Serviço social e projeto ético-político profissional: contributos da extensão universitária

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

La política de salud en Cuba en el nuevo milenio: la contribución del Trabajo Social

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

A apropriação das obras de Ricardo Antunes pelo Serviço Social: a categoria trabalho em debate

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Relação entre o ideal e o real: a efetivação do Projeto Ético Político do Serviço Social

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Migração, trabalho e representação: um estudo de caso sobre a Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Flórida

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Invisibilidade social e saúde do trabalhador: dinâmica territorial do trabalho na coleta de lixo domiciliar urbano em Presidente Prudente/SP

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

O estudo da disciplina de direito e legislação social nos cursos de Serviço Social: "o sapatinho de cristal"

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

Formação profissional em Serviço Social: estágio supervisionado e a realidade do trabalhador estudante

Pós-graduação em Serviço Social - FCHS

"What is the Value of Youth Work?" Symposium Booklet

As a group of experienced and novice youth workers, we believe that youth work is fundamentally about building trust-filled, mutually respectful relationships with young people. We create safe environments for young people to connect with other supportive adults and peers and to avoid violence in their neighborhoods and their homes. We guide those harmed by oppressive community conditions such as racism, sexism, agism, homophobia, and classism through a process of healing. As we get to know more about young people’s interests, we help them develop knowledge and skills in a variety of areas including: academic, athletic, leadership/civic, the arts, health and wellbeing, and career exploration. In short, we create transformative experiences for young people. In spite of the critical roles we play, we have largely been overlooked in youth development research, policy, and as a professional workforce. We face challenges ‘moving up’ in our careers. We get frustrated by how little money we earn. We are discouraged that despite our knowledge and experience we are not invited to the tables where youth funding, programming, and policy decisions are made. It is true—many of us do not have formal training or degrees in youth work—a reality which at times we regret. Yet, as our colleague communicates in the accompanying passage (see below), we resent that formal education is required for us to get ahead, particularly because we question whether we need it to do our jobs more effectively. Through the “What is the Value of Youth Work?” symposium, we hope to address these concerns through a dialogue about youth work with the following objectives: • Increase awareness of the knowledge, skills, contributions, and professionalism of youth workers; • Advance a youth worker professional development model that integrates a dilemma-focused approach with principles of social justice youth development; • Launch an ongoing Worcester area Youth Worker network. This booklet provides a brief overview of the challenges in ‘professionalizing’ youth work and an alternative approach that we are advancing that puts the knowledge and expertise of youth workers at the center of professional development.

New Security threats for humanitarian aid workers

Two recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq highlight the current security threats for humanitarian aid workers: Firstly, in July 2004 the humanitarian aid organisation Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) stopped its operations in Afghanistan. This decision followed the targeted killing of five MSF aid workers in Northwestern Afghanistan in June 2004, a brutal act unprecedented in the organisation’s history. Afghanistan has become a dangerous place for aid workers: Since March 2003 more than 30 humanitarian aid workers have been killed. Secondly, in September 2004 the so-called “two Simonas”, staff members of the Italian non-governemental organization (NGO) “Un ponte per” (A Bridge for Bagdad) were abducted in Iraq and, fortunately, released in October 2004. Around 130 foreigners have been seized in Iraq in a wave of abductions that began in April. Most have been released, but around 30 have been killed. Due to the tense security situation in Iraq all the expatriate staff members of Western NGOs have been evacuated in the last months.

Street Children and Mobile Youth Work in Africa - the 8th ISMO Symposium October 2003

The International Society for Mobile Youth Work (ISMO) and the National Council of Churches in Kenya (NCCK) organised from the 27th to 30th October 2003 at the Jumuia Conference and Country Home in Limuru/Kenya with 198 participants from 35 countries around the world the 8th International Symposium on Mobile Youth Work with special focus on children at risk (street children and youth) in Africa. For this purpose there were invited field workers, scientists and stakeholders engaged as advocates for the rights and well being of endangered children and youths. The participants came mainly from African countries and of course especially from Kenya, but also from Asia, Latin America and from Europe.

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.

