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Along with the logistic planning, the important focus of international student mobility programmes in social work is on the field supervision process and measuring its outcome. Without a social work council in India for setting uniform standards in field education, this paper proposes a framework for field supervision to support inbound mobility students in India. The study predominantly explores the qualitative experiences of field supervisors from India, Israel, and Australia on fieldwork supervision. The themes evolved from the study are focused on the supervision process, strategies followed, challenges faced, and outcome measurement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from an investigation of nature-based practices, from the perspectives of 10 academics/educators from six nations. Participants engaged in a focus group exploring the prevalence and inclusion of nature in social work practice and education. While the study focused on individual members' experiences and perspectives, the findings highlight important context-specific factors for including nature within social work to reconnect humans with nature for health, well-being, healing, and justice. An Integrative Environmental Model for social work is proposed to assist future practice and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian Association of Social Workers has campaigned for many years for the registration of social workers in Australia, but with little success to date. This paper critically examines the key arguments for and against registration with reference to academic and government policy literature from international jurisdictions (primarily New Zealand and England) where government regulation of social work already exists. This review of existing literature found that arguments in favour of registration broadly centre on two main assumptions. They are improved protection of clients and amplification of professional standing. The findings indicate that there is only limited empirical evidence as to whether registration does in fact lift the professional standing of social workers or protect consumers from substandard practice. We conclude that further research is required to examine whether registration of social workers is justified in Australia, and particularly to ascertain whether the regulation of social workers generally or in specific practice areas such as child protection can realistically take place independently of the large number of human service practitioners who are not social work trained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the steady growth in their numbers, very little is known of single-parent families in Australia. Even estimations of the number of one-parent families are often crude and inaccurate. This paper outlines a simple procedure for deriving, from census data, a more realistic estimate of the number of one-parent families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the Formation of the Global Agenda Observatory; also mentions the call for papers for special edition on the global agenda.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people are a particularly vulnerable group. This paper examines the existing literature on this group of children and young people in and leaving out-of-home care in the UK and Australia, and compares and contrasts their experiences. Attention is drawn to legislation, policies and programmes which alternatively assist or hinder their successful transition to adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on sexual inequality among social workers. It is not the aim of the paper to highlight in detail the whole range of cultural variables at play within various communities; specific cultural norms are discussed as they relate to the helping process. Obviously, the need for a broad knowledge of the cultural context is implicit to working within an Asian community. Culture is immovably located within the context of language, and while it is not absolutely Australia all Asians are considered Chinese and that no other definition has been practiced. The dramatic influx of Indochinese refugees has engendered a wide variety of reactions. Certain racist, anti-Asian organizations have conducted intensive campaigns designed to arouse a certain latent paranoia, which many Australians seem to feel about the prospect of an Asian takeover. Their reactions may be dismissed as belonging to hysterical fringe minority, but they must, however, be taken into consideration as part of the macro-systemic environment which affects Asian ethnic groups.

This study explores issues on post-adoption services in intercountry adoptions based on the perspectives of adoption professionals from Taiwan and Australia. Findings revealed that both birth and adoptive families identify service needs for material and emotional support and connection after the adoption process is finalized. However, the current lack of government funding for post-adoption services result in gaps in service delivery. Adoption agencies experience challenges in funding and balancing the interests of the child and the two families. Implications for practice and policy are discussed to enhance the quality of post-adoption services and improve the well-being of the adoption triad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses findings from a phenomenological Australian study exploring how the professional identities of newly qualified social workers are fostered and/or eroded during the first 12 months post-qualification. A total of 17 participants each completed three semi-structured interviews. The participants revealed individual and systemic factors that impacted how and whether professional identity was fostered and/or eroded. It is proposed from the findings that a combination of multilevel approaches for sustaining professional identity could improve the experiences and retention of newly qualified social workers. The implications for action by educators, employers and the social work profession in Australia and other countries are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the plans and policies of Social Welfare Commission. This Commission, which came into being early in 1973, presented its first Annual Report in July of that year, in which it outlined its background, philosophy and administrative procedures and briefly discussed some of its major projects, the most far-reaching of which seems to be the Australian Assistance Plan. This is an important and interesting programme important because it could well restructure the planning and administration of social welfare in Australia, because it will transfer considerable decision-making power from the present structures to a new sort of political structure, and because it will affect all sectors of welfare from federal authorities to voluntary agencies. It proposes co-operation, harmony and interdependence among structures that have not, in the post, thought of themselves as interdependent. The purpose of the Australian Assistance Plan is to regionalize welfare services. It proposes the establishment of a number of regions across the nation, each of which is to have a Regional Council for Social Development.

