Lauri Goldkind

How Much Does the Distance in Distance Education Matter? Our Students Speak

Distance learning programs in social work education have been growing exponentially throughout the United States. This study interviewed Master of Social Work (MSW) students enrolled in two synchronous distance-learning courses that employed a blended pedagogy, and evaluates their insights about the learning experience. For these two courses, material was presented via video conferencing and supplemented with online media at two campuses at a large school of social work. In order to give students a voice about their experiences, data were collected using semi-structured face-to-face interviews. Common themes included: autonomy, emotional connectedness, technological challenges, and knowledge acquisition. Both the strengths and challenges related to distance learning are discussed.

Social Media and Social Service: Are Nonprofits Plugged In to the Digital Age?

Social media has become ubiquitous in everyday life as well as a part of many organizational cultures and communications plans. However, in the nonprofit sector, in which technology adaption has historically been slower than the corporate sector, social media use is less pervasive. This qualitative study used a Template Analysis approach to explore social media use across a sample of nonprofit human service organizations. Twenty senior leaders participated in interviews, focusing on how their organization used social media, the effects of using electronic communications tools, and the enhancers and barriers to social media use. Four themes emerged from the analysis of the interview data: social media supports, resources, obstacles, and experiential. In addition to those themes, a classification system emerged based on Brandtzaeg’s media user typology. The author discusses practice implications and considers directions for future research.

More Than the Sum of Its Parts: An Innovative Organizational Collaboration Model

For at least the past decade, the social service sector has been pressed by external forces to develop models of interagency collaboration. While many organizations use strategic partnerships, joint service delivery models, and even mergers to remain viable in climates of competition, few agencies have explored the possible rewards of sharing development and fundraising tasks. This article examines an innovative collaborative fundraising entity forged by three child welfare organizations in the New York City area. The authors conducted structured interviews with key stakeholders at each of the three agencies to describe the model as implemented by the agencies as well as begin to identify the organizational and executive characteristics that may make such models successful. The article concludes with a discussion of recommendations and suggestions for organizations interested in pursuing similar collective efforts, in addition to providing areas of consideration for agency executives.

E-advocacy in Human Services: The Impact of Organizational Conditions and Characteristics on Electronic Advocacy Activities among Nonprofits

E-advocacy, or the constellation of electronic tools used for policy advocacy, offer cost-effective approaches for engaging constituents to create social change. Providers of human services may face challenges when trying to implement these tools. While many electronic tools have low barriers for entry, other factors may inhibit their use in agencies. This article explores the organizational characteristics related to the use of electronic advocacy strategies. Based on a survey of nonprofit executives, the study uses path modeling to describe the connections between organizational characteristics and the use of electronic advocacy tools. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Digital Native Meet Friendly Visitor: A Flexner-Inspired Call to Digital Action

ABSTRACT A century ago, Abraham Flexner offered his perspective on the nascent field of social work, describing the field as educationally unfocused, too diversified in its practices, and too relational or assistive to other fields to meet the criteria for professional status. Using the example of the imperative to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into social work practice, we examine the ways these 100-year-old challenges persist as well as how they are being challenged and reworked. Drawing on three central themes from Flexner—education, diversity of professional settings and functions, and the relational nature of the work—we examine the absence of ICTs in social work practice, arguing that a lack of curricular exposure to ICT tools, strategies, and thinking at the BSW and MSW levels and a failure to incorporate these technologies with clients, agencies, and communities leads to a damaging disjunction between professionals and a changing culture. We suggest that the challenge proffered to social work by technology provides a radical opportunity to create a more socially just practice, offer a preliminary list of best practices for approaching ICT integration, and make suggestions for further inquiry.

Senior Centers and Policy Advocacy: Changing Public Perceptions.

