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Summary: The sustaining argument advanced in this paper is that postconventional analysis offers a constructive theoretical lens to contemplate identity in child protection and welfare assessment. Critical application of abridged postconventionalism considers how identity and biodiversity in children and young people, operating across lines of racial, disability, gender and other identity markers, can be understood during informed assessment of needs. Findings: In the context of transformative postmodern influences, the intention is to provide an aid to students and practitioners who are increasingly impelled to think about traditionally biological-based identity categories, across more abstract lines of social, lingual and cultural construction. Four themes for professional development are presented. First, the complex origins of identity must be appreciated. Second, criticality and openness to the meaning of identity is preferable. Third, progress lies in courteous, sensitive and inclusive practice. Fourth, practitioners should acquire knowledge competency in identity categories. Applications: Overall, acceptance of the somewhat fluid and socially contingent nature of identity, without marked rejection of its embodied aspects, can promote more sensitive and inclusive ways of working with children and young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Young people living in north-west European welfare states are challenged to develop their individual strength. This is especially difficult for girls living in vulnerable circumstances, because they face a form of marginalization. Girls work is a method of professional youth work that supports girls in their identity development, making them more capable of shaping their own lives now and as adults. This is conceptualized as agency, which consist of the properties: intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, self-reflection. This paper examines the extent to which girls work helps girls living in vulnerable circumstances to develop their individual strength. Findings: The article is based on a questionnaire filled out by 393 girls who participate in 59 girls work activities in the Netherlands. This study shows that participation in girls work contributes to the development of intentionality of these girls (F(3,387) = 4.60, p =.004). Furthermore, girls who received an individual approach are better capable of reflecting on their actions than girls who only participated in group activities (F(2,388) = 3.10, p =.046). Applications: The findings suggest that participation in girls work contributes to the intentionality of girls in vulnerable circumstances, which is an important step in the development of agency. But to accomplish this, girls need to learn how to act upon their personal intentions. However, the findings do not show that girls work contributes to the other properties of agency, suggesting that to support girls in shaping their own lives, youth workers need to contribute more to the other levels of agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This study focuses on the narratives of participants of a long-term expert-by-experience training programme for people with a history of crime about their past, and how they use their life experience in their work as experts by experience. The research data was collected during interviews of respondents with a history of crime (N=19). The interviews were analysed using a narrative identity framework, and the data further examined in light of various studies focused on a desistance from crime. Findings: The transformation process from service user or client to expert by experience provided people with a history of crime with a chance to come to terms with their past, and to and gain a sense of closure. Expertise by experience gave their difficult life experiences a new meaning, and thus promoted their overall rehabilitation and offered them opportunities through which they could gain the appreciation and acceptance of other people. The new relationships presented to them as experts by experience also paved the way to a new kind of self-concept that strengthened the desister's self-confidence and optimistic outlook on the future. Applications: This study offers perspectives on how people with a history of crime can re-enter society. Through their survival stories and their journey to become experts by experience, desisters can earn the acceptance and approval of others and gain a more positive perception of themselves. The new identities of people with a history of crime are dependent on society's approval as they continue to desist from crime and re-enter mainstream society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The enterprise of knowledge utilization in social work practice has to some extent remained elusive. To date, little empirical clarity has been provided that demystifies the ends to which knowledge is put. The reported qualitative study of 10 social workers explored the functional distinctions of knowledge use in practice. The paper offers a number of previously unreported insights into this important topic and, in doing so, offers a level of transparency about practice behaviour that illuminates the nature and shape of direct social work practice. Findings: The study underscored that knowledge is used for both conceptual and instrumental purposes, with ten primary functions delineated: awareness, prediction, alerting, comparison, generalization, direction of practice behaviour, promoting an attitude and/or ethical stance, education, rapport development and problem solving. Application: The presented findings offer human service professionals an insight into how practice knowledge is/can be used. Such insight could then be used as a strategy to critically recognize and assess their own knowledge use, determine both its negative and creative potential and assist in the recognition of their own knowledge needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study focused on analyzing the behavior of African American women suffering from HIV or AIDS disease. The study was conducted on a group of 10 women in which various emotions were examined including shock, anger and depression. According to the results, women were confident and strong, and they also discussed about sources that provided them support or hope.

The article presents information on a study conducted on the professional identity of child protection social workers in Great Britain. Sociologist Eliot Freidson recognized that the professional's attitude and commitment to their career became that of their own identity because they represent their profession through who they are and the activities they perform. The study involved interviewing of eight child protection social workers.

The article presents information on developing a framework that provides an approach to the understand the social process of adopting disabled children. The framework applies Layder's analysis as well as Bourdieu's concept. It is stated that adoption outcomes for disabled children can understood only within wider social processes that can affect the practice of adoption generally.

• Summary: This research is among the first to analyze social work practitioners’ workplace subjective well-being (SWB), the social scientific concept of happiness. From an initial survey of 646 social workers, 13 respondents with the highest SWB scores were interviewed: a cohort that can teach us much about creating and sustaining SWB.• Findings: The following reports on one aspect of those qualitative findings: the work related factors that impact overall SWB. Researchers found that the respondents’ overall SWB was impacted by characteristics of their work environment (i.e. physical, cultural, and systemic), interrelationships at work (i.e. with clients, colleagues, and supervisors), and specific aspects of the job (i.e. factors associated with both workload and type of work).• Applications: The findings are discussed in relation to social work administration, and future research. There are implications for direct social work practitioners, managers, and educators, and in particular with regard to workplace environments that support social worker SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]