There is a growing trend in social work practice to use a strengths perspective with families in difficulty. Beginning with a description of the characteristics of the strengths-based approach, this article then moves on to examine the interventions of practitioners working in Youth Centers (YCs) and in Centres Local de Services Communautaires (Local Community Services Centers, or CLSCs). A qualitative analysis of the practitioners’ personal practice descriptions and a quantitative study, based on a questionnaire measuring professional behaviors of the practitioners’ work with 118 families, were done. Most of the practitioners concentrated on the personal weaknesses of the parents and accorded little or no importance to their strengths. The results also show that the organizational context influences the emphasis put on the parents’ strengths by the practitioners.
In July 2013, a train derailment profoundly disrupted the tranquility of the population of Lac-Mégantic for months and even years. In 2016, we conducted a representative population-based survey among 387 people from Lac-Mégantic and 413 from other municipalities with the aim to document psychological and physical health of adults exposed to the disaster. This article examines differences between 3 groups of respondents: those who were highly, moderately or not exposed to the train accident. Khi Square analyses, odds ratios and logistic regressions were used to examine differences between the 3 groups of respondents (high, moderate and no exposure). Results show that the level of exposure to this technological disaster is strongly associated with psychological suffering, post-traumatic growth, physical heath, drinking patterns, and use of prescribed and non-prescribed drugs. We can explain these results by the nature and cause of the event as well as its consequences.
Depuis quelques années, les auteurs de plusieurs disciplines affirment que l’engagement paternel doit être facilité par l’accès à des services sociaux adaptés aux besoins des pères. Bien que le rôle du père soit de plus en plus démystifié, les chercheurs et les cliniciens sont toutefois loin d'être tous convaincus de l'utilité de sa présence dans l'intervention. Étant donné les enjeux inhérents au contexte de la protection de la jeunesse, le présent article est consacré à la question suivante : « Dans quelle mesure les intervenants impliquent les pères dans les pratiques en protection de la jeunesse? ». Afin de répondre à cette question, cet article brosse d’abord un tableau des connaissances empiriques sur la question de l’intervention auprès des pères, tout en insistant sur la spécificité du contexte de la protection de la jeunesse. Ensuite, les résultats obtenus à la suite d’une recherche menée auprès de 229 intervenants qui travaillent dans un contexte de protection de la jeunesse sont présentés et discutés.For some years now, writers in a number of fields have been affirming that paternal commitment needs to be facilitated by making available social services that are adapted to the needs of fathers. Although the paternal role has become much clearer, researchers and many clinical practitioners remain far from convinced of the usefulness of the father in the equation. Given the issues linking this problematic to that of child protection, the present paper is focused on the following question: «To what extent do the various intervenors involve the father in child protection practices?». To answer this question, in this paper I will first chart available empirical data on the extent to which services are made available to fathers, stressing the specific context of child protection. I will then present and discuss the results of a survey of 229 practitioners working within the area of child protection
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