Lesley Irene Chenoweth

Social work, stress and burnout: A review

Stress and burnout for health care professionals have received increasing attention in the literature. Significant administrative, societal and political changes have impacted on the role of workers and the responsibilities they are expected to assume. Most writers suggest that social work is a highly stressful occupation, with stress deriving in particular from role conflict between client advocacy and meeting agency needs. This article reviewed the social work literature with two questions in mind: Are social workers subject to greater stress than other health professionals? What factors contribute to stress and burnout among social workers? We found that most of the literature was either anecdotal or compared social worker stress with general population norms rather than with stress levels of workers in comparable professions. Such empirical research as is available suggests that social workers may experience higher levels of stress and resulting burnout than comparable occupational groups. Factors identified as contributing to stress and burnout included the nature of social work practice, especially tension between philosophy and work demands and the organization of the work environment. There was some evidence that supervision and team support are protective factors.

A qualitative study of the transition from hospital to home for individuals with acquired brain injury and their family caregivers

Primary Objective: To explore the transition experiences from hospital to home of a purposive sample of individuals with acquired brain injury (ABI). Research Design: Phenomenological, qualitative design. Methods and Procedures: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 individuals with ABI (mean time since discharge = 15.2 months) and 11 family caregivers. Each interview was recorded, transcribed verbatim and then inductively analyzed. Results: Through the inductive analysis process, a summary coding framework was developed that included that following eight main categories: the hospital experience; the transition process; the role of family caregivers; post-discharge services; friendship networks and community involvement; meaningful activities and time management; physical and psychological wellbeing; and barriers and facilitators. Conclusions: The results of the study provide valuable insights into the lived experiences of participants and provide evidence to support the existence of a distinct transition phase within the ABI rehabilitation continuum; additional to and closely associated with the acute, post-acute and community integration phases.

Violence and Women With Disabilities Silence and Paradox

Women with disabilities typically occupy positions of extreme marginalization and exclusion that make them more vulnerable to violence and abuse than other women. There is a profound silence around the lived experiences of many women with disabilities that has meant that the violence in their lives is largely invisible and unknown. Further, many of our social practices involving women with disabilities appear to be based on contradictory assumptions that give rise to a series of paradoxes. Practices such as overprotection, segregation, the training of women with disabilities to comply with requests from staff, and a prevailing view that women with disabilities are simultaneously asexual and promiscuous all increase the incidence of abuse and violence rather than prevent it. This article examines experiences of a number of Australian women with disabilities, their mothers and other women who work with them, and official reports of several Australian inquiries into violence.

Email-facilitated qualitative interviews with traumatic brain injury survivors: A new and accessible method

Primary objective: To trial the method of email-facilitated qualitative interviewing with people with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Research design: Qualitative semi-structured email-facilitated interviews. Procedures: Nineteen people (17 severe diagnosis) with a TBI participated in email interviews. Main outcomes and results: Findings indicate that this method facilitates the participation of people with TBI in qualitative interviews. Advantages include increased time for reflection, composing answers and greater control of the interview setting. In addition, the data indicates that people with a TBI are capable of greater insight, reflection and humour than indicated by previous research. Conclusion: Findings indicate that new technologies may advance data collection methods for people with cognitive-linguistic impairments who face participation barriers in face-to-face interviews.

Implications of social capital for the inclusion of people with disabilities and families in community life

This paper seeks to ascertain the usefulness of the theory of social capital as a framework for developing and sustaining the inclusion of people with disabilities and families in community life. We discuss the theoretical elements of social capital and assess its relevance when understanding both the experiences of people with disabilities and their families and the possible implications for policy and programme efforts to promote inclusion. Preliminary findings from two studies of the experiences and social networks of people with disabilities and their families in communities in regional and rural Australia are presented. It is argued that to date, people with disabilities and their families have largely been excluded from the broader social capital debate and that social capital thinking has had minimal influence on efforts to achieve the inclusion of people with disabilities into community life. It is further argued that new paradigms of support are needed that build capacity and social capital through working alongside individuals and families to influence not only outcomes for them, but also for the communities on which they live. The local area coordination model as it has developed in Australia since 1989 provides some instructive signposts for integrating individual, family and community approaches. It is concluded that social capital theory can make a contribution to inclusion theory and practice but we should use it with circumspection.

Building resilient communities: Social work practice and rural Queensland

Abstract This paper applies the notion of community resiliency to rural and regional Queensland and explores the role of human services and practitioners in developing this resiliency. Communities can be considered as being ‘resilient’ when they respond to crises in ways that strengthen communal bonds, resources and the communitys capacity to cope. Increasingly, community resiliency has become the focus of international research (Kulig and Brown 1996; 1997), In our work, we have been exploring alliance-building between practitioners and their communities in several research projects in rural and regional Queensland. We argue that these alliances contribute significantly to the building of resiliency and are a potential site for further work in strengthening and sustaining rural communities. The implications of community resiliency for social work practice are discussed.

