Market, Management and Profession. Social Business in the Polder

In a recent policy document of the organized employers in the care and welfare sector in The Netherlands (the MO Group), directors and board members of care and welfare institutions present themselves as "social entrepreneurs", managing their institutions as look-a like commercial companies. They are hardly criticized and there is not any countervailing power of significance. The workers are focusing on their own specialized professional fields and divided as a whole. Many government officials are in favour or do not bother. The relatively small number of intellectual workers in Dutch care and welfare are fragmented and pragmatic. From a democratic point of view this is a worrying situation. From a professional point of view the purpose and functions of professional care and welfare work are at stake. The penetration of market mechanisms and the take-over by commercially orientated managers result from unquestioned adaptation of Anglo-Saxon policy in The Netherlands in the 1990's, following the crisis of the Welfare State in the late 1980's. The polder country is now confronted fully with the pressure and negative effects of unbalanced powers in the institutions, i.e. Managerialism. After years of silence, the two principal authentic critics of Dutch care and welfare, Harry Kunneman and Andries Baart, are no longer voices crying in the wilderness, but are getting a response from a growing number of worried workers and intellectuals. Kunneman and Baart warn against the restriction of professional space and the loss of normative values and standards in the profession. They are right. It is high time to make room for criticism and to start a debate about the future of the social professions in The Netherlands, better: in Europe. Research, discussion and action have to prove how worrying the everyday situation of professional workers is, what goals have to be set and what strategy to be chosen.

The Development of Social Work as a Speciality and the Profession in Estonia

For Estonia and its people social work is one of the vitally important fields that had to be built up from almost nothing since independence was regained in 1991. During Soviet times social work and social workers did not receive the necessary attention. Severe social problems were denied and kept hidden since according to official communist ideology, life in the Soviet Union was the best in the world and getting better all the time. Social workers did not receive specialised education and their functions were to be carried out by the workers of trade unions and the party, by teachers and by the workers of the personnel departments. In the 1990s big changes, having also an effect on social life, took place in the development of Estonian society. Concepts such as social work and social worker were rediscovered in Estonia. There are certain prerequisites for the success of any activity (including social work). One of the most important ones is being a professional, a worker with thorough preparation. Social work as an occupation requires specialised academic education, which is based on theoretical knowledge and practical skills that have been acquired through theoretical knowledge. Specialised knowledge is a foundation for attaining a specialised qualification. However, at the same time one has to keep in mind that social work as an occupation is constantly changing, there is no absolute knowledge - everything is relative, dynamic and changing (Tamm, 1998). The changing nature of the activity requires reflection by a social worker, who also has to be able to evaluate his/her work and its basis and learn from experiences. Academic specialised education implies also the development of a new professional identity and higher levels of competence. This underlines the necessity of specialised education.

Schechitos ubdikos oder: das Schächt- u. Visitir-Buch, welches derjenige, so bey d. Juden von Schächten u. Nachsehen Profession machen will, ... inne haben muss, ehe er nur einen Vogel schächten darff : nebst e. Anh. von der Thekuffa

alles aus d. Hebr. in d. teutsche Sprache übers. u. hrsg. von Simon Baptista Burgmann

Metodo de las funciones de abito, profession, y velo de las religiosas carmelitas descalzas, conforme al Ceremonial de la misma Orden

Sign.: A-D8, E2

Ceremonial para armar a los cavalleros, i dar el abito, i profession en la Inclita Religion de San Juan de Jerusalen ...

Marca tip. en port

Aprouacion y censura de grauissimos maestros, pauordres, y doctores peritissimos, los quales son del mismo parecer del Doctor Ioseph Palomeres, en razon de que la profession de fray Agustin Domar fue valida, y que se le deue de restituyr el habito ...

Autor tomado de final de texto

Alegorico metro, en que se cifra la plausible resolucion de Doña Mariana Roca de Malferit ... : ya la Madre Mariana del Patrocinio de San Joseph : con la presente profession en el ... Convento de San Joseph, y Santa Teresa de Carmelitas Descalzas de ... Valencia, en ... 1766

Según Palau, I, 6572, fue impreso en 1766

Villancicos que se cantaron a 5 de abril dia del apostol valenciano S.Vicente Ferrer à la profession, y velo negro de la señora Maria Gertudris de Lladó y Carreras, en el ... Convento de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles del Pie de la Cruz ... [Texto impreso]

Sign.: A4

Seeding a Profession: The Intersection of the State, International Interests, and the Early Development of Brazilian Nursing

State and international entities can have profound effects on the development of a country’s nursing profession. Through a global health governance lens, this paper explores the development of nursing in Brazil during the early twentieth century, and its intersections with national and international interests. Accordingly, we will show how state policies established an environment that fostered the institutionalization of nursing as a profession in Brazil and supported it as a means to increase the presence of females in nation building processes. The State focused on recruiting elite women for nursing, in part due to the Rockefeller Foundation’s involvement in the country. Nurses who worked for Rockefeller came from well-educated classes within US society with specific ideas about who should be a nurse and the roles of nurses in a healthcare system. These women served as the primary vehicles for interacting with Brazilian health authorities responsible for health system development. Their early efforts did not, however, ensure a system capable of producing nursing human resources at a rate that, in present day Brazil, could meet the health needs of the country. Findings from this paper offer new avenues for historians to explore the early roots of professional nursing through a global health governance lens, improve the understanding of the intersection between international politics and professionalization, and highlight how these factors may impact nursing human resources production in the long term.