This study looked into client access to records – generally referred to as 'case records' – pertaining to themselves that social workers routinely maintain in the course of professional practice. An online survey and semi-structured interviews were undertaken with Australian social workers. The study found that while the majority of the participants indicated that they granted their clients access to their case records, this was not necessarily reflected in practice. It is argued that social workers would need to proactively enable client access to their case records if they are to abide by the spirit and intent of the principles they espouse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers what successful working relationships between fly-in professionals and Aboriginal community workers involve. Interviews with six Aboriginal workers and the experience of the jointly delivered Let's Start parent–child programme in remote north Australian Indigenous communities confirm the importance of developing positive relationships within a both-ways learning approach, drawing on each other's strengths, and the significance of reflection on practice. Working cooperatively enables effective programme implementation, supports incorporation of new learning into practice, and benefits local Aboriginal community members through employment and development opportunities. This model has relevance for health and community programmes delivered in remote Aboriginal communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study in the state of New South Wales, Australia, explored what Specialist Homelessness Services are currently implementing in regard to consumer participation, what is working and what barriers to consumer participation have been encountered by both service users and providers. Three staff members, one consumer volunteer and 10 homeless persons from three services were interviewed. The interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The study found that while consumers have some opportunities to participate, and that participation is beneficial, there were barriers to participation, such as staff attitudes and the nature of the consumer group. The implications of these findings for staff, consumers and future policy direction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience has predominantly been investigated as an individual’s response to adversity and, at the level of the collective, how communities respond to a direct threat. The social work literature investigating social resilience as a response to the challenge of subtle, pervasive and divisive social threats is limited. This article presents the findings of research conducted in two Australian communities with young people who experienced marginalisation; it investigated how sustained social resilience could be evoked in response to the disadvantage they experienced. Six themes that reflect the expression of social resilience emerged from the data and provide insights for social workers practising with communities facing chronic adversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the extent to which issues of environmental sustainability are represented in three national social work codes of ethics -- the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. These national codes are discussed and implications for social work are analysed with a view to strengthening the profession's position regarding environmental sustainability. Findings suggest that national codes do not include concern for environmental sustainability as a core professional concern. The authors make recommendations for developing ethical practice and further argue that the international professional body of social work, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW), should take a fundamental leadership role in advocating for environmental sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1990s, both Australia and Taiwan were influenced by new public management (NPM) and subsequently reformed their public employment services. However, the reforms of the two countries have led to divergent results. This study assumes that the essential differences lay in the mobilization capacity of the disabled rights advocacy organizations and the disability employment benefits. Taiwan's disability employment services (supported employment), though privatized, are limited to nonprofit organizations (NPOs), while for-profit organizations (POs) remain absent in this area. In Australia, the employment services (open employment services for people with disabilities) have been privatized, and for-profit organizations are encouraged to compete with one another to enhance the service quality and to reduce the costs. By providing job-search benefits for disabled people and implementing workfare policy, the Australian government reforms have resulted in the change of the relationship between the government and the citizens. In contrast, since the Taiwanese government never provided sufficient social welfare benefits for disabled people, they have to actively seek employment not after encouragement from the government, but as a result of their desperate need to earn a living. Despite the two countries' differences, the force of neoliberalism, along with NPM, ostensibly continues to be a part of their employment policies for the socially underprivileged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the findings of a mixed-method study exploring the experiences of supervision within Australian social work. It looks particularly at the ways in which organisational cultures support supervision as a mechanism of practice improvement. The research suggests the need to better understand performance within the practice and supervision sphere, and create ways in which workers can be acknowledged to develop their skills in a