The population approaching social services for help is often characterized by poverty, passivity, helplessness, and an external locus of control. This population expects improvement in its situation but develops a dependent relationship with the help agents. The literature shows that volunteer work contributes toward developing empowerment among volunteers, but to date only a relatively small number of welfare clients have been activated as volunteers, serving more as the object of others' volunteer work. This article describes a classic experimental study, checking the connection between welfare clients' volunteering and their individual feeling of empowerment. The main and most significant finding in the study demonstrated that individual feeling of empowerment among clients who engaged in volunteer work was higher than that of clients not engaged in such work. The findings suggest that volunteer work may serve as an effective intervention tool in social work, whose aim is change in welfare clients' feelings of empowerment.
The article attempts to characterize social work students in higher education institutes in Israel, regarding professional socialization and the development of commitment to the profession during their BA (undergraduate) studies, lasting three years. This longitudinal study included a sample of 450 students in four social work schools. Data was gathered throughout four time periods: during the first two weeks of the academic year and at the end of each academic year. Findings: Students, during the first academic year, harbor certain misconceptions about the profession, leading to a sharp decrease in their commitment to the All authors contributed equally to this work.
Benbenishty (2021) COVID-19 related difficulties and perceived coping among university and college students: the moderating role of media-related exposure and stress,
New statistical methods revealed that a combination of questions related to sleep habits, complaints, and demographic data predicted most of the clinically significant SDB.
Disparity of power and authority in the relationship between parents and professionals has been shown to be a major challenge in creating a successful partnership in caring for children with disability. The goal of this article was to evaluate workshops attended by professionals and parents of children with disability by raising awareness to barriers related to incompatible expectations and role definitions. The research explored the experiences of the participants in order to identify factors that facilitated or impeded their collaborations. Data were collected from three workshops attended by 22 mothers of children with disability and 24 professionals (most of them are social workers). This qualitative research used interpretative phenomenological analysis to investigate the participants' experiences. Findings showed that parents and professionals joined forces to create a productive working relationship by taking advantage of power over and power together relationships. This mutual process required participants to be aware, empathic, and respectful of one another's needs and limitations; acknowledge the contribution of experiential and professional knowledge; and co-operate in overcoming the effects of ineffective bureaucratic service systems.Interventions geared to contain emotional burden, acknowledge differential knowledge and experience, and structure the use of power are suggested.
KEYWORDSparents of children with disability, partnerships between parents and professionals, power embedded strategies: power over, oppression, co-operation, and collusive power, professionals working with parents of children with disability
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