Belonging, connectedness and social exclusion

Promoting connectedness and/or a sense of belonging are strategies used in addressing social exclusion. While belonging and connectedness are often used interchangeably, this paper demonstrates that while they may be co-existent, it is equally possible to have one without the other. Hence, this paper contends that these two concepts need to be carefully distinguished by those planning and delivering social work services. Furthermore, consideration of both connectedness and belonging enables a more nuanced understanding of social exclusion which challenges the assumption that inclusion and exclusion are binary opposites, and that it is possible to be both included and excluded at the same time.

The rise of the 'silver surfer' : online social networking and social inclusion for older adults

As the proportion of older adults continues to grow in many Western countries, there are increasing concerns about how to meet their needs. Ensuring social connectedness and inclusion is one way to support older adults’ wellbeing. Online social networking has become common place amongst younger age groups, suggesting its possible usefulness for older adults, in order to combat isolation and loneliness. Some quantitative studies have already explored the amount and degree of online social networking amongst older adults. To add further understanding of how older adults experience social inclusion via the internet, the current qualitative study aimed to explore older adults’ subjective experience of online social networking. Findings demonstrated a number of supports and barriers to social inclusion which reflect barriers to social inclusion of older adults in the non-virtual world. Recommendations to support social inclusion of isolated older adults via online social networking are suggested.

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.

Writing skills for social workers

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

"The university didn't actually tell us this is what you have to do": Social inclusion through embedding of academic skills in first year professional courses

This paper presents findings from a mixed methods project investigating first year social work students' perceived role in academic skills and thier development.  Students expressed the perception that academic skill requirements and how they would be assessed should be made explicit, and idenfied a stigma associated with accessing study support services.  The aper concluses that an intentional design strategy, such as embedding academic skills into the curriculum, helps bridge the different expectations between academics and students and hence constitutes a socially inclusive strategy to teaching professional courses sucha s social work, within higher education.  Recommendations to enhance the succes and sustainability of such an initiative in the current higher educacion environment are offered.

Do schools promote social inclusion? The experiences of intercountry adoptees in Australia

Intercountry adoption programs have brought children from racially and culturally diverse backgrounds to live as Australians, including 30 children from Rangsit Children’s Home who arrived in South Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As part of a project which explored the life experiences of 12 adults who had arrived as children aged between 4 and 9 from Rangsit, this paper explores the role of schools in facilitating their inclusion into life in Australia. The school experience was often critical in learning English and was pre-requisite for acceptance in the school yard but also a place in which most of these Thai-born intercountry adoptees experienced racism. More than half of the participants did not complete secondary school but all had employment. However, many of these jobs were low-paying and this precluded them from participating in opportunities to return to Thailand to learn more about their Thai origins or participating as adoptive parents in intercountry adoption programs. Hence, while schools can play an important role in facilitating social inclusion, the school system alone may be unable to address the multiple dimensions of exclusion experienced by intercountry adoptees.

Programs to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities

Attending to the social and emotional wellbeing of those from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural backgrounds is widely recognised to play a key role in effective social work practice. However, relatively little is currently known about what effective practice comprises, and significant challenges exist in any effort to demonstrate that programs do achieve significant change both for individual participants and the communities in which they live. This paper considers one program, Seasons for Healing, to illustrate the type of intervention that holds promise when working with adults and discusses the difficulties that arise in both defining and assessing program outcomes.

Practising social inclusion

Practising Social Inclusion presents what we know about what works, and why, in promoting social inclusion and practising in a socially inclusive way. Contributing to the growing debates on social inclusion, this book moves beyond discussion of who it is that is socially excluded and the processes of exclusion. It draws on research and reflective practice to answer the vital question of how to actually work towards inclusion and includes five sections looking at different arenas for practice: policy; programme design; service delivery; community life; and research. Relevant to all those working to promote, or researching, human health and wellbeing, this book is especially suitable for practitioners, students and scholars in health promotion, social work, social policy, public health, disability studies, occupational therapy and nursing.