supportive organisational environment. It argues that within a neoliberal context, supervision has the potential to assist in the management of competing workplace demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on qualitative Australian research that was conducted with 32 workers from Job Services Australia and Emergency Relief agencies. Researchers investigated the operationalisation of assistance for unemployed people to illuminate the language, discourse and processes through which workers and unemployed people were constructed within the quasi-market culture. Findings included individualistic and behaviourist frames, paradoxical positions in relation to client choice and blame, and a metaphorical frame which reinforced position, status and difference. This study provides important evidence from the frontline of Australia’s deregulated employment services, adding to the growing body of international social work literature pertaining to neoliberal welfare reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural and remote communities often have complex and diverse mental health needs and inadequate mental health services and infrastructure. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide an array of potentially innovative and cost-effective means for connecting rural and remote communities to specialist mental health practitioners, services, and supports, irrespective of physical location. However, despite this potential, a review of Australian and international literature reveals that ICT has not attained widespread uptake into social work practice or implementation in rural communities. This article reviews the social work literature on ICT, draws on research on tele-psychology and tele-education, and provides suggestions on how to enhance engagement with ICT by social workers to implement and provide mental health services and supports tailored to community values, needs, and preferences that are commensurate with the values of the social work profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of emotions with a specific focus on discourses of compassion, in framing policy and service delivery responses to homelessness. While there has been some recent scholarly work on the emotions and homelessness, there has been little attempt to explore this in the context of social policy responses to homelessness and the resultant programmes within which services are delivered. Informing the analysis in this article is the view that the continued presence of social injustices including homelessness reflects an absence of concern for others and the forms of suffering inflicted personally and institutionally upon each other. These considerations suggest the possibility for satisfactorily addressing social inequities that have significantly been exacerbated by the promotion of policy frameworks informed by neoliberal rationalities, depending to a considerable degree on making alterations to both individual and collective value frameworks. Such transformative possibilities could be facilitated by the development of the virtue of compassion. Exploring the potential for a politics of compassion to inform policy responses to homelessness in particular has the capacity, among other things, to disrupt contemporary, taken-for-granted assumptions regarding welfare dependency and the role of government in welfare provision at a more general level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a case study to illustrate the complexities of financial abuse of older people by their family members. It provides insights into why older people and social care professionals may not detect or define family member’s behaviour as abuse or feel discomfort in talking about it. The authors argue case studies can lead to new understandings about financial abuse that move beyond operational definitions to theoretical explanations that consider practices and outcomes of ageism and gender relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Farming families in rural and remote parts of the world are often marginalized from social care. This article describes a phenomenological exploration of problems presenting to financial counsellors in remote south-eastern Australia. Individual and family issues, referral processes and professional competencies have been identified, along with suggested changes to service delivery. Complex psycho-social difficulties are revealed. Financial counsellors, working in isolation, are unable to adequately address these. However, no social work service has been accessible to many consumers living in remote farming communities. Social work, within interdisciplinary partnerships, is being piloted as a result of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article presents findings from an empirical study of 23 parents with mental illness in New South Wales, Australia. Discussion focuses on the prevailing risk discourse associated with parental mental illness which suggests a limited capacity to parent. Risk assessment practice creates expectations about parenting ability, often utilizing rigid, inflexible and predetermined categorical information. This approach limits social work practice. The discussion presents an insight into how parents manage mental illness and how they manage risk. The narratives of the parents encourage social workers to increase their skills in family-focused working practices to enhance engagement with these families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the current knowledge shaping our understanding of human trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation in Australia, a major destination country in a poorly researched region (Oceania). Challenges to developing accurate and useful knowledge: varied and poorly understood definitions, difficulties in gathering accurate data about a hidden