Welfare Reform on the Web (November 2009): Social care - overseas

Language barriers in health and social care consultations in the community: a comparative study of responses in Ireland and England

A. MacFarlane, C. Singleton and E. Green

Health Policy, vol. 92, 2009, p. 203-210

Migration has major implications for host healthcare systems because they need to attend to the health and social care needs of ethnically and linguistically diverse communities. This paper compares Ireland, which is responding to a new challenge in the shape of linguistic barriers in healthcare, and England, where the management of language barriers is being reassessed. It finds that the same range of formal and informal responses to language barriers occur in both countries. However, English service providers have more awareness about use of formal interpreting services than Irish service providers. The uptake of formal services remains low in both countries.

Social work programmes in the social democratic welfare regime

A. Meeuwisse and H. Sward

International Journal of Social Welfare, vol.18, 2009, p. 365-374

This article investigates the growth of social work education in the Nordic countries and discusses whether and how it can be said to be influenced by the social democratic welfare regimes of those countries. It also discusses the academisation of social work education in recent decades, and its establishment as a subject of teaching and research.