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The factors that inhibit and promote professional interventions with young adults refer to social, formal-structural, and personal factors. Nevertheless, studies of these factors from social workers' perspective, and research of the inhibitors associated with the socio-cultural context of minority young adults, are few. The aim of the present study was to examine social workers' perceptions of the factors that inhibit and promote interventions in the socio-cultural and formal-structural context of at-risk young Arab-Palestinian women in Israel, who are at an intersection of marginal positions. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 social workers. The findings revealed two themes: 1) Social workers' perceptions of the challenges in two dimensions, a) socio-cultural factors which include family centrality in the young women's life, and b) formal-structural inhibitors. 2) Promoting factors which include professional values and the need for cooperation between organizations themselves and with recipients of the services The findings were reviewed according to the intersectional invisibility model, and were based on the concept of institutional discrimination, which showed that at-risk young Arab women experience an intersectional invisibility of their identities and, at the same time, the social workers experience a conflicting situation within the wider context of intersectional discrimination. The paper concludes with recommendations to practitioners and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mayors play a major role in determining their locality's welfare policies and significantly influence the welfare bureaus' work. This study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews with 19 mayors of local Arab governments in Israel to examine this issue. It found that the mayors fiercely criticize the welfare bureaus in four areas of concern, claiming that they ignore particular needs, neglect core target populations, lack culture-sensitive responses and their functioning is defective. The mayors' criticism of welfare bureau inadequacies sheds light on Welfare Ministry policies that allocate lower discriminatory budgets to Arab welfare bureaus and are insensitive to Arab society's cultural-religious needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How is the helping relationship between social workers and their clients mediated by institutional practices and forms? This article explores the roles that institutional practices and documents play at the very inception of the helping relationship between social workers and voluntary clients who are mothers. Based on an institutional ethnography in a social services department in Israel, we make visible the ways in which taken-for-granted institutional practices and forms—from the outset—can inhibit the helping relationship between social workers and clients. The insights of fourteen social workers, twenty mother-clients and textual analysis of institutional forms that frame the beginning of the helping relationship are utilised as a starting point from which to explicate how institutional practices and forms shape and govern the helping relationship in social work. We conclude with a call for a more transparent and creative approach to first encounters such that institutional practices and forms are reconsidered as gateways to supportive helping relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neighbors have a proximate position for detecting in-home emergencies and providing critical assistance. This cross-sectional study tested neighbors' helping behaviors during intimate partner violence emergencies in a sample of 384 Israeli adults. The aim was to identify potential differences in bystander response depending on the identified victim's gender and the bystander's gender and sociocultural group affiliation (i.e., liberal egalitarian or conservative traditional). Four hypothetical scenarios were presented to participants in which either a male or female was the identified victim; the IPV was mutual (i.e., both the male and the female parties were victims); or the victim's gender was unknown to participants. The highest levels of behavioral responses emerged for the case with a female victim of IPV, and the lowest occurred for the case in which only a male experienced violence. Males preferred personal intervention, whereas females preferred calling welfare services or the police. Conservative traditional individuals preferred calling a religious authority significantly more than liberal egalitarian participants. Results highlight the importance of providing professional interventions, enhancing public awareness, and acknowledging specific cultural beliefs and traditions to sensitively address IPV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article traces the development of social work in Israel's Arab society at the turn of the millennium (1996-2006) based on semi-structured interviews with Arab social workers who worked in the profession at the time. The findings show that Arab social work developed under the shadow of an establishment that adhered to a long standing 'politics of contempt', which recognised the needs of Arab society but provided it significantly fewer resources than to its Jewish counterpart, failed to recognise Arab narratives in the training for and implementation of professional praxes, and refrained from including Arab representation in policy formulation. The primary result of these policies was the maintenance of two parallel social work structures – one for the country's Jewish citizens and the second, far poorer, for her Arab citizens – that evolved against the backdrop of the on-going Israeli-Arab conflict and the definition of Israel as a Jewish state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the marketization of social service provision impact the practices of street‐level bureaucrats (SLBs) towards their clients? To explore this question, we compare the markets for ambulatory long‐term care for the elderly in Germany and Israel, which differ in the latitude of choice offered to clients and the intensity of state regulation. Based on 52 qualitative interviews with SLBs and managers of care providers, our study shows that in both countries, institutional contexts play a significant role in shaping street‐level bureaucracy practices. We found that SLBs and managers in Israel engage in entrepreneurial behavior, whereas their German counterparts adopt administrative practices. By identifying these tendencies as responses to the respective welfare market characteristics, the article makes an important contribution to the field of comparative SLB research and furthers our understanding of the broader implications of the marketization of welfare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited realisation of social justice and unequal access to basic social resources place demands on social workers to take action for the shaping of good public and social policy. Previous studies have identified various