Volume 55, Issue 3, April 2025

The study looks at changes in social work in Switzerland and England following the introduction of market-based policies, and how social workers have responded to these developments. The research used individual and group interviews. There are many similarities in these policy developments across both countries, but also some differences. Social workers in Switzerland and England responded to market-based policy changes in a variety of ways. Sometimes they adapted, but they also challenged them. In this article, we look at the challenges. These included individual social workers using discretion to promote social justice in practice. However, alongside such individual challenges, social workers in Switzerland also joined with service users to campaign collectively against cuts. The research shows how ethical commitments can lead social workers to resist policies/practices considered to conflict with professional values. However, we argue this resistance is not just because of practitioners’ individual dispositions but due to a legacy of social justice values and relationship-based practices in social work institutions. These enduring ideas and practices create an environment that strengthens the possibilities for practitioners to act both individually and collectively to resist neoliberalism and promote more liberatory and transformative forms of social work. We call this approach ‘ethico-political professionalism’.

This article delves into the caregiving practices and cultural dynamics within Indigenous communities in rural Chile, highlighting the vital role of women in maintaining cultural traditions and supporting family well-being. Addressing significant data gaps and a history of discrimination, the study provides insights into the unique challenges and strengths of these communities. The findings emphasise the need for culturally sensitive care policies and inclusive strategies, offering valuable guidance for social work practice and policy development. Discover how intergenerational support and subjective well-being intertwine to shape the lives of older adults in these vibrant cultural contexts.

This article reflects on findings from a research study with participants who gave birth in, or who were born in special institutions run by the State and/or contracted to religious orders between approximately 1950 and 1980 in Ireland. The study asked participants about the words, language or references to their personal situation and experiences that they found offensive, or thought should no longer be used. A total of forty-three participants gave rich and detailed accounts of offensive and hurtful language, terms and accounts of their circumstances that were used at that time and that continue to be used. This article focuses on the thematic areas of Identities (mother, child/children), Places (home, institution) and Processes (adoption), and who was using this language. It also highlights how the learning from this research can be used to inform future social work practice using a theory known as epistemic justice. This theory refers to how the concept of epistemic justice is used to explore how critical attention to language, terminology and testimony can help challenge stigma and misrepresentation, recognise diversity and promote rights. This article suggests that social workers can provide leadership within an international context in this regard.

Ensuring enough staff in children’s social work services in Northern Ireland (NI) has become a major issue due to problems with retaining staff and protecting social workers' (SWs) well-being, worsened by limited governmental investment. In the UK, various tools and guidelines help manage staffing in health and social care, but social work lacks detailed frameworks for safe staffing. This study used interviews, focus groups and quantitative data analysis, focusing on Gateway and Family Intervention child protection teams in NI, given the significant caseloads and staffing shortages within these specific team structures. The study found that SWs and managers are struggling with high caseloads, long waitlists and many unfilled positions. This research helped define what safe staffing means in social work and provides a basis for planning better policies and informing new legislation to improve conditions for children’s SWs and their service-users, who often derive from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds.

This study introduces the work of Red Rose Recovery (RRR), an organization that helps people to recover from substance misuse or contact with the criminal justice system. People with ‘lived experiences’ of recovery lead the organization, aiming to inspire and provide hope to people who are struggling to find a way forward. We explored people’s experiences of RRR using a research method called ‘photovoice’, where people use cameras to tell their stories. The article is illustrated with some of these photographs, helping us to understand the experiences of people involved. The photographs and descriptions show that people often experienced pain and shame and felt excluded, yet coproduced services like RRR can offer valued relationships, a feeling of community and a sense of belonging to the natural world and community buildings.

In this article, we outline the potential benefits of LSW for care-experienced young people and the current barriers to research, training, and practice. We outline five defined approaches to LSW informed by literature and current practice and suggest how they could bring clarity to the LSW field globally. We provide examples of how the approaches might be incorporated into research, training, and practice and consider future directions.

Writing is an important area of social work and a great deal of time is spent on writing case notes, assessment reports, and other documentation which help to move cases forward. Little research has been carried out on social workers’ writing and, in particular, the specific writing devices used to create effective texts. One technique often used is to quote service users and their families. This article explores how quotations are used in children’s and adults’ care and in different types of texts. The article also looks at who is quoted and identifies the functions of the quotes. The study draws on three different types of data: (1) a 1-million-word collection of social workers’ writing; (2) eighty-one social worker interviews; and (3) two case studies. All data were collected within the WiSP project. The study helps us to understand how quotations are used in professional writing, and will also be useful for social worker training.