Resisting Postmodernity: Swedish social policy in the 1990s

The purpose of this paper is to introduce ideas that have emerged during the course of writing a book on Swedish welfare in the 1990s. The book is the result of many years of writing about two subjects: Swedish drug policy and the Swedish welfare state. The one very specialised, the other, more general. I first became interested in Swedish drug policy on a research visit to Örebro Län in 1986. A social worker showed me a copy of the county's drug policy programme and explained the significance of the 'restrictive line'. I have spent the years since that visit, trying to understand and explain the Swedish goal of a drug-free society (Gould 1988, 1994, 1996b). I only began to write about the welfare state in Sweden in the early 1990s, just as things were beginning to go wrong for the economy (Gould 1993a, 1993b, 1996a, 1999). For the last few years I have intended to write a book on the events covered by the period 1991-1998 - the years of a Bourgeois and a Social Democratic Government -which would bring the two halves of my work together. Material for this study has been accumulated over many years. A number of research visits have been made; large numbers of academics, politicians, civil servants, journalists, unemployed people, social workers and their clients have been interviewed; and extensive use has been made of academic, administrative and public libraries. Since September 1991 I have systematically collected articles from Dagens Nyheter about social services, social insurance, health care, employment, social issues and problems, the economy and politics. The journal Riksdag och Departement (Parliament and Ministry), which summarises a wide range of public documents, has been invaluable. Friends and informal contacts have also given me insights into the Swedish way of life. The new book is based upon all of these experiences. This paper will begin with a brief account of major global social and economic changes that have occurred in the last twenty years. This is intended to provide a background to the more recent changes that have occurred in Swedish society in the last decade. It will be suggested that the changes in Sweden, particularly in the field of welfare, have been less severe than elsewhere and that this is due to political, institutional and cultural resistance. The paper will conclude by arguing that Sweden, as an exemplar of an Apollonian modern society, has had much to fear from the Dionysian characteristics of postmodernity.

Workfare Work: The Impact of Workfare on the Worker/Client Relationship

This article details the American experience of welfare reform, and specifically its experience instituting workfare programs for participants. In the United States, the term "welfare" is most commonly used to refer to the program for single mothers and their families, formerly called Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and now, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). In 1996, politicians "ended welfare as we know it" by fundamentally changing this program with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The principal focus of the 1996 reform is mandatory work requirements enforced by sanctions and strict time limits on welfare receipt. While PRWORA's emphasis on work is not new, the difference is its significant ideological and policy commitment to employment, enforced by time limits. When welfare reform was enacted, some of its proponents recognized that welfare offices would have to change in order to develop individualized workfare plans, monitor progress, and impose sanctions. The "culture" of welfare offices had to be changed from being solely concerned with eligibility and compliance to individual, intensive casework. In this article, I will discuss how implementing workfare programs have influenced the relationship between clients and their workers at the welfare office. I start by describing the burdens faced by offices even before the enactment of welfare reform. Local welfare offices were expected to run programs that emphasized compliance and eligibility at the same time as workfare programs, which require intensive, personal case management. The next section of the paper will focus on strategies welfare offices and workers use to navigate these contradictory expectations. Lastly, I will present information on how clients react to workfare programs and some reasons they acquiesce to workfare contracts despite their unmet needs. I conclude with recommendations of how to make workfare truly work for welfare clients.

Walter Friedländer (1891-1984) – Between Social Democracy and Social Darwinism

If the profession of social work is to have a future we must know where it came from, and the series of portraits of our pioneers is one of the paths into the origins of that profession. I feel grateful to the publishers for this online-journal and also honoured to be asked to continue the series on pioneers in social work. I gladly comply because, in connection with my research on Alice Salomon and other social workers who were expelled from Germany and other Nazi-occupied territories (Wieler1989 and 1995) I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and interviewing Walter Friedländer shortly before he passed away. It is years ago that I visited him in his home among stacks of books and piles of papers. My memories are vivid. I still see his sparkling eyes and hear his soft voice with a very heavy German accent. I was most impressed by his memory of historical events and people which, it seemed, only a large hard-drive could retain these days. Now, I wish I had asked more questions but instead, we will have to rely largely on primary and secondary literature and box upon box of archival materials. I draw heavily on the comprehensive German and Jewish Intellectual Emigré Collection (http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/ger003.htm) which consists of nearly 50 cubic feet and another collection of the German Central Institute („Deutsches Zentralinstitut für Soziale Fragen-DZI“) in Berlin (www.dzi.de). Some of the more current archival materials were lost in a flood, and much of Friedländer’s early memorabilia up to 1933 was lost in Germany. There are also internet resources with widely differing information. I hope that I will not have overlooked too much in order to do justice to this remarkable pioneer and colleague. In order to appreciate and pay tribute to Walter Friedländer and his contributions we will have to reconsider the historical and international context of more than the 93 years of his life span: the German Monarchy, the Weimar Republic, Nazi-Fascism, Swiss, French and American exile and numerous visits to other countries.