Prof Emeritus Mel Gray

In their day-to-day practice, social work and human services practitioners frequently find themselves in confusing ethical quandaries, trying to balance the numerous competing interests of protecting children from harm and promoting family and community capacity. This book explores the ethical issues surrounding child protection interventions and offers a process-oriented approach to ethical practice and decision making in child protection and family welfare practice. Its aim is to prepare students and early-career professionals for roles in the complex and challenging work of child protection and family support. Beginning with a critical analysis and appreciation of the diverse organisational and cultural contexts of contemporary child protection and ethical decision-making frameworks, the authors outline a practical 'real-world' model for reshaping frontline ethical practice. Moving away from a focus on the child apart from the family, the authors recognise that child safeguarding affects the lives, not just of children, but also of parents, grandparents and communities. Working Ethically in Child Protection eschews dominant rational-technical models for relational ones that are value centred and focus on family well-being as a whole. Rather than a single focus on assessing risk and diagnosing deficit, this book recognises that our child protection systems bear down disproportionately on those from disadvantaged and marginalised communities and argues that what is needed is real support and practical assistance for poor and vulnerable parents and children. It uses real-world case examples to illustrate the relevant ethical and practice principles, and ways in which students and practitioners can practise ethically when dealing with complex, multi-faceted issues.

How can mainstream Western social work learn from and in turn help advance indigenous practice? This volume brings together prominent international scholars involved in both Western and indigenous social work across the globe - including James Midgley, Linda Briskman, Alean Al-Krenawi and John R. Graham - to discuss some of the most significant global trends and issues relating to indigenous and cross-cultural social work. The contributors identify ways in which indigenization is shaping professional social work practice and education, and examine how social work can better address diversity in international exchanges and cross-cultural issues within and between countries. Key theoretical, methodological and service issues and challenges in the indigenization of social work are reviewed, including the way in which adaptation can lead to more effective practices within indigenous communities and emerging economies, and how adaptation can provide greater insight into cross-cultural understanding and practice. © Mel Gray, John Coates and Michael Yellow Bird 2008. All rights reserved.

This chapter critically examines the utility of a public health approach in addressing, and preventing complex constellations of maltreatment, particularly when this occurs within impoverished neighbourhoods and communities. It discusses issues surrounding the tensions between the increasing push for more accurate risk assessment against concerns relating to greater social surveillance. Both approaches relate to the value of advanced data-integration systems. It begins by examining problems in the investigation-oriented child protection system that fail to engage families, provide needed services, and proactive early intervention and prevention. A public health model seeks to address prevention issues and takes seriously the social determinants of inequality and poor outcomes for low-income families. The question of whether its whole-of-population epidemiological focus translates well to child protection is one this chapter seeks to examine.

There are many and various postcolonial critiques highlighting problems with the global spread of social work, and Nepal provides evidence of this. According to its international definition, social work aims to promote 'social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people' (International Federation of Social Workers and International Association of Schools of Social Work, 2014). It implies that social work has a recognised status in all countries that enables it to fulfil its transformative, emancipatory aims, and belies the contingent realities of the society in which it is being practised and taught. In Nepal, social work was the brainchild of US Jesuit missionaries, who introduced social work training in the late 1980s. From just one training centre in 1996, over 50 colleges are now engaged in teaching social work, colonising young Nepali's minds (Nandy, 1983) with Western ways of 'thinking' and 'doing' and neglecting the long history of benevolence within Nepali cultures (Yadav, 2017). Participants in the study discussed below equated Nepali traditional norms and values with volunteerism and doing service, with traditional practices promoting community well- being: 'Nepal has a long tradition of doing service' (Niharika). Yadav (2017: xxviii¿ xxix) questioned the importation of social work into Nepal

This chapter draws a historical perspective on South Africa's transition to democracy and examines the progress of developmental social welfare. It describes social development as a top-down, statist or macro- policy approach to poverty eradication. The chapter distinguishes from social democratic or welfare state systems where social security and social services represent institutional arrangements to guarantee all people in society a basic income level or standard of living. It provides a critique of social development with specific reference to South Africa. The chapter shows the Reconstruction and Development Programme was largely replaced by redistribution through Black Economic Empowerment and social security, free services and land reform. In 1997, the government voted R300 million for special poverty alleviation projects and R500 million in 1998. The government appeared to have taken a U-turn in welfare moving from people-centred social development to entitlement-based direct social security payments as important instruments of poverty alleviation and income redistribution.

