Joan Pennell

Safety Conferencing Toward a Coordinated and Inclusive Response to Safeguard Women and Children

To reach out to women from different backgrounds, the battered women’s movement needs to place women and their informal supports at the center of a coordinated response. This article shares the views of domestic violence survivors, staff, and supporters on how to create such a coordinated and inclusive response, lays a conceptual foundation for a decision-making forum called safety conferencing, and sets forth guidance for its practice. Safety conferencing is proposed as one means of building the individual and collective strength to reshape connections, make sound choices, and promote the safety of women and children from diverse cultures.

Family group conferencing as a culturally adaptable intervention: Reforming intercountry adoption in Guatemala

Intercountry adoptions prevent institutionalization but may erode children’s rights to their families and cultural heritage. Family group conferencing offers a culturally adaptable intervention that looks for domestic solutions before turning to out-of-country placements. Guatemalan social work education offers a hospitable environment in which to promote its extension to adoptions.

Feminist Links, Postmodern Interruptions: Critical Pedagogy and Social Work

Postmodern perspectives can constructively interrupt conventional views as long as social workers remain linked to feminist and other intersecting emancipatory movements. This article deconstructs the dichotomy between science and practice and presents a class exercise to illustrate how an analysis of feminist links–postmodern interruptions can promote a self-critical and proactive education in foundation courses for largely female students in historically marginalized regions of Canada and the United States.

Family Group Conferencing in public mental health and social capital theory

Summary Clients in public mental health care have limited social capital; they lack trusting and mutually supportive relations within bonded groups and do not have access to supportive external groups. Family Group Conferencing (FGC) is a promising decision-making model to restore social ties and mobilise informal support. From January 2011 to September 2013, 41 family group conferences were organised in a Dutch public mental health care setting and studied using a qualitative case study methodology. Twenty-three of the conferences were successful in meeting their goals. This article reports on findings from the other 18 family group conferences that apparently had failed as the preparations became stuck or because a plan was never reached or fully implemented. Semi-structured interviews with 118 out of a possible total of 215 FGC participants were conducted to examine the process and impact of the conferences. Findings The interviews indicate that conferences were often held as a last resort, in situations where professional care had already failed prior to the conference. The intended goals of the conferences were not achieved because support from the social network was insufficiently mobilised and clients themselves felt helpless that they could improve their conditions. Applications A single conference seems insufficient on its own to break through a sense of inadequacy and paralysis. Social capital theory points to the necessity of not only renewing informal networks (‘strong ties’) but of expanding networks through connecting public mental health care clients to paid and volunteer work (‘weak ties’). FGC plans can include such action steps. Instituting a ‘family manager’ to monitor these steps may support the bonding of ‘strong ties’ and the bridging to ‘weak ties’.

Family violence, fathers, and restoring personhood *

ABSTRACT Restorative justice holds those who abuse as morally responsible and, thus, capable of acknowledging wrongdoing, changing how they relate to others, and rebuilding their sense of personhood. Applying restorative practices in situations of family violence, however, may endanger the participants unless they are prepared for the deliberations and sufficient safeguards are in place. A starting place for engaging some men who abuse in restorative processes is through their role as fathers. ‘Strong Fathers’ was a group programme for men who had committed domestic violence and were referred by child welfare. The men who persevered with the programme were pulled by their desire to be close to their children and pushed by their sense of what it means to be a man and a father. The often painful process restored rather than punished the participants, and the results point to how to interface treatment programmes and restorative practices.

Exploring organizational culture and climate in community coalitions

There is little research on the effects of organizational culture and organizational climate in community coalitions. This study investigated School Readiness Coalitions during their formative period to test the association between indicators of organizational culture and climate and the influence on collaborative capacity to plan services. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis found three factors to explain 48% of the variance in coalition collaborative capacity to plan services. Findings suggesting a constructive culture that is both supportive and individualistic include sufficient autonomy to make decisions and contributions; and a positive coalition climate for members was dependent on job satisfaction in their home organization enabling, which then translated to working and planning together as a group. Further research is needed to understand the complexity in the coalition context than previously recognized.

Union Participation of Canadian and American Social Workers: Contrasts and Forecasts

Social workers are increasingly joining labor unions, and, today, in both Canada and the United States, their rate of union participation exceeds that of the general work force. However, despite many similarities between these neighboring countries, the level of union membership of American social workers is distinctly below that of their northern counterparts. Facilitators of and constraints on social work unionization are identified. Labor relations legislation and national ideology are found to be particularly influential. On the basis of this comparative and historical study, future trends in social work unionization are predicted.

Ideology at a Canadian shelter for battered women: A reconstruction

Abstract Feminist organizations seek to end gender injustice and positively reorient societal structures. Hindering the achievement of this mission is their lack of a coherent explanation of present social arrangements, their lack of clearly defined ideals, and their lack of agreed-upon change strategies. To address these problems, a method for analysing and reconstructing organizational ideology is applied to the statement of philosophy of a shelter for battered women and their children. Both the research approach and empirical findings stress the interplay between affinity and distancing in the production of critical but hopeful thinking and constructive action.