34 years) holding a Bachelor’s degree by 2020. These targets are baseline items in a government agenda of improving educational outcomes for Australians and pivotal in addressing skill shortages in industries such as construction. In construction there is a skewing of skill shortages to the higher order or post entry level skills. Demand for higher skilled occupations such as construction managers, outstrips demand for construction trades (DEEWR, 2010). But whilst 41% of the industry have VET qualifications, only 10% possess HE qualifications in construction. Movement between the VET and HE sectors is low: of all construction students qualifying at AQF 4, less than 10% continue on to higher education and less than 1% of VET qualified persons in the construction workforce seek re-entry to university. This paper examines national data in construction education pathways and evaluates, using the DEMO matrix, the enablers in pathways to HE qualifications. The evaluation is based upon survey responses of two cohorts entering higher education from non-traditional pathways- articulating VET students and mature-aged workers. The results indicate that pathway programmes into construction degrees can attract non-traditional cohorts, but elements such as learner engagement, confidence, people-rich resources and collaboration are critical features of successful pathways.

Wind farm power uncertainty quantification using a mean-variance estimation method

This paper proposes an innovative optimized parametric method for construction of prediction intervals (PIs) for uncertainty quantification. The mean-variance estimation (MVE) method employs two separate neural network (NN) models to estimate the mean and variance of targets. A new training method is developed in this study that adjusts parameters of NN models through minimization of a PI-based cost functions. A simulated annealing method is applied for minimization of the nonlinear non-differentiable cost function. The performance of the proposed method for PI construction is examined using monthly data sets taken from a wind farm in Australia. PIs for the wind farm power generation are constructed with five confidence levels between 50% and 90%. Demonstrated results indicate that valid PIs constructed using the optimized MVE method have a quality much better than the traditional MVE-based PIs.

Variation in the whiteness and brightness of mohair associated with farm, season, and mohair attributes

This work aimed to quantify factors affecting the reflectance attributes of Australian white mohair sourced from five different farms and to evaluate the effect of season and year on mohair grown by goats of known genetic origin in a replicated study. For the season study the mohair was harvested every three months for two years. All goats and their fleeces were weighed. Mid-side samples were tested for fibre diameter attributes, clean washing yield (CWY), staple length (SL) and for tristimulus values X, Y, Z and Y-Z. For the farm study (n = 196), linear models, relating Y, Z and Y-Z were fitted to farm of origin and other objective measurements. For the season and year study (n = 176), data were analysed by ANOVA and then by linear analysis. The variation accounted for by farm alone was: X, 22%; Y, 24%; Z, 12%; Y-Z, 30% (P < 0.001). Once farm had been taken into account, the regression models for X, Y and Z had similar significant terms: mean fibre diameter (MFD), CWY, SL and fibre diameter CV; and correlation coefficients (057–0.65). For Y-Z, in addition to farm only MFD was significant (P = 1.8 × 10−9). While X, Y, Z and Y-Z were significantly associated with clean fleece weight (CFwt), CFwt was not significant in any final model. Season affected mohair Y (P = 2.5 × 10−24), Z (P = 2.3 × 10−20) and Y-Z (P = 6.8 × 10−22). Autumn grown mohair had higher Y and Z, and summer grown mohair had lower Z than mohair grown in other seasons. This resulted in summer grown mohair having the highest Y-Z and winter grown mohair having the lowest Y-Z than mohair grown in other seasons. The differences between years in Y, Z and Y-Z were significant but not large. When Y, Z and Y-Z were modeled with season and other mohair attributes, MFD, CWY, CFwt, incidence of medullated fibre (Med) and sire were also significant terms. This model accounted for 62.1% of the variance. Over the range of Med (0.3–4.2%), Y-Z increased by 11 T units. Increasing CFwt 0.5 kg was associated with a decline in Y-Z of 7.5 T units. The variation in Y, Z and Y-Z associated with sire effects were respectively 2.66, 3.77, and 1.04 T units. In the farm and the season studies increasing MFD was associated with lower Y and Z and higher Y-Z. The extent of the differences in tristimulus values between seasons and years, were unlikely to be of commercial importance. The extent of the differences between farms, and to variations in MFD and Med were large enough to be of commercial importance. Clean mohair colour was artefactually biased by MFD.