challenges that limit the involvement of social workers in policy practice. These challenges have been examined to a limited extent in the context of social workers belonging to ethnic minority groups in multicultural societies. The present study examined these issues among social workers from the Palestinian-Arab minority group in Israel and revealed challenges that focus on three areas: political, cultural, and personal challenges. These challenges are closely related to the sociopolitical context of an ethnic minority coping with inequality, discrimination, and oppression, as well as the social and cultural gaps in the contexts of being a majority or a minority in a multicultural society. The implications of the findings are discussed in the contexts of policy, practice, and cultural training for policy practice in multicultural societies. IMPLICATIONS Social workers from ethnic minority groups face political, cultural, and personal challenges that limit their involvement in policy design processes. These social workers need to be supported and provided with appropriate resources and training to operate in policy arenas in cross-cultural political situations. Social work training frameworks need to provide knowledge and skills in a sociopolitical context and the support required to promote involvement in policy practice. Policies formulated by professional bodies can support the involvement of social workers from minority groups in policy practice through critical awareness of the promotion of social justice and the reduction of inequality. Increased focus on promoting equality of opportunity in the welfare system as well as in allocating resources and means can enable minorities to live better lives and prevent feelings of oppression and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnic groups exist almost everywhere. Generally, each group is related to uniformly, although it may comprise several subgroups. An example is Israel's Palestinian-Israeli population, which consists of three ethnic–religious subgroups: Muslims, Christians and Druze. They coexist in nearly all domains of life, but maintain separate schools and family law courts. Most of the professional literature on Palestinian-Israelis, especially in Israel, ignores their differences. This qualitative study, using semi-structured interviews conducted in 2018, highlights this lacuna in the context of the demand for multicultural social work. Participants were forty-two male and female social workers—roughly one-third each Muslims, Christians and Druze—in welfare bureaus in ethnically–religiously mixed Palestinian-Israeli localities. The findings reveal that the ethnic–religious composition of the social workers in a locality does not reflect the ethnic–religious balance of the population. Despite the interviewees' lack of formal ethnic–religious-sensitive knowledge, they displayed informal knowledge. Nevertheless, the different needs of the three ethnic–religious groups met with undifferentiated responses. The welfare bureaus prefer a uniform policy rather than recognising differences, impeding the advancement of inter-ethnic cultural competence. This article contributes to world knowledge regarding cultural competence and highlights the need for culturally competent skills that are sensitive also to ethnic–religious subgroups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social work in Israel's indigenous Arab society developed late relative to its Jewish counterpart. Based on primary and secondary sources and semi-structured interviews with Arab social workers who were employed in social welfare bureaus during the years under review, the article describes and explains the development of social work in Israel's Arab society in its formative years. The findings indicate this social work developed under government policies that recognized the needs of Arab society but allocated its welfare bureaus fewer resources than to the country's Jewish society. These policies also failed to recognize the Arab narrative in welfare delivery and to incorporate Arab representation in decision-making. The relevant bodies in Israel that dealt with social work, primarily the Ministry of Welfare, used various strategies to maintain a dual system of welfare services – one for Jewish citizens and a poorer one for Arabs citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the theoretical discussion of the historical legitimacy of single mothers by examining the construction of relationships between single motherhood and welfare policy. Specifically, the study analyses the changing discourse regarding single mothers, and the social policy designed for them, in the US, UK and Israel from the 1970s to the 2000s. These three countries are similar in terms of the embeddedness, extension and institutionalization of neoliberal ideology in their welfare policies and public discourse, together with welfare legislation affecting single mothers, yet they differ in terms of policy implementation and the history of policy development. The study examines institutional intersectionality along with cultural perceptions of single mothers in each country. Looking at both the development and the withdrawal of social rights over time, we deepen understanding of how the image of the single mother is created in the neoliberal welfare regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do welfare-reliant mothers enact their agency in relationships with social workers and social services? The present article addresses this question by investigating how twenty Israeli welfare-reliant mothers expressed different modes of human agency in in-depth interviews. Results show how research participants enact agency through (i) expressing anger, (ii) seeking help, (iii) resisting and (iv) engaging in non-action. By highlighting the multidimensional and situational nature of agency, this article offers a new relational lens for conceptualising and empirically studying human agency in social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adjustment disorder is a maladaptive reaction to common life events. Levels of adjustment disorder can serve as one of the indicators of the effectiveness of social services interventions. Yet, the role of service receipt period and of social worker alternation in explaining levels of adjustment disorder remains unclear. In order to explore this issue, structured questionnaires were distributed to a random sample of 190 clients of a social services department in Israel. Whilst no significant differences were found between service receipt periods with regard to clients' adjustment disorder, clients treated by a single social worker reported lower levels of adjustment disorder than those treated by alternating social workers. Furthermore, new and long-standing clients, treated by alternating social workers displayed higher levels of adjustment disorder than those treated by a single social worker. The importance of therapeutic alliance is discussed in light of the present findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]