problem, and narrowly focused research are explored. The article describes Australia’s current responses to sex trafficking and critiques current knowledge development strategies, concluding with recommendations for ways forward in researching this challenging and globally significant problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I critically reflect on how white power and privilege constitutes my personal power and professional experiences as a social work practitioner and social work educator in Australia. I explore my white privilege in the context of the colonization of Australia and social work practice in child protection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article describes the debates in the research literature surrounding the provision of critical incident stress management (CISM) and outlines the implications for social work. The literature reviewed suggests that critical incident stress debriefing (CISD) as an intervention needs to be offered as part of a comprehensive programme of critical incident stress management that is integrated and sensitive to the organizational context. Strengths-based principles need to underpin an integrated critical incident stress management policy that is sensitive to differences in individual responses, organizational contexts and diverse fields of social work practice. Adaptations of Mitchell’s original model of critical incident stress management which aim at mitigating the potential negative impact of critical incidents encountered in the workplace whilst enhancing personal resilience are discussed with reference to recent critiques of this model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nine years after their introduction, the Australian Social Work Practice Standards are reviewed against the five purposes of codes of practice proposed by Banks (2006). The review concludes that the Standards contributed to heightened professional identity and accountability by defining the national education curriculum and by providing a mechanism for accountability. Their utility for service users is still to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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This article focuses on a study to understand family violence among the Indigenous communities of Australia. The author explains that analyzing the social issues experienced by indigenous Australians from the perspective of colonization, oppression and dispossession has long been known to be fundamental to sound social policy. The study was commissioned in 2001 by Weena Mooga Gu Gudba Inc., an Indigenous women's organization in Ceduna, South Australia. The aim of the study was to understand family violence in the Aboriginal community. Ceduna is a remote town in western South Australia with a population in 2001 of around 3500 people, 24 percent of whom are Aboriginal. This article informs that at least two of the research team, including at least one Aborigine, conducted each interview and focus group. Most interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, with detailed notes being taken of the others, the workshop and the forums. Participants experienced family violence as incorporating and embedded in many forms of violence. The study also found that forms of violence include physical, emotional and material violence towards women and children.

This article explores the role of social work with asylum-seekers in Great Britain and Australia. It raises the questions of the contradictions for the profession in the light of increasingly repressive policies in both countries. Social work has always had as its major concern the interests of the most excluded groups in society, but it is now confronted with new social policies that challenge fundamentally its humanitarian and espoused human rights stance. Nowhere is this clearer than in the response by governments in Australia and Great Britain to people fleeing from oppressive regimes. There is little doubt that racialized policy has shaped both Australia's and Great Britain's treatment of immigrants and minorities. More recent approaches have proclaimed multiculturalism in Australia and anti-racism in Great Britain, to which current asylum policies are in direct contradiction. The current policies are characterized by deterrence and punishment. The international domain provides opportunities for social workers to condemn policies and practices that are contrary to the profession's mission.

The article presents survey of school welfare provisions in Australia that adds to the understanding of the impact of new policies on an existing system as well as a system's capacity to respond to changing needs. This critical study reveals that research opportunities which might have clarified and potential social work roles and those of other school personnel, were lost because of lack of proper planning. As well as being institutionalized setting for all manner of structured learning activities; the school is also the center of a network of welfare services that has progressively increased during the past decades. Guidance officers, counselors, school social workers and immigrant welfare officers, school health personnel, and youth employment officers are among the various specialists now to be found in and around secondary schools in many western countries, a team that has grown up piecemeal by a largely unplanned process of agglomeration. In Australia, a first attempt to map the scope and efficiency of school welfare provision offered in each of the seven States of the Commonwealth was recently completed, as one of a number of studies commissioned by the Australian Government Commission of Enquiry into Poverty. The most significant feature of school welfare provision across the country is the almost complete lack of coordination at every level.