Welcome workers from 'bipolar' Pacific

The article focuses on the comments concerning the Australian government's Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme in Papua New Guinea. It has been perceived that it could not help the employment problems in the country and other countries included. Its objective has been questioned by Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson. Many believed that few people to be included in the scheme would only make an insignificant difference to the problems of under-and unemployment with which they are faced.

Voluntary demand for auditing by farm businesses: an Australian perspective

 This study investigates voluntary demand for auditing by Australian farm businesses, a significant but relatively unexplored segment of the economy. Most farms operate as family partnerships or sole proprietors and we thus focus on incentives to audit arising from internal sources (owner-manager), controlling for traditional incentives arising from external contractual constraints (i.e., debt), organisational characteristics (i.e., size), and agency conflict. We hypothesise that an external audit assists management in enhancing internal control by complementing the process of profit planning and control (budgeting) and that increased family conflict provides an incentive to engage external audit. Of the 457 survey questionnaire respondents, 27% voluntarily engage an external auditor and 66% conduct some formal written planning. Results from logistic regression analyses support the predicted impact of both size and debt on audit, and further support the hypothesised impact of budgeting. The positive association between budgeting and audit confirms the complementary relationship. More importantly, this relationship is not confounded by the combined impact of size and budgeting and debt and budgeting on voluntary audit. In addition, family conflict has no impact on voluntary demand for auditing by farm business.

Prediction intervals for short-term wind farm power generation forecasts

Quantification of uncertainties associated with wind power generation forecasts is essential for optimal management of wind farms and their successful integration into power systems. This paper investigates two neural network-based methods for direct and rapid construction of prediction intervals (PIs) for short-term forecasting of power generation in wind farms. The lower upper bound estimation and bootstrap methods are used to quantify uncertainties associated with forecasts. The effectiveness and efficiency of these two general methods for uncertainty quantification is examined using twenty four month data from a wind farm in Australia. PIs with a confidence level of 90% are constructed for four forecasting horizons: five, ten, fifteen, and thirty minutes. Quantitative measures are applied for objective evaluation and unbiased comparison of PI quality. Demonstrated results indicate that reliable PIs can be constructed in a short time without resorting to complicate computational methods or models. Also quantitative comparison reveals that bootstrap PIs are more suitable for short prediction horizon, and lower upper bound estimation PIs are more appropriate for longer forecasting horizons.

Writing skills for social workers

Book review of: Writing Skills for Social Workers, by Karen Healy & Joan Mulholland, 2009

An evaluation of the effect of an educational intervention for Australian social workers on competence in delivering brief cognitive behavioural strategies : a randomised controlled trial

Background Broad community access to high quality evidence-based primary mental health care is an ongoing challenge around the world. In Australia one approach has been to broaden access to care by funding psychologists and other allied health care professionals to deliver brief psychological treatments to general practitioners' patients. To date, there has been a scarcity of studies assessing the efficacy of social worker delivered psychological strategies. This study aims to build the evidence base by evaluating the impact of a brief educational intervention on social workers' competence in delivering cognitive behavioural strategies (strategies derived from cognitive behavioural therapy). Methods A randomised controlled trial design was undertaken with baseline and one-week follow-up measurement of both objective and self-perceived competence. Simulated consultations with standardised depressed patients were recorded on videotape and objective competence was assessed by blinded reviewers using the Cognitive Therapy Scale. Questionnaires completed by participants were used to measure self-perceived competence. The training intervention was a 15 hour face-to-face course involving presentations, video example consultations, written materials and rehearsal of skills in pairs. Results 40 Melbourne-based (Australia) social workers enrolled and were randomised and 9 of these withdrew from the study before the pre training simulated consultation. 30 of the remaining 31 social workers (97%) completed all phases of the intervention and evaluation protocol (16 from intervention and 14 from control group). The intervention group showed significantly greater improvements than the control group in objective competence (mean improvement of 14.2 (7.38-21.02) on the 66 point Cognitive Therapy Scale) and in subjective confidence (mean improvement of 1.28 (0.84-1.72) on a 5 point Likert scale). On average, the intervention group improved from below to above the base competency threshold on the Cognitive Therapy Scale whilst the control group remained below. Conclusions Social workers can attain significant improvements in competency in delivering cognitive behavioural strategies from undertaking brief face to face training. This is relevant in the context of health reforms that involve social worker delivery of evidence based psychological care. Further research is required to assess how these improvements in competence translate into performance in practice and clinical outcomes for patients.