Suchergebnisse

Background: The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the highest maternal mortality ratio estimated at 846 deaths per 100,000 live births. Innovative strategies such as social accountability are needed to improve both health service delivery and utilization. Indeed, social accountability is a form of citizen engagement defined as the 'extent and capability of citizens to hold politicians, policy makers and providers accountable and make them responsive to their needs.' This study explores existing social accountability mechanisms through which women's concerns are expressed and responded to by health providers in local settings. Methods: An exploratory study was conducted in two health zones with purposively sampled respondents including twenty-five women, five men, five health providers, two health zone officers and eleven community stakeholders. Data on women's voice and oversight and health providers' responsiveness were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. Results: In the two health zones, women rarely voiced their concerns and expectations about health services. This reluctance was due to: the absence of procedures to express them, to the lack of knowledge thereof, fear of reprisals, of being misunderstood as well as factors such as age-related power, ethnicity backgrounds, and women's status. The means most often mentioned by women for expressing their concerns were as individuals rather than as a collective. They did not use them instead; instead they looked to intermediaries, mostly, trusted health providers, community health workers and local leaders. Their perceptions of health providers' responsiveness varied. For women, there were no mechanisms for oversight in place. Individual discontent with malpractice was not shown to health providers. In contrast, health providers mentioned community health workers, health committee, and community based organizations as formal oversight mechanisms. All respondents recognized the lack of coalition around maternal health despite the many local associations and groups. Conclusions: Social accountability is relatively inexistent in the maternal health services in the two health zones. For social accountability to be promoted, efforts need to be made to create its mechanisms and to open the local context settings to dialogue, which appears structurally absent.

This article discusses exploratory quantitative and qualitative research into the training and education needs of social work managers in Ireland from four sectors of service, the Health Service Executive (HSE), the Probation Service, hospital social work and non-governmental (NGO) social work sectors. 176 questionnaires were distributed. (56 were returned; a response rate of 32%), 3 focus groups were held with 15 participants and 3 individual interviews were conducted with social work managers. They were asked to identify their postgraduate training, their span of responsibilities, the level of management training they had participated in, and the gaps in their management training. While 82% of this sample of social work managers had post qualifying training and education, which enhanced their social work skills rather than their management skills, none had received social work management training. Three out of 56 had completed a Masters degree in Health Service Management. The probation service, laudably, was the only sector that provided management training. However this training was problematic to the managers as it was perceived as not geared for the social work field. The research participants experienced grave misgivings at their lack of management training and prioritised their training needs as including strategic management, cost benefit analysis, organisational management and financial management. This research clearly identified the need for social work management training and supports the immediate establishment of programmes that address this need in order to enhance existing service delivery.

The need for services that respond to the 'maltreatment' of children and to the struggles of families is at the core of social service systems in all developed nations. While these child and family welfare systems confront similar problems and incorporate common elements, there are substantial differences in philosophy, organization, and operation across international settings and models. In this new collection of essays, Nancy Freymond and Gary Cameron have brought together some of the finest international minds to provide an original and integrated discussion of child protection, family service, and community caring models of child and family welfare. The volume not only examines child protection and family service approaches within Western nations - including Canada, the United States, England, the Netherlands, France, and Sweden - it is also the first comparative study to give equal attention to Aboriginal community caring models in Canada and New Zealand. The comparisons made by the essays in this volume allow for a consideration of constructive and feasible innovations in child and family welfare and contribute to an enriched debate around each system. This book will be of great benefit to the field for many years to come

