2.1 Introduction This session has two activities. Both introduce you to some theoretical perspectives on an approach to practice known as ‘constructive’ social work. You will read and think about some provocative theoretical and philosophical ideas that have an important application to the key practice activities of ‘talk’ and, through talk, the development of working relationships.
Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to: demonstrate a critical understanding of the nature and boundaries of personal and professional discretion and judgement in the delivery of social work services; recognising the complex tensions between personal and social processes in people's lives; demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationship between justice, care and control and the practical and ethical effects of this relationship.
Introduction Local Exchange and Trading Schemes (LETS) expanded rapidly in the UK after the first scheme was set up in Norfolk in 1985. By 1996 LETSLINK UK, the coordinating body, reckoned that there were about 450 LETS in the UK, with 40,000 members. LETS exist in most western European countries – in Australia and New Zealand, the US, Canada and Japan. Their origins lie in Canadian attempts to revive local traditions of skills exchange and barter outside commercial and international labour markets and
4 Comment on the audio clips In the audio clips, Angela Yih defined fuel poverty as any household which had to spend more than ten per cent of its income on energy, (believed to apply to 700,000 people in Scotland). This is, of course, a rather vague definition, one that conveys nothing about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of what is spent on keeping warm. As you heard, many people spent as much as 20 per cent or more of their income on fuel, and were still unable to heat their homes adequately in winter. However, this
Learning outcomes On completion of this unit, you should be able to: understand how some of the needs of homeless people can be met.
6.3 Responsibility for health and illness In Activity 6 you explored factors which influence people's experience of health and we noted that inequalities in health are clearly related to the conditions of people's lives, such as their housing, income and education. On the other hand, health education messages have tended to focus on behaviour – what we
2 Accounting for health Until relatively recently most of the information available to us about how people think about health and illness was concerned with non-Western societies. There was a time when a search in a good anthropological library in Britain would reveal more about the everyday health beliefs of the peoples of, say, African, Asian or South American countries than could be discovered about the everyday health beliefs of the people of the British Isles. Good (1994), in his book Medicine, Rationality a
Activity 5 This activity is an opportunity to reflect on how you might adapt and use the ideas introduced in Activity 4. Imagine you are running a summer holiday Activity 4 We have considered the values and skills needed to undertake participation work. We will now consider some of the methods that can be used to facilitate chi Introduction The aim of this learning guide is to help you develop a critical understanding of the values, skills and methods associated with children’s participation. You will be encouraged to reflect upon and creatively apply the experiences of children and practitioners to new participatory contexts. There are six activities in this unit: 1.1 The biological effects of ethanol This section investigates some of the harmful effects that a high level of blood-ethanol can have on the body: both short-term problems such as ‘hangover’, and long-term health problems that are associated with regular heavy drinking. Whilst this section is primarily about the biological effects that ethanol has on various organs of the body, it is important to remember that the socioeconomic effects of heavy drinking are also very serious (Paton, 2005). Introduction This unit describes some of the effects of drinking alcohol. It looks at alcohol's journey through the body and its effect on the liver. It also discusses some possible beneficial effects. This is an important health issue and should be of wide interest. This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Introducing health sciences: a case study approach
(SDK125) 7.1 What must qualifying social workers do? In a historical sense there has never really been widespread consensus about what it is that social workers should do. The last government enquiry in the 1980s (Barclay, 1982) had to be published with two dissenting minority reports. Consequently, the education and training of social workers has seen a changing backdrop of expectations. The new social work degree is firmly placed within a more detailed framework than has ever been available before. This has advantages and disadvantages. This 5.6 Final words While social work knowledge, skill and experience can make a difference to a family, the contexts in which we practise create the processes which, more than anything else, determine the life chances of us all. Whether social work always contributes to the solution of problems or sometimes actually adds to the problems that some families face is a debate which has existed as long as social work itself. On a more optimistic note, in the end, the vast majority of parents will want to do their be 4.3 What about communities? The last activity looked at the key roles from the perspective of Lynne and Arthur as individuals, but in fact it also says that working with ‘families, carers, groups and communities’ is necessary. Do you think that Dev should also be taking account of the Durrants as a family, as carers and as members of a community? Dev's role in assessing Arthur's needs means that he should also take account of his family circumstances, in other words, Lynne and perhaps her sister. Lynne also has a ca Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to understand: the complexity and dilemmas of diverse perspectives in the field of mental health and distress;
the importance of service users'/survivors' experiences and perspectives; how mental health issues affect everyone; the range of risks faced by service users'/survivors' in their everyday lives. 3.18 Key ethical issues for CAM practitioners: maintain professional boundaries All practitioners have a duty to create and maintain safe boundaries, irrespective of their therapeutic orientation, training or individual way of practising. The therapeutic relationship is based on trust and practitioners must never exploit users for their own ends. Practitioners should be aware that they may be working with users who have difficulty respecting boundaries, whether emotional, sexual or financial. Practitioners also need to be very clear about making their own boundaries expl 1.13 Extract 1 References Antonovsky, A. (1979) Health, Stress and Coping: New Perspectives on Mental and Physical Well-Being, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass. Antonovsky, A. (1987) Unraveling the Mystery of Health: How People Manage Stress and Stay Well, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass. Blaxter, M. (1983) ‘The causes of disease: women talking’, Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 59–69. Bowling, A. (1991) Measuring Health, Buckingham, Open University Pres 1.6.6 Professional bodies and societies Consider joining a learned society or professional organisation. They can be very useful for conference bulletins as well as in-house publications, often included in the subscription. Don't forget to ask about student rates. Try looking for the websites of learned societies associated with your subject area (e.g. The Royal Society , the Institute of Electrica 1.5.7 Referencing We mentioned above that we need to reference sources to ensure we abide by copyright legislation. But there is another reason we need to give accurate references to items we use – so we can share it. Consider this scenario. A friend says they’ve just read an interesting article where Joshua Schachter, founder of Delicious has spoken about why it isn’t a faceted search system, and you should read it. How would you go about finding it? Would you start looking in a news database, a s
Adapting participatory methods
Methods of participation
