Suchergebnisse

Organisational behaviour for social work unites the well-established study of behaviour in organizations with the special, and sometimes unusual, organizational settings of social work practice. In doing this, it recognizes the gendered nature of social work organizations, but, uniquely, retains simultaneously the valuable insights of mainstream organizational behaviour research, despite its often male context. Another innovation of the book is the targetting of non-traditional organizational behaviour audiences. For, where previous textbooks have tended to cater for managers, this book is aimed at the social work practitioner, and others who interact with social work organizations. Finally, the book uses real social work case examples to flesh out traditional organizational behaviour concepts, and, in doing so, also explains the impact of recent organizational changes upon social work practice

The concept of failure tacitly present in the value base of social work is either contentless, is a residual category, or is wholly negative in content. By applying the concept of 'community of practice', however, it is suggested that practice educators and practitioners operate, in practice, a positive conception of failure. Impending failure may actually be functional because of the values with which social work is aligned. If this is so, then the predominantly negative valuation of failure must be reassessed. The problems to which this gives rise are considered, with the conclusion that by considering social work as a community of practice, it is possible to acknowledge and utilize the sharing of failure.
KEYWORDS: Communities of practice; professional errors; social work values

Analysis of feedback from student placements in inter – professional settings suggests that the fault – lines of inter - professional working tend to fall in with physical boundaries in communities, on sites, within buildings, and within the workspace. Furthermore, placement conflict frequently surfaces in spatial issues but solutions when identified are only rarely spatial. By attending more closely to what students say about where on the placement their best and worst practice learning experiences occur, placement co-ordinators and placement agencies can begin to map the practice experience, adding something to their existing knowledge of service user experience and organisational structure.

Despite a sometimes implied lead, in the social work literature, of social work training over health training in the area of values, since the decline of community social work in the 1980s health training has developed a focus upon the physical environment which seems set to leave social work education trailing behind in the area. This paper therefore explores inter - professional overlap in the area of human geography, and in particular its relation to professional identity and the core social work value of social responsibility. Finally, it outlines ways of raising awareness of the physical environment among social work students, and in doing so seeks to break free of the placement/learning environment dichotomy and link social responsibility to the campus experience itself.

This paper highlights common errors in social work students' approaches to faith/spirituality and place whilst on field education placement. It briefly investigates the Christian conception of sacredness and space which often underpins such errors.The issue is exemplified by contrasts between Aboriginal Australian conceptions of place and spirituality and the mutually exclusive conceptions of these spaces, held by many non-Aboriginal welfare practitioners in Australia. This paper suggests some ways in which social workers, including social work students, could engage with spirituality, inclusive of geo-socio-political materiality, in their work, where appropriate, with Indigenous, migrant, refugee or colonial settler populations.The paper engages critically with literature on cultural competence in relation to issues of land, and the identity one gains from connection to land, and spirituality. This paper concludes by identifying key questions for placement students and educators seeking to respond appropriately when interfacing sacred spaces of the 'other'.