As in other predominantly English-speaking countries in the West, the vast majority of Australia's population comprises immigrants. While vigorous attempts have been made over the years to plan and control immigration, it has proven extremely difficult to balance the ethnic composition of the population with economic needs. In this chapter immigration in Australia is examined, including its chronological development, waves of policy change, statistical trends, the countries of origin of Australia's immigrants, services provided for them on arrival, reasons why people come to Australia, and the costs and benefits of immigration. Several historical periods in Australia's immigration are identified beginning with the period of nation building and the assimilationist white Australia policy (1901-1973) followed by multiculturalism, which persists today though the thorny question of asylum seekers complicated by the events of 9/11 looked set to threaten Australia's image of itself as a country in which diverse cultures live together harmoniously.

This study is the first to provide evidence of an extensive Nigerian social work literature. It is significant as it unsettles and refutes the prevailing narrative of an absence of African, specifically Nigerian, social work literature to inform the development of a culturally relevant curriculum. A scoping review was conducted to identify Nigerian social work literature that yielded 308 papers. Health emerged as the most established area of research (n = 70), followed by ageing (n = 44) and child welfare (n = 42). The findings have global relevance for social work educators seeking to decolonise the knowledge underpinning social work education and practice.

This article shows the strategic, institutional approach the South African government took in creating and professionalising an occupational group¿community development workers (CDWs), later community development practitioners (CDPs)¿as part of its human resource planning for the social development sector. It highlights the complexities and challenges affecting the progress of community development, not least adequate funding for CDPs employed in local municipalities that, in turn, had to budget and plan for the operation and delivery of services in partnership with the nongovernment sector. It begins with an examination of policy definitions of community development before discussing the ever-changing political landscape and community¿government nexus. It highlights community development's entanglement with government policy and service provision and the community development infrastructure that opened doors for CDPs. It then discusses the policy-led changes shaping community development as a recognised occupation, the legislative requirements for professionalisation and progress towards meeting these. Finally, it suggests that future progress rests on the development of a comprehensive practice framework that addresses not only individual practitioner standards but also the obligations of employers to create an environment conducive to empowering transformative community development programmes in partnership with communities, relevant stakeholders and local organisations.

China provides an extremely interesting contemporary case study for the international social work research community, given its questioning of the pertinence of the international definition of social work and stance in relation to the debates surrounding universalisation, internationalisation and indigenisation. This article begins by examining the evolving identity of Chinese social work, grounded as it is in China's political ideology and socio-cultural values. It then extends the debate on the paradoxical processes of universalisation, internationalisation and indigenisation within the international and Chinese social work discourse in light of the ascendance of Chinese culturalism. Finally, it addresses the impact of these interrelated processes on Chinese social work, as it struggled to adapt to the central government's political control of the developing profession and social project to train 1.45 million social workers by 2020. It argues that, to avoid the Scylla of escaping into tradition (culturalism) and Charybdis of absorption into the West (universalisation), Chinese social work has become a blend of Western and indigenised knowledge still in search of a unique identity.

This paper examines the progress of the social service professions delivering developmental social welfare in South Africa, a subject we have followed closely over the last 20 years. Being policy-driven, developmental social welfare stemmed from expert social analyses that resulted in technically oriented solutions, including the broadening of social service professions. Twenty years on, it is hard to see developmental social welfare, as envisaged in government policy, in action, since the practice reality does not differ drastically from the prior apartheid system with the government's heavy reliance on social security as a poverty-alleviation measure. The expanded social security budget has led to underfunded services and a crisis for social service professionals. This paper focuses on the regulated professions of social workers, and child and youth care workers. Our examination of critical issues for these occupational groups revealed that South Africa still has a long way to go in building a strong social service workforce.

Drawing on free-text survey comments from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health (ALSWH), this article explores themes of transition and change in the lives of 150 women baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1951) in relation to Beck's theories of the risk society, reflexive modernisation and individualisation. Few studies have explicitly explored ageing through Beck's theoretical lenses. However, Beck's emphasis on interactional processes of social, individual and structural change has much to offer for sociological studies of ageing. A key premise is that of complex adaptation and change as people age, with focus on the socio-political contexts in which the post-Second World War baby boomer generation will live out their later years.

