Social work最新文献

Social workers play a critical role in modern public defender offices, whether performing mitigation work for pretrial negotiations and sentencing hearings or helping clients to secure access to basic human needs. Although social workers have held in-house positions in public defender offices since at least the 1970s, their service is largely limited to mitigation practice and traditional social work. This article raises an opportunity for social workers to broaden their capacity within public defense by pursuing investigator positions. A case is made for interested social workers to draw upon their education, training, and experience to showcase the alignment between their talents and the requisite skills and performance required of investigative work. Evidence is offered to support the notion that social workers bring skills and a social justice orientation to investigative work that can provide for fresh insight and innovation in investigation and defense strategy. The value brought to investigation by social workers throughout a legal defense is specified, as are considerations for applying and interviewing for investigator positions as social workers.

Social work turnover from the emotional overload of providing care during the pandemic has created staff shortages and exposed many gaps in service delivery. Those social workers who sustained employment during this pandemic are asked to take on flexible/additional roles to fill in those gaps in services to their most vulnerable clients. This qualitative study (N = 12) of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) inpatient social workers at two sites across the country assesses their experiences of taking on additional roles at their respective VA facility. Three research questions were addressed to the participants: (1) Describe your roles and responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) How did those responsibilities change/evolve over time? and (3) Did you receive training for your new roles or tasks? Thematic analysis revealed six themes that would facilitate effectiveness and continuity of care: (1) recognizing insufficient training to handle a pandemic, (2) meeting the demand for care, (3) responding to unexpected aspects of flexibility, (4) adjusting to new roles over time, (5) adaptation and support, and (6) additional resources to simplify efforts. With COVID rates stabilizing across much of the United States, now is the time to implement trainings and education about job flexibility in the future instance of a pandemic.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is the leading professional organization for social work that established the Code of Ethics and sets the policy agenda for the profession. Guided by the Code of Ethics and the Grand Challenges for Social Work goal to "build healthy relationships to end violence," the NASW Social Work Speaks policy compendium should reassert its statement against the physical punishment of children. This recommendation aligns with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and children's right to protection from violence; the rigorous empirical research base, which demonstrates that physical punishment has detrimental consequences to child well-being; and similar policy statements issued by allied professional organizations. The NASW policies can advocate for ending violence against children by providing guidance on disciplinary practices that are based on principles of nonviolence and that respect children's human rights. Practitioners can support caregivers through interventions that provide alternatives to physical punishment.

Extreme risk protection orders (ERPOs), which allow for the temporary restriction of firearm access for individuals at substantial risk of harming themselves and/or others, are a promising policy tool to address increasing rates of firearm-related suicide, homicide, and mass shootings. Social workers frequently assess clients at risk of firearm-related harm, positioning social workers to play a key role in ERPO implementation. This study sought to understand social workers' perspectives on ERPOs. Authors invited 6,910 licensed social workers in Washington state to participate in a survey in May and June of 2021 about facilitators and barriers to their willingness to counsel clients' family members, contact law enforcement, or independently file ERPOs for clients at risk of harm to self (HTS) or others (HTO). Of the 1,381 survey participants, most were willing to counsel (96 percent for HTS; 96 percent HTO), contact law enforcement (84 percent for HTS; 87 percent for HTO), or independently file an ERPO (78 percent for HTS; 79 percent for HTO). Common barriers associated with willingness were lack of understanding about the ERPO process and concerns with involving the legal system/law enforcement. Key facilitators included training social workers about ERPOs and availability of legal experts for consultations. Social workers are willing to incorporate ERPOs into their practice for clients, but remaining barriers need to be addressed to support the practice.

Empowerment refers to the ways in which individuals and groups gain greater control over their lives. To date, the majority of studies focus on empowerment at the individual level. Further, research typically focuses on how to make people feel empowered and not how communities exercise their power. The present study utilizes collective efficacy, a community-level theory, to explore community characteristics that may empower individuals to engage in household activism, and communities to participate in neighborhood activism. The findings suggest that mutual efficacy and social cohesion are key drivers of participation in both household and neighborhood activism. Self-efficacy is associated with household activism only. Findings suggest that it is important to use individual-level skill-building opportunities as a method for fostering a collective identity and train community members to recruit others. In addition, community-building initiatives are more likely to result in activism if they focus on building mutual efficacy in the community.

The passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and subsequent creation of a residency process for nonresident survivors of human trafficking (the T Visa) are notable milestones in the United States' effort to address the problem of human trafficking and provide essential supports to trafficking survivors. However, current implementation of the statute's eligibility criteria for accessing entitlements and protections contributes to a potential for retraumatization, further traumatization, and other continued harms to survivors. The present article explores the structural and conceptual limitations of current T Visa policy and of recent annual policy guidance materials as important contributors to these policy implementation problems. Resulting problems are identified as an ambiguity of definitions and thresholds, a narrow conceptualization of victimhood, and the contradictory relationship between protection and prosecution. This article then utilizes a trauma-informed social policy framework to identify multisystemic action steps for social workers to address these limitations and improve the T Visa process for trafficking survivors. These actions steps provide an essential road map for closing the gap between the policy goals of the TVPA and its current implementation.

In recent years, social workers have paid increased attention to ethical issues. The profession's literature has burgeoned on topics such as ethical dilemmas in social work practice, ethical decision making, boundary issues and dual relationships, ethics-related risk management, and moral injury. This noteworthy trend builds on social work's rich and long-standing commitment to the development of core values and ethical standards evident throughout its history. Unlike allied human service and behavioral health professions, social work's ethics-related literature has not focused on the critically important issue of moral disengagement. Moral disengagement is typically defined as the process whereby individuals convince themselves that ethical standards do not apply to them. In social work, moral disengagement can lead to ethics violations and practitioner liability, particularly when social workers believe that they are not beholden to widely embraced ethical standards in the profession. The purpose of this article is to explore the nature of moral disengagement in social work, identify possible causes and consequences, and present meaningful strategies designed to prevent and respond to moral disengagement in the profession.