Empresa e Comunidade: Responsabilidade Social, Sobrevivência, Produtividade e Imagem Institucional

Inicialmente, faz-se um convite para um passeio na história, observando-se as relações sócio-econômicas na sociedade ocidental, a partir do Império Romano até os primórdios do capitalismo, com a finalidade de identificar sob a responsabilidade de quem estava o bem-estar das comunidades, o permite registrar que essa responsabilidade foi conduzida pelas mãos da igreja, reis, confrarias e pelo Estado, e esteve sempre associada às entidades que detinham o poder. Uma vez feito isso, passa-se ao contexto atual, para entender a maneira com que o poder econômico , mais especificamente as companhias produtoras de bens e serviços, participa da responsabilidade social pelo desenvolvimento das comunidades nas quais estão situadas as unidades de produção e as conseqüências dessa participação para a imagem e sobrevivência das empresas. Finalmente, através da pesquisa de campo realizada na Refinaria de Duque de Caxias do Sistema Petrobras ¿ REDUC, examina-se na prática, a relação estabelecida entre a empresa e a comunidade local, ressaltando as motivações que levam a companhia a empreender-se socialmente, através de estratégias e planos de ação compatíveis com os interesses do seu próprio negócio.

Responsabilidade social empresarial: o caso de uma indústria alimentícia no estado do Pará

The theme of corporate social responsibility (CSR) provides discussion and analysis and relatively recent, particularly in the last twenty years, has grown into the world as well as in Brazil, the interest on the involvement of the business sector in social activities or projects facing combating poverty. However, a lack of socialization of successful experiences in the practice of CSR and clarity and consensus concepts generate deviations of understanding on the subject and the structuring of interventions. This research aimed to reveal how corporate social responsibility of the IMA Food was developed from Project Nursery Saci. The research took place under a qualitative approach of descriptive-explanatory, conducted through semi-structured interviews and non-participatory observation and interviewed 35 people in total. The interpretation and analysis of data occurred through a categorical content analysis, having as theoretical approach to socioeconomic CSR. The results showed that the major form of social responsibility of the Food IMA is based on a classical approach of CSR, focusing on philanthropy. The absence of a more systematic management of the project and reflect the fragility, instability and lack of commitment towards the community. The contributions generated by the project are substantial and important, but do not reach the development occasioned by the company. However, none of this invalidates the initiative of the organization's commitment to the community, however, requires a reassessment and restructuring of the proposal in a way that leverages the performance of the project and the company itself and it can more effectively contribute to society

Serviço Social e terceiro setor: considerações sobre as atuais relações e condições de trabalho para o Assistente Social em Natal

The present study analyses the actual relations and work conditions found in the third sector in Natal city, in the context of productive restoration and increasingly retraction from the State in providing Social Service before the new approach that has been destined to the social issue. The study talks about the work of the social worker when fighting the different expressions the social issue has, such as social service provision as a way of teamwork associated to work relations and conditions, to accessible resources and quality control management. These are elements that affect and interfere in the accomplishment and in the work of the social worker itself. The State s improvement, according to neoliberal-political precepts and increasingly retraction from the public investment in the areas of social concern (health, social welfare, assistance) and in the wage and employment policy, besides expanding the partnership with the public and private areas, in search for social services with quality, it has diversified the structures of the professional work with the growth of the so called third sector institutions. However, the absorption of the social workers by the third sector groups in general, has as major features the impoverishment of work relations, the maintenance of an unequal salary model, pointing out the deadline contracts and/or single tasks that generate work instability. The research debates, with a critical view and full perspective, over the conception of the third sector, interpreted as an action that expresses functions and values, treated as a real phenomenon generated from the restoration of the capital based on neoliberal principles. This study aims for responding what the established work relations are and under what work conditions the social worker has been fitting in the third sector and how such a reality echoes in the current work conditions for a social work in the city of Natal, before this new model of state intervention that transfers part of the social service provision to distinctive divisions of society, among them the so called third sector. The research results have shown that like the other workers the social worker passes through the same crises, dilemmas, advances and challenges that occur in the world of employment and which are expressed in the drop of salary average in the growth of contemporary contracts, unemployment, and in the ever more selective requirements to one be included in the social spaces, where the professional work is done, having as a result a greater impoverishment of work relations and conditions as well as more vulnerability as a salaried occupation