Every year, housing evictions affect numerous vulnerable Europeans. However, official statistics on evictions fail to capture a crucial aspect: the untold stories of those who leave their homes before the formal eviction process is completed, with authorities executing the removal. In this unique Swedish registry study, over 60,000 cases were examined to reveal the differences in the risk of self-initiated moves during the formal eviction process compared to enforced removals. It uncovers the hidden factors that drive these decisions, such as economic difficulties, sociodemographic inequalities, family dynamics, and urban-rural divides. By providing insights into these factors, this research sheds light on potential paths towards more inclusive interventions and significant policy reforms in the field of social work practice.

This article offers a fresh perspective on running away from residential youth care institutions. It challenges the idea that such incidents are solely the result of individual behaviour and shows how institutional factors contribute to this phenomenon. It examines different aspects of life in institutions, such as space, time and relationships, and shows how running away is a natural part of it rather than exceptional events. The employees express their understanding of the youth’s need to have a break from the institution, maintaining their network ‘outside’ the institution, as well as the need for individual consideration while defining and responding to the acts of running away. The article argues that the idea of inside/outside is too simplistic and fails to capture the complexity of life in the institutions, which extends beyond the material borders of the building. The authors propose a more nuanced understanding of residential institutions as a system shaped by individual actions.

This article explores the influence of workplace friendships on feelings of job stress, satisfaction, and wellbeing amongst a cohort of twenty-five child protection social workers. It highlights the importance of friendships at work in the context of emotional support and professional learning, and relatedly their role in reducing feelings of stress and improving wellbeing. Implications focus on the importance of working environments that promote regular close contact and proximity between work colleagues—especially more experienced staff—and the role of workplace friendships for reducing burnout and the practitioner’s propensity to withdraw from the role.

This study, conducted in Izmir, Türkiye, explores the knowledge and attitudes of medical interns regarding social work practices within healthcare institutions, in the context of Türkiye's shift towards market-driven healthcare models. Despite regularly encountering underserved patients, many medical interns remain unaware of social workers’ roles. Gender, financial status, and encountering underserved patients influenced knowledge and attitudes. The study highlights the need for integrating social work education into medical curricula to promote interprofessional collaboration in Turkey, addressing the social determinants of health and Türkiye’s evolving demographic challenges.

This article provides an analysis of social care policy and reform in England since 2010, with a particular focus on the impact of these reforms on the ways in which the skills of social work are utilized within social care services. Through a theoretical framework informed by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the disposition of the social work profession in England will be explored as partly utilized in social care services, particularly in relation to facilitating and promoting personalization reforms embedded in the Care Act 2014. However, there remain ongoing uncertainties for the future role and identity of the profession when faced with neoliberal logics within social care policy and the ways in which personalization reform has been implemented in England. This article concludes that social work within social care services in England, despite being embedded in Local Authorities and policy, faces an uncertain future in a political environment that foregrounds individualized approaches to meeting social care need and fails to address challenges of social work recruitment and retention.

Research shows that social services are often organized into specialized units, like those for child welfare. Within child welfare, further specialization is usually based on target groups (youth vs child) and specific tasks. There is debate about whether specialization improves or hinders social work, with concerns about service gaps and a lack of a holistic approach. While specialization is believed to increase the need for collaboration, there are fears it might make collaboration harder due to professional tensions and cultural differences. This study looks at how different specializations in child welfare affect social workers’ views on collaboration within their teams, with other units, and with external organizations. It considers factors like workload, time with clients, and experience. Using survey data from 895 social workers in Stockholm County from 2003 to 2018, this study finds that target group specialization may improve collaboration within teams and with external organizations, challenging the idea that specialization hinders collaboration.

This article is an autoethnographic form of research which incorporates critical social work theories to analyse oppressive practices in supportive housing social work. The theories used include anti-colonial, critical race feminist, critical disability, and mad studies. The article uses a creative non-fiction approach to develop narratives which highlight some of the challenges of social working in non-profit organisations (NPOs), specific to residential care work. The narratives are thematically categorized by the discourse of dangerousness, challenging charitable oppression, and reproducing colonial carceral structures. Each creative non-fiction piece is followed by analysis. Some of the concepts applied include: the myth of normalcy and the devaluing of interdependence, the focus on risk-based discourse and its resulting restrictive policies, as well as the historical and contemporary colonialism inherent in social work. The article concludes with a call for examining colonialism and ethical complexity in care work and critically reflecting on the contrast between social work theory and practice as it relates to implications of social work for service users, families, and communities.

Drawing on the views of Nepali social workers, this article explores the coloniality of social work and social development. In doing so, it also discusses what could be a way out of coloniality and what could a reform in Nepali social work and development look like.