Understanding individual resilience helps to improve employment opportunities of people with epilepsy. This is significant because, in Zimbabwe, as in many other countries in the Global South, people with epilepsy encounter several barriers in a context of less-than-ideal public services. Despite this disadvantage, some people with epilepsy have better employment outcomes for reasons including level of seizure control, social background, employment support services, and individual resilience. This article reports on data from participants (n¿=¿8), who were part of a larger study (n¿=¿30) on employment experiences of people with epilepsy in Harare. The study used in-depth interviews with the participants, who were all service users and members of the Epilepsy Support Foundation (ESF) in Harare. The eight resilient participants comprised four males and four females aged between 26-48¿years, who were selected because, unlike the remaining 22 participants, they had overcome chronic unemployment. Seven of the eight participants were employed, while one had recently become unemployed. Views of service providers (n¿=¿7) were sought on the experiences of people with epilepsy through a focus group discussion. The service providers included two health workers, three social service workers, and two disability advocacy workers. Data were analysed using NVivo, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis package. The study found that participants experienced barriers, such as a lack of medical treatment, yet this was important for education and training, lack of finances for training, and negative attitudes at workplaces. Despite these barriers, participants had overcome chronic unemployment due to their individual resilience characterised by: (i) a 'fighting spirit', (ii) being their own advocates, and (iii) having a mastery over, and acceptance of, their epilepsy. The research concluded that, where people with epilepsy faced barriers, as in Zimbabwe, individual resilience acted as a strong coping mechanism that resulted in better employment outcomes. This suggested service providers should strengthen resilience-building initiatives and make them more accessible to people with epilepsy. However, this is only a coping mechanism that should not stop service providers and service users from advocating for government-provided employment services.

Gray M., Davies K., Butcher L. Finding the right connections: Peer support within a community-based mental health service. This article reports on a qualitative study that examined the organisational enablers and barriers to implementing peer support work in an Australian, rural, community-based mental health service. Interviews with 19 peer and non-peer staff were conducted to identify attitudes towards peer support and whether there were organisational values, practices and strategies that might support the implementation of peer support. The findings revealed that peer support workers were valued for their ability to build trusting connections with clients and to accept client choice in a non-judgemental way. However, peer support workers tended to 'fill service gaps' within intensive, administrative case-management environments. These findings highlight the importance of an organisational-wide approach to integrating peer support, where the responsibilities for adopting new ways of working fall to all staff, not just the peer support workers themselves. Key Practitioner Message: ¿ Practitioners placed high value on the peer support workers on their teams due to their unique personalised engagement with clients; ¿ The roles of peer support workers were poorly understood by team members; ¿ Organisational integration of peer support principles could improve the way all staff engage with clients to reflect a recovery orientation.

Background: While legitimate practice tools have been the subject of debate within the profession, little attention has been paid to psychological frames of reference (PFsOR). Hence, this article explores the ways psychological theories and therapies shape occupation-based practice in mental health settings. Methodology: Narrative inquiry methods and thematic analysis were used to explore the career stories of nine occupational therapists who had worked in mental health practice for more than five years. Findings: Respondents found it difficult to hold onto their occupational focus in the psychology-dominated world of mental health practice. The main themes to emerge were (i) tension between occupation and psychology; (ii) overwhelming pressures to adopt PFsOR; (iii) resistance to PFsOR; and (iv) using PFsOR to enhance professional repertoires. Findings pointed to the need to ensure PFsOR include occupational considerations for occupation-based practice in mental health. Conclusion: A occupation-based perspective means balancing PFsOR with occupation-based considerations, so service-user issues are holistically addressed. There is a need to critically review occupational therapists' use of PFsOR lest their most visible practical actions appear psychologically based rather than occupation based.

This paper reports on findings from a national survey (n = 364) of social workers' views on what impedes and supports evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation. In contrast to some prior research, support for EBP was found to be strong among the social workers surveyed. Open-ended responses, however, reflected some reservations about the formalisation, relevance, usability and applicability of EBP in social work. A range of barriers to EBP implementation for social workers were identified at individual and organisational levels, which is largely supportive of findings from prior research. An interesting distinction was discerned between those respondents who preferred to engage in the whole EBP process themselves (locating, appraising and applying research) and those who preferred to adopt practice guidelines based on appraisal of research evidence by other experts. This finding has implications for the way organisations and the social work profession approach the implementation of EBP.

The growth of socially engaged art practice over the last decade is considered in light of the relationship between social work, art and social change. The question posed is 'has social work - caught in neo-liberal paternalism - given way to socially engaged art as a medium of social change?' The paper argues that, as social workers have vacated public spaces of activism and change, so artists have moved in to fill the void and suggests there has never been a better time to reinvigorate critical social work and its emancipatory potential.

In contemporary knowledge societies, scientific research has been emphasised as a key component of effective and accountable service provision. This paper examines commonalities and distinctions between two discourses of research utilisation: 'evidence-based practice' (EBP) and 'knowledge production/utilisation' (KPU) - the former more prominent in informing the social work canon, the latter with some potential to do so. Specifically, it considers how and where these discourses are now coming together, through a focus on 'knowledge mobilisation', 'implementation' and 'innovation', and a shared emphasis on the role of organisations in bridging the gap between research and action. It hopes to contribute to the movement towards greater research use in social work and enhance understanding of the mechanisms by which research is connected to action.