Preventing abuse in accommodation services: From procedural response to protective cultures

This article reviews current approaches of disability accommodation services to addressing the abuse and neglect of people with intellectual disability who live in them. We review international literature and provide practice examples from accommodation services for people with intellectual disability in Australia to develop a framework of current research, policy and practice in this area. The results of this review show that dominant policy and practice approaches do not give adequate consideration to the prevention and protection of people from harm, focusing primarily on responding to individual instances of maltreatment. Managerial, compliance-based systems may be deflecting attention from recognizing and responding more effectively to abuse and neglect at individual, systemic and structural levels. The current dominant approach fails to develop a culture of prevention and protection for people with intellectual disability. Further, some systemic and structural preconditions are set which make abuse and neglect less likely to be prevented.

Leave No Stone Unturned: The Inclusive Model of Ethical Decision Making

Ethical decision making is a core part of the work of social work and human service practitioners, who confront with regularity dilemmas of duty of care; confidentiality, privacy and disclosure; choice and autonomy; and distribution of increasingly scarce resources. This article details the development and application of the Inclusive Model of Ethical Decision Making, created in response to growing awareness of the complexities of work in both public and private sectors. The model rests on four key platforms that are constructed from important foundational values and principles. These platforms are: Accountability, Consultation, Cultural Sensitivity and Critical Reflection, and underlie the dynamic five-step process that uses a reflective yet pragmatic approach to identify and analyze all relevant aspects of an ethical dilemma. The article begins by exploring the anatomy of an ethical dilemma, including the identification of competing ethical principles. It then moves on to highlight the different points in a decision-making process where difficulties typically arise for practitioners who may confront problems of interpretation of ethical codes, lack of access to needed resources and supports, or who may find themselves bound by legal or organizational restrictions. It is argued that this model has useful application for both social work education and practice.

Workfare Oz-style: Welfare reform and social work in Australia

Summary Traditional approaches to the promotion of welfare have disappeared in Australia, replaced by a new institutional order represented by welfare-cum-workfare. This has impacted on social work—both as a collective entity and as a set of practices. This paper maps the shift to workfare in Australia and examines its impacts on and implications for social work. We briefly discuss the Australian model of social protection, illustrating our own brand of “exceptionalism,” and lay out what we have termed “Workfare Oz-style.” Drawing upon neo-institutional theory, we review and analyze two key contexts where “Workfare Oz-style” is operationalized—the Job Network and Centrelink. Some tentative conclusions are given and the dimensions of a research agenda, which will put any emerging propositions to empirical test, are proposed.

1'Social Work and Disability: An Uneasy Relationship', , 63:1, 1 - 3

People with disabilities remain one of the most marginalised groups in society with poverty, exclusion, and constant struggle to be seen as equal, valued citizens often characterising their lives. The involvement of social work with people with a disability goes back virtually to the beginnings of the profession. Even further back, disability has featured in social policy for as long as anything recognisable as such has existed. The early Greek city states had disability-related pensions for those returning from the many wars of the period, early poor laws included provision for the ‘‘infirm’’, and provision for the licensing of ‘‘beggars’’ with a range of impairments. Late medieval alms houses were often home to ‘‘idiots and cripples’’ and, in more modern times, institutional provisions -whether prison, workhouse, or asylum-served as the default welfare system for many people with disabilities. As the above suggests, the relationship between people with disabilities and social work and policy has not always been a positive one: a mix of charity at best and incarceration at worst, a trend that has continued to some degree into the present day. Social work itself shows the same gamut of response. As Bigby and Atkinson (2010) show in their contribution to this issue, many social workers were a valued and integral part of the early British system of support for people with intellectual disabilities and their families. At the same time, their work was initiated under the eugenics inspired Mental Deficiency Act (1913), which led to widespread incarceration of people with intellectual disabilities. In more recent times, it is easy to understand that people with disabilities and their families have a mix of reactions to social work. These can range from valued supporter, ally, and advocate to paternalistic interventionist, assumed expert, and gate-keeper to flawed service systems. Since the 1970s, people with disabilities have been increasingly demanding their rights as full and equal citizens. Current trends in establishing recognition in law to secure their rights, notably the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and demands for control over how, when, and by whom they are supported, reflect this new paradigm. The calls for increased recognition of decision-making capacity and personalisation of supports through measures such as supported decision making, individualised funding, and person-centered planning have significant impact on both policy and practice to which social work must respond. In the United States, this latter set of trends has become known as ‘‘self-determination’’. For social work, these demands for social justice and self-determination align directly with core social work values and suggest that ethical practice should place social workers squarely in line with the disability movement in their struggle for meaningful equality. However, the challenges of responding to this paradigm are complex, requiring not only changes in practice and policy, but also in new models of understanding, collaboration, and research. It also comes at a time when, as Bigby and Atkinson