There continues to be a growing need for human service organizations to demonstrate that a service’s actions are having benefits for those that use their services. This article reports on the development and the results of testing an outcomes measurement approach for the human services sector—by this we mean ‘what has changed for people as a result of the service they have received?’ We take a ‘whole of life approach’ which recognizes that services may contribute to change in many areas of a person’s life. What we came up with was based on looking at what others had done in measuring outcomes, while also working with service staff and service users so that they could help us with this work. The result was what we call ‘The Community Services Outcomes Tree’ (CSOT) and a short survey that service users could complete—if they wish to—to tell us about what has changed for them (outcomes) as a result of the service. We have tested this with service users across a range of different services and we believe that the CSOT is useful in providing valuable information while acknowledging that there is always more work to be done to improve measuring outcomes.

This article examines the plans for a proposed new framework for students who are studying to become social workers in England. The framework is called Readiness for Professional Practice and is being introduced by the national regulator for social workers in England, Social Work England. This article introduces the new framework, as well as discussing some of the context into which it is being introduced. It then moves on to consider the evidence and process that led to the new framework, raising questions about the justifications presented by the regulator. This leads into a discussion of how the new framework would fit into the already crowded landscape of social work frameworks in England, in particular considering there is an existing framework, the Professional Capabilities Framework, that is already in place and favoured within the profession. The challenges around introducing this new framework at a time when social work professionals, educators, and students are struggling are also discussed. The final sections look at where the new Readiness for Professional Practice is likely to lead, in the context of other national reforms, and a challenging future for the social work regulator, Social Work England.

This article examines discrepancies in the intentions of social workers employed in various sector types in China. This study found that social workers in the public sector had stronger social network support and more comprehensive social security benefits, which reduced their turnover intentions. However, low work incentives, little self-determination at work, and low cultural fit with the organization may elevate their turnover intentions.

This article presents representative accounts from efforts in six social care departments in the UK to use innovation to improve their responses to young people at risk of significant harm beyond their family homes and relationships. It reports on three features of service delivery where social work practitioners made progress but were also challenged in their ability to respond to unique dynamics of harm occurring outside families; form relationships with young people who were harmed beyond their families; and work with other partner agencies, particularly the police. We conclude that the challenges faced were not due to shortfalls in practitioner expertise, but were instead located in the structural foundations of the UK social care systems, where these practitioners were based—foundations common to international child protection systems and discourses. We recommend significant reform to these foundations, to realize current global ambitions to protect young people beyond their family homes.

After the Kahramanmaraş earthquake of 2023, psychosocial support professionals (PSSPs) faced overwhelming challenges in providing critical assistance to survivors. This study explores the emotional and professional difficulties faced by PSSPs, including burnout, secondary traumatic stress, inadequate self-care, and staff support process. Drawing on interviews with thirty professionals from the most affected areas, we highlight the high emotional toll and systemic issues that hindered effective support, such as poor coordination and lack of resources. Our findings emphasize the urgent need for better institutional support, including structured monitoring, improved working conditions, and effective coordination mechanisms. By addressing these needs, we can increase the well-being and efficiency of PSSPs and ensure that they are better equipped to help disaster survivors. This study emphasizes the importance of supporting those who provide psychosocial support and offers practical recommendations to improve disaster response and support systems for frontline professionals.

Our study delves deep into the concealed threads connecting client violence, fear, affective commitment, and the alarming inclination to abandon one's professional post. It unveils a shocking revelation that the traumatic experiences of client violence intensify the presence of fear within social workers. As the level of fear rises, the study reveals its subsequent impact on weakening of social workers' affective commitment, thus increasing turnover intention. This study unveils a revelation of profound insight—an indirect pathway from client violence to the abandonment of the profession.

The perspectives of social workers from ethnic minoritized groups are crucial to informing system change and to rectifying historically ineffectual and damaging care systems. In order to increase the involvement of ethnic minoritized in policy arenas, there is a need for critical reflection in the social work sphere about how systems and mechanisms create unequal power relations. Organizational systems and training frameworks need to cultivate skills and knowledge related to policy and provide opportunities for ethnic minoritized to be involved in policy arenas.

Social work constantly changes as societies, political movements, and professional standards evolve. This study analyzes commonly used textbooks to examine how social work in Canada has changed over time. The focus is on understanding the history, main practices, and emerging justice issues in social work. Key findings show that social work has shifted from primarily protecting people from the harms of capitalism to focusing more on fairness and quality of life. Three additional areas of change were identified: Lived experience discourse, the unique rights of Indigenous peoples, and growing attention to environmental issues. The study also discusses some of the contradictions and challenges within these areas and highlights the need for more research to understand how ideas like social progress and justice are changing in different countries.