As critical components of the aging continuum of care, senior centers promote older adult health and well-being by providing opportunities for recreation, socialization, nutrition, health education, and access to vital social services. Nationally, a vast network of 11,000 senior centers serves over four million older adults annually. As the United States population ages rapidly, public funding, which is the primary source of support for a majority of senior center services, has remained stagnant. If senior centers are to continue to effectively serve older adults and meet their comprehensive needs, they need to demonstrate their relevance to the community and advocate for increased funding support. This paper explores the policy concerns of senior center administrators, investigates their efforts to influence public policy, illustrates advocacy techniques currently utilized by them, and highlights the learning needs of administrators in this regard. Practice implications for senior centers, their constituents, and gerontological education are provided.

Merging for Survival: An Innovative Collaboration Effort, One Year Later

Nonprofit human services providers are struggling to meet increasing demands for services with diminished budgetary resources. This study returns to a unique collaborative fundraising model one year later in order to assess the progress toward successful joint fundraising a year after an initial study of the partnership was completed. Key stakeholders from the two remaining partner agencies were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol. Two major themes arose from examining the data: the primacy of relationships in building a successful collaboration and the importance of sustainability and accountability to the well-being of the new organization. The authors discuss practice implications as well as important considerations for other leaders considering the implementation of such a model.

Late Adapters? How Social Workers Acquire Knowledge and Skills About Technology Tools

ABSTRACT Little is understood about the scope of information and communication technology (ICT) use in practice for agency-based social work professionals, and still less is known about how such practitioners acquire and avail themselves of opportunities to learn about ICT tools. This study asked a sample of social work field supervisors (n = 371) to describe their personal and professional ICT use, to rank the technological sophistication of their agency, to describe the barriers and facilitators to ICT use in their organizations and to operationalize environmental opportunities for acquiring new skills and knowledge. The authors examine factors that may influence technology use: asking if organizational culture is related to uptake in the professional context, and if self-reported individual resistance to innovation and change can explain voluntary adoption of ICT tools. The results offer a portrait of how agency-based social workers are using technology in personal and professional life, describe how these supervisors learn about developing technologies for practice, and highlight the gaps in technology infrastructures among agencies, pointing to directions for further exploration.

Leaning Out: Exploring Organizational Advocacy Activities From an Open Systems Perspective

This article explores the effect of organizational culture on engagement with advocacy activities, both traditional and electronic. The Competing Values Framework offers a model for understanding how organizations’ culture influences behavior. Using a sample of nonprofit providers from across the country, the author hypothesized that organizations that use electronic advocacy tools are more involved with advocacy activities of all types. A paper and pencil survey was used to collect data on organizational culture, advocacy tools and techniques, perceived effectiveness of the advocacy tools, policy goals, organizational sustainability goals as well as barriers and facilitators of electronic advocacy. The study used path modeling to describe the connections between organizational culture and engagement in advocacy activities. The article examines the barriers and facilitators of electronic advocacy, the penetration of electronic advocacy use in this sample of agencies and the perceptions of effectiveness associated with using these strategies; lastly, the implications of these findings for managers and organizational leaders are discussed.

Critical participatory design: reflections on engagement and empowerment in a case of a community based organization

Participatory Design (PD) methods serve a dual purpose of facilitating the achievement of superior design artifacts by connecting the designers and developers with their end-users, as well as catalyzing democratic engagement and empowerment of the end-users. These complementary goals of engaging and empowering individuals, who not only use the designed products but are also affected by these artifacts, have proven elusive to achieve in most cases. In this paper, we discuss a PD engagement with the staff of a community-based organization (CBO) towards developing a technology tool supporting their homeless outreach services. We undertake a critical qualitative inquiry, using a Situational Analysis analytic strategy to analyze the data reflecting on the complex dynamics of democratic engagement and participation, as well as empowerment in PD. The paper further unpacks the varied dependencies and relations between the elements and the discursive constructions prevalent in the situation of a PD session. It also presents a mapping of the various PD activities against levels of critical reflection.1