This paper draws on findings from an Australian study of mental health service users' perspectives on service user participation to examine the challenges for translating recovery policy into practice. It considers the ways in which national mental health policies and developing welfare reforms reflect and/or contradict the highly personal mode of recovery important to service users; though they seemingly signal potential wins for service user empowerment, they are accompanied by losses for those who do not fit neatly into clinical categorisations. The service users (n = 11) and service providers (n = 6) interviewed for this exploratory qualitative study revealed that recovery was a lifelong process of fluctuating capacity and described a system poorly equipped and often unwilling to move beyond tokenistic modes of participation. The analysis of service user perspectives against the backdrop of policy reform reveals the ongoing tensions between personal and clinical definitions of recovery.

The paper takes as its starting point the paradoxical question of whether postmodernism can have a moral, ethical and values base. It explores the murky waters of postmodern relativism, which works against professions such as social work taking a strong ethical stance against injustice. It explores some philosophical arguments supporting the search for moral universals, no matter how minimal they might be, and advocates the enduring utility of ethical codes, despite their limitations. By its very nature ethics has a transcendent quality and Habermas's groundbreaking ethical schema is described for its enduring fit with the Western philosophical tradition and its compatibility with social work thinking on ethics.

This paper explores the growing importance of partnership development within the social services sector in Australia. It proposes that the social, political and economic factors giving rise to shifting priorities in this newly named "third" sector are encapsulated in the notion of social entrepreneurship being given impetus by the Federal Government's policy of mutual obligation, the findings of the Welfare Reform Group and the consequent Australians Working Together programme. It argues that community development is the ideal strategy for partnership development that fits well with the strengths perspective, where the emphasis is on mutual engagement in an equal relationship such that the collective assets and resources of the collaborating partners can be harnessed for the good of the community. The parallels between partnerships and human relationships are outlined and the role of the key sectors of community, business, government and non-government in the provision of social services are discussed. The paper ends with a discussion of community-business partnership development. Partnerships are seen to offer social workers with opportunities and challenges in the development of creative and innovative programmes aimed at social improvement.

This paper describes a study which examined community development projects in three communities in the greater Durban area of South Africa. The research indicated a range of outlooks on the concept of community development across three major participant groups: social work academics, community development workers and members of community-based development committees.

The article outlines a vision for social work education consistent with the challenge of reconstruction and development currently sweeping South Africa. It presents a case example which epitomizes the developmental context to which social work education needs to respond and makes suggestions regarding an appropriate developmental social work curriculum.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Young People at Risk (IMC) is a committee which was appointed by the government to investigate problems in the child and youth care system in South Africa. It has the support of those who are politically powerful within government, especially the Minister of Welfare, who is under pressure to deal with the crisis in caring for deviant youth. While accepting the broad goals of the IMC, namely, the transformation of the child and youth care system, it is nevertheless necessary to critique the processes used to achieve its objectives, the people and organisations which have influenced its work, and the outcome of the initial stages of this work, namely, the Draft Discussion Document (DDD 1996). Since this is a policy document, Gil's (1992) framework will be used to analyse the processes, influences and outcome of the work of the IMC to date. Of necessity, the interpretations will be subjective and reflect the particular interests of the writers. However, every attempt is made to review the IMC in a scholarly way and to justify the critique of its work which is based on discussions with members of the IMC and an analysis of the Draft Discussion Document summarising its findings and recommendations. It is believed that developments within, and outcomes of, the IMC are of vital concern to all social workers because they point to the direction that social policy in South Africa is taking. It is hoped that this paper will stimulate debate and encourage social workers to become actively involved in macro-level policy issues surrounding child and youth care.

This paper examines the relationship between social work and the emerging occupational group of community developers (also referred to as community development workers). Its purpose is to inform the discussion presently underway which sees a need for inclusion of this group into the mainstream delivery of social services and to make social workers aware of the forces behind the changes within welfare. It is argued that by examining the historical context of the profession, it will be realised that these changes are part of the new political agenda and are driven by the broader goals of mass economic and social development. The paper provides a particular view of what is happening vis a vis the human resource needs of the Department of Welfare and concentrates on one particular emerging occupational group, namely, community develoeprs. Although community development is multi-sectoral, it is recognised internationally as one of social work's diverse roles. In South Africa, where social workers have been historically bound to welfare services and agency-based service delivery, use of community development as an intervention strategy has not been common. Hence, the training of community developers is seen as one way in which both the welfare system and the state can reach previously neglected and marginalised groups, especially the rural poor. However, there is no guarantee that, as professionalisation takes hold, community developers will indeed reach these groups unless an infrastructure exists where they might be employed. currently the alternative welfare sector comprising NGOs and CBOs as agents of civil society, employ the bulk of existing community development practitioners. If these emerging processionals are to have any impact on the problems and needs of the poor, both training and employment opportunities will have to be created.