O cotidiano do(a) Assistente Social frente as demandas apresentadas pela paciente portadora do câncer de mama em tratamento no Hospital Doutor Luiz Antônio em Natal/RN

This work deals with an analysis related to the social worker s practice in the oncology area. It aims to identify demands, work conditions as well as current challenges related to this profession. It considers the specificities of breast cancer and relates it to political decisions in the health sector considering the concept of contemporary capitalism. The study analyzes professional action and the demands presented by breast cancer patients who are currently in treatment in Hospital Dr. Luiz Antônio em Natal-Rio Grande do Norte-Brazil. The methodological procedures considered of documental analysis, semi-structured interviews (with two social workers that work with fifteen breast cancer patients) as well as participant observation; which was done counting with my own professional practice in the oncology area. Thus, the research also discusses the breast cancer issue in the life of the users considering their social-economical, cultural and political determinants. Factors such as age in which the diagnosis was known, the relation user/social workers, number of children, rights of the oncology patient, place where he/she lives, education, civil status, (re)insertion of the professional in the work field, perception of self-esteem and bio-psycho-social representation of breast cancer in the lives of these women, all of which were dealt with in this research

Instrumentalidade do serviço social: dimensões teórico-metodológica, ético-política e técnico-operativa e exercício profissional

The dissertation proposes a discussion about the instrumentality of the Social Work, in the attempt of visualizing her, as well as the profession, in a totality perspective to the light of the rationality critical-dialetical. Understood as the capacity that the professional subjects acquire of giving answers to the demands that are placed to the profession, itself built partner-historically, in a teleologys conflicts and causalitys. So, it is proposed the discussion of the instrumentality while a group of you know specific, composed essentially by the development of three practical-formative dimensions. The theoretical-methodological refers to the capacity of apprehension of the method and of the theories and, consequently, of the relationship that does with the practice. The dimension ethical-politics concerns the development of the capacity of analyzing the society and the own profession as field of contradictory forces, being considered the character eminently political of the professional exercise, as well as the professional's conscience concerning the social direction that prints in your intervention. And the technician-operative dimension refers more strictly to the technical elements and you score for the development of the intervention. It was looked for to evidence as those dimensions they attend in the professional exercise, starting from the experience lived by the social workers of the Social Attendance Reference Centers, in Natal/RN

Movimento estudantil e serviço social no capitalismo contemporâneo: tendências e particularidades

This dissertation aims to analyze the social direction in which the Student Movement in Social Work in Brazil (ENESSO) has gone through. This is done considering how the functioning of the National Executive, the Brazilian Social Work Student union has operated. The research analyzed their political position regarding the university as well as professional education in the period of 2003 to 2008. The study s theoretical and methodological object was obtained according to its structural, juncture, and time determinants. All of the mentioned elements considered the contemporary capital crisis and its implications towards the State and Society emphasizing specifically the changes that occurred in the University regarding professional education. For the purpose of data collection and production, a documental and field research was realized. Thus, interviews were done considering one manager of each management period of the ENESSO group in the time span of 2003 to 2008. Some subjects that represented the Brazilian Social Work Teaching and Research Association (ABEPSS) as well as were also interviewed. These subjects have had a relevant role in partnership with these entities and represented students in the contemporary scene. Results suggest that ENESSO has developed work that defends a project of a public, free and laic quality university. This entity also defends a project that considers the 1996 Curricular Guidelines. Currently, there is internal dispute in the social direction of the MESS, this is seen amongst political groups that diverge in opinions related to the analysis done by the Lula government regarding the political role that the National Student Union-UNE has taken in the counter-reform of higher education. This current juncture is seen as extremely individualist and it results as in unfavorable for the collective organization of the working class, especially regarding student movement. MESS has been going through a moment of profound instability and this dimension is being expressed by the absence of national coordinator for the 2008/2009 management period at ENESSO. Even though there are difficulties, it is possible to point out partnership of the entities that represent the national Social Work in Brazil. These partnerships are all related to a struggle and search for the development of a professional project that leads towards the sociability awareness that goes beyond capital.