Se ha prestado poca atención a los procesos sociales de la guerra civil –la transformación de actores sociales, estructuras, normas, y prácticas- que a veces dejan legados duraderos para el periodo de la posguerra. En este artículo exploro los cambios originados por seis procesos sociales: la movilización política, la socialización militar, la polarización de identidades sociales, la militarización de la autoridad local, la transformación de los roles de género, y la fragmentación de la economía política local. Algunos de estos procesos sociales ocurren en tiempos de paz, pero la guerra puede cambiar radicalmente su ritmo, dirección, o consecuencias, con efectos tal vez irreversibles. Rastreo la amplia variación en estos procesos durante las guerras en cuatro países: Perú, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, y Sierra Leona. Analizo los efectos de estos procesos como transformaciones de las redes sociales que las reconfiguran de maneras variadas: crean nuevas redes, disuelven algunas, y cambian la estructura de otras. ; Abstract. Little attention has been paid to the social processes of civil war —the transformations of social actors, structures, norms, and practices— that sometimes leave enduring legacies for the postwar period. In this article, I explore the changes wrought by six social processes: political mobilization, military socialization, polarization of social identities, militarization of local authority, transformation of gender roles, and fragmentation of the local political economy. Some of these social processes occur in peacetime, but war may radically change their pace, direction, or consequences, with perhaps irreversible effects. I trace the wide variation in these processes during the wars in four countries: Peru, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, and Sierra Leone. I analyze the effects of these processes as transformations into social networks. These processes reconfigure social networks in a variety of ways, creating new networks, dissolving some, and changing the structure of others.

The authors examine the ways in which recruitment and selection processes facilitate the reproduction of elites and elite cultures within City law firms. The research is based upon original research carried out during 2009, consisting of in-depth semistructured interviews, semiotic and content analyses of recruitment materials and websites, and the analysis of publicly available data demonstrating the educational backgrounds of lawyers practising in the City. By deploying Bourdieusian concepts including the field, 'doxa', cultural capital, and habitus, the authors show that, in the firms studied, homologous elite cultures and social groups are maintained and legitimated as part of attempts to reproduce 'normalised' expectations about the identity and practice of a City professional. Maintenance is ensured by assessing the objectified, institutionalised, and embodied cultural capital of applicants in recruitment and selection processes, with only those possessing certain types of capital being recruited. This selection by cultural capital limits social mobility in City professions, which are dominated by the upper-middle classes, and helps explain why, in the face of critique and in the context of programmes designed to widen social diversity, the City legal profession remains socially exclusive.

An understanding of social policy is vital for engaging practically with social work values, and dealing with political and ethical questions about responsibility, rights and our understanding of 'the good society'. This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to social policy, tailored to the needs of a social work audience.The new edition of this popular and accessible text analyses current policies and policy themes relevant to social work, and locates them in the context of fundamental social policy principles and debates. It discusses the nature of social policy and its relationship to social work, and covers essential themes such as: - service user participation and involvement - the balance between individual, societal and state responsibility for people's wellbeing - the interactions of the state, the private sector, voluntary organisations and the family - the relationships between needs, rights and choices - the purposes and challenges of professional social work - the meanings of 'equality', 'prevention' and 'personalisation'. Each chapter ends with activities for reflection and analysis, and suggestions for further reading. Social Work and Social Policy is invaluable for students undertaking social work qualifying courses, all of whom are required to demonstrate an understanding of the social policy contexts of practice

This paper follows the research framework for context-specific public service delivery presented at ICEGOV 2016 [1]. The research has been conducted at the UNU-EGOV unit during the last year. The paper presents the research landscape for ICT enabled public service delivery scientific and policy literature. The findings are analyzed and presented in a conceptual framework allowing us to identify the core dimensions and sub-dimensions of public service delivery. The paper concludes by outlining the research gaps identified by the study and a series of policy recommendations to enhance public service delivery. The results showed that the Innovation and Evaluation dimensions and their sub-dimensions, Innovating Public Procurement, Collective Learning and Intelligent, Evidence-Based Policy Making and Social Media Impact are the areas with less investigation. ; This research received support from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Government of Portugal (Grant n.º PEstOE/CJP/UI0758/ 2013) and is also partially supported by the "Programa Operacional da Região Norte", NORTE2020, in the context of project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000037 (SmartEGOV). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia. ...

AbstractGiven their substantial societal benefits, such as supporting economic activities and providing better livelihoods in rural areas, ecosystem services should gain higher importance in water-food-energy nexus debates. Yet, not all values from ecosystems are quantifiable, data is often not adequate and methods of measuring these values are not sound. This situation challenges researchers and water managers to improve research tools and give adequate attention to ecosystem services by implementing interdisciplinary approaches and integrated management of ecosystems and their services.