Welfare Reform on the Web (August 2006): Social care - overseas
Immigrant women family caregivers in Canada: implications for policies and programmes in health and social sectors
M.J. Stewart and others
Health and Social Care in the Community, vol.14, 2006, p.329-340
The immigrant women in the present study experienced barriers to services and programmes similar to Canadian-born family caregivers, particularly those with low incomes, jobs with limited flexibility and heavy care giving demands. However, these challenges were compounded by lack of language facility in English, immigration transitions, and separation from family in the home country. Professionals and service providers interviewed recommended: 1) providing culturally appropriate outreach services by ethnic community workers; 2) distributing information on support services in multiple languages; 3) training health professionals in cultural sensitivity; and 4) employing foreign trained professionals. Other recommended services included transportation, language training, interpretation and initiatives to overcome attitudinal barriers.
Interrogating social work: Philippine social work and human rights under martial law
N.G. Yu
International Journal of Social Welfare, vol.15, 2006, p.257-263
The author reports on her analysis of a back run of the journal of the Philippine Association of Social Workers undertaken to explore how the social work profession had responded to abuses of human rights under the dictatorship of President Marcos in the 1970s. The profession at the time was uncritical of the regime and silent about the human rights abuses that it perpetrated. It thus helped to maintain the oppression.
A stark choice
K. Christensen
Community Care, July 6th-12th 2006, p.32-33
Reports some results of a comparative study of direct payments systems in the UK and Norway. Both systems face a similar dilemma: more control of schemes at local authority level risks growing inequality amongst service users.
Trust and professionalism in social professions: the case of social education
J. Saez and M. Sanchez
Current Sociology, vol.54, 2006, p.595-606
This paper looks at the role of social educators in Spain. Social education is seen as a means to fight social exclusion and facilitate access to social rights. Through educational programmes, projects and activities social educators fight against exclusion and injustice and foster democratic participation. However, the role of the social educator is not well understood in Spain, and this article calls on the profession to explain itself better to citizens in order to facilitate the development of trust.