This article presents data on older people social workers’ caseloads and vacancy rates across Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland. We used interviews with front line social workers, and focus groups with teams, as well as quantitative data analysis on case numbers and waiting lists, from Community Older People teams. Workloads and caseloads are presented alongside staffing shortages within these specific team structures. The study found that social workers often struggle with high caseloads, with many service users on waiting lists, needing to be responded to through ‘intake’ office duty rota, often when service needs have become more complex. Social workers frequently cover for absent colleagues with many unfilled positions. This research helped unpack what safe staffing means in social work and provides a basis for Department of Health Northern Ireland (2022) workforce planning policy guidance for ‘safer and effective’ social work workloads and inform new legislation to improve working conditions for social workers and thus indirectly benefit service users, carers, and families. While the service pressures grow with ageing demographics, health and social care service provision needs to align with current and future burgeoning demand. The research was commissioned by the Offices of Social Services Northern Ireland.

This article considers how the impact of parental problems, such as substance misuse and mental health problems, on the likelihood of a child entering care, varies according to a child’s ethnicity. It also looks at how much difference there is in the likelihood of children from different ethnic minoritized populations entering care when parental problems are taken into account.

This article draws upon the perspectives of social work practitioners working in children’s social services across the study site (in England), relating to parenting assessments as part of safeguarding/child protection cases involving Deaf parents. As a cultural-minority group, Deaf parents use British Sign Language (BSL) as their preferred language and therefore the study considers the level of cultural competence required by professionals to undertake these assessments. Drawing on seven semi-structured individual interviews conducted by the lead author through a BSL–English interpreter, experiences and views shared by the target group reveal a number of factors in current practice relating to linguistic and cultural aspects of Deaf parents (and/or other cultural linguistic minority groups) subject to safeguarding/child protection. The degree of knowledge about the Deaf community varies within the profession, which can significantly impact the assessment process for this cultural minority group if their needs are not being met. Issues identified, including the use of written English throughout assessments with Deaf parents who might have limited English proficiency, highlight the need for relevant professional training and the development of culturally appropriate resources for this community. Further research is required to elicit views from Deaf parents themselves.

In recent years, self-care for social workers has become a focus for research and practice in recognition of the demands of the social work role. As part of a research project to explore ways to embed self-care into a social work degree programme at a Scottish university, a narrative literature review was undertaken to examine existing research on self-care for social work students and practitioners. This review found that self-care is conceptualized in a variety of ways and that social work practitioners and students generally see it as important though may seldom practice it. The various strategies identified in the literature are examined as well as approaches to implementing self-care in social work curricula. A particular focus of the review is on philosophical constructions of the ‘self’ that is to be cared for. An intersectional perspective is taken to examine how the concept of self-care can be subject to narrow definitions based on social and cultural norms regarding self-identity, and considers broader collective and political notions of self-care that support social justice and anti-oppressive practice. In light of these expanded ways of understanding self-care, the connection with ethical social work practice is highlighted alongside a suggestion that self-care is not only an imperative in the promotion of individual wellbeing for social work students and practitioners but as the foundation of effective and ethical practice.

Sadly, there are a lot of babies who need foster care. These babies are more vulnerable and face many health and development challenges. Caring for them can be tough and requires knowledgeable caregivers. Foster and kinship carers have a big responsibility to care for children, but we don’t know how well they’re trained to care for infants. Our study in Australia asked 232 foster carers about the support and training they were given to help them care for babies. Sadly, only a small percentage of foster carers reported received any training, although some of them were provided support from community nurses and midwives. Most carers agree that better training and support is needed. More research is needed to improve infant foster care.

First, when measuring achievement test score gaps between poor and non-poor children as they age, the gaps are larger when utilizing absolute poverty guidelines than when using relative poverty guidelines. One cause of this increased gap is the low threshold for absolute poverty, as determined by the US federal government. Measuring poverty at the relative poverty line will reduce the noted achievement gap. Secondly, children with lower reading and math scores at ages five to six years had significantly lower scores by ages eleven to twelve years. Children who experience poverty at an early age most often continue experiencing poverty as they grow up. Early intervention programs, such as Head Start, which target young children in poverty might reduce achievement gaps between the poor and non-poor. Thirdly, other factors such as race and ethnicity, maternal educational attainment, maternal cognitive test scores, family support, number of children in the household, and birth year adversely affect children’s reading and math scores. When measuring the equity of children’s achievement test gaps, child, parent, family, and community factors must be considered in addition to poverty.

Little is known about how cultural systems based on shared religious beliefs, values, and lifestyles influence motivation to engage in policy arenas. This qualitative study examines how these systems shape the motivation of social workers to engage in policy practice, and identifies ways to increase their engagement. The findings reveal that cultural systems encompassing religious beliefs, cultural behavior, and religious community affiliation influence how policy practice is perceived. This article emphasizes the importance of providing culturally contextualized knowledge, resources, and opportunities to encourage policy practice in multicultural societies.