Catherine Mcdonald
Biographic Data
| ID | 3994401 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Catherine Mcdonald |
| GIVEN NAMES | Catherine |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcdonald |
| SIGNATURE | MCDONALD C |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Queensland |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3745-6653 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 260 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Retracted: Survival After Pentobarbitone Overdose Confirmed Through Prescription, Recreational and Illicit Substance Evaluation (Prise) Programme in Australia
Deaths caused by barbiturate overdoses have increased in the past decade, especially as a result of suicide attempts. Pentobarbitone is a central nervous system depressant used for sedation and euthanasia in veterinary medicine. However, pentobarbitone analysis is not commonly available in the hospital setting; hence, its occurrence in overdoses is under-reported. Herein we describe a patient who ingested pentobarbitone obtained from the Internet…
Adolescent Cellphone Use While Driving: An Overview of the Literature and Promising Future Directions for Prevention
Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death in adolescents, and drivers aged 16–19 are the most likely to die in distracted driving crashes. This paper provides an overview of the literature on adolescent cellphone use while driving, focusing on the crash risk, incidence, risk factors for engagement, and the effectiveness of current mitigation strategies. We conclude by discussing promising future approaches to prevent crashes related to…
Poverty in Australia and the Social Work Response
Although a wealthy country, Australia nevertheless has pockets of poverty which remain resistant to anti-poverty policies. After describing the dimensions and demographics of poverty with emphasis given to Indigenous Austalians, the paper describes how Australian governments have responded, particularly in terms of the system of income security. Within that system, social work plays a unique role; one which illustrates how social workers can cont…
Getting beyond 'Heroic Agency' in Conceptualising Social Workers as Policy Actors in the Twenty-First Century
The professional project of social work assumes a particular orientation to human agency on the part of social workers. Specifically, the social work educational literature focusing on the nature of the profession suggests that social workers exert considerable control over the means and ends of their practice. In this paper, we ask whether this assumption is warranted. While we conceptualise this issue as relevant to the entire spectrum of profe…
The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia
This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states,…
The Importance of Identity in Policy: The Case For and Of Children
This article draws out one of the core reasons why children should be conceived as active agents in research, particularly policy‐related research. The main thesis is that policy inevitably projects and, to an extent, constitutes the subject identities of its intended objects — in this case, that of ‘children’. Drawing on several bodies of theory — the ‘new’ sociology of childhood, identity theory, ‘governmentality’ and theories of discourse — th…
Emerging Areas of Practice for Mental Health Social Workers: Education and Employment
In recent times in Australia there has been a slow but steady trend among mental health services to employ generic mental health workers from a variety of professional backgrounds. These workers undertake the jobs that were traditionally assigned to social workers. Although many social workers compete successfully for these positions, a question that needs to be explored in the contemporary service and policy context is social work's distinct con…
Children and Poverty Why their experience of their lives matter for policy
Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant ine…
The challenges of the new institutional environment: An Australian case study of older volunteers in the contemporary non-profit sector
Increased emphasis on efficiency and regulation is changing the nature of the non-profit sector in western countries. In this paper, we explore the impact of these contemporary changes on older, more traditional volunteers. Specifically, we use neo-institutional theory as a framework to explore the micro-effect of these processes in one large, multi-service non-profit organisation in Australia. The findings of an ethnographic study are presented …
(Re) Shaping Social Work: An Australian Case Study
Contemporary policy development via various nationally contingent processes of welfare reform poses significant challenges to social work. This paper explores the initial impact on one group of generalist social workers in working in the Australian income support agency—Centrelink. Positioning welfare reform within a theoretical framework of institutional change, the authors suggest that the associated policy developments have the capacity to ser…
Motivating the Unemployed? Attitudes at the Front Line
Underlying employment services policy in many countries is the assumption that the unemployed exhibit a range of deficits. The goal of employment activation programs is to develop self-efficacy. Noting the determinants of self-efficacy, we illustrate how case managers and social workers think about the unemployed and suggest that negative attitudes held by case managers are not conducive to the promotion of self-efficacy, unlike the orientation d…
Feeling motivated yet? Long‐term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia
A key thrust of labour market policy in Australia and many other western countries is that long‐term unemployed people lack the personal motivation to engage proactively and successfully in the search for paid employment. In this paper we argue that the implementation of what are experienced as paternal workfare programs are counter‐productive to achieving the official policy goal of improving self‐efficacy and gaining paid employment. The empiri…
Social Work in the Workfare Regime: A Comparison of the U.S. and Australia
Australia and the U.S. are both liberal welfare states. During the past quarter century, they have begun the transition from a welfare to a workfare state, albeit at different rates and through different paths. Social work developed in each country in ways congruent with the local liberal welfare state, and as such, has been destabilized by the transition to the workfare regime. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and extant empirical research in…
Assessing the policy trajectory of welfare reform in Australia
Although its roots reach back into the 1980s, the Australian version of welfare reform has intensified over the last decade under the direction of the conservative Howard government. In this article we chart the path to welfare-to-work policies, noting both the discontinuities as well as a degree of continuity with Australia’s traditional approach to social protection. As such, welfare reform in Australia is both revolutionary and evolutionary. F…
This is Who We are and This is What We Do”: Social Work Education and Self-Efficacy
Citing anecdotal evidence about the poor self-efficacy among graduating social work students manifesting in student claims that they lack the skills to practice effectively, the present paper suggests that the cause may lie, in part, in the manner in which social work education is undertaken. Instead of adjusting curriculum content, the author suggests that educators need to moderate the emphasis they place on social work as a professional projec…
Challenging Social Work: The Institutional Context of Practice
Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work
Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the poli…
Challenging Social Work: The Institutional Context of Practice
xi, 239 pages ; 22 cm
Workfare as welfare: Governing unemployment in the advanced liberal state
Case management has become a key technology in governing the problem of unemployment in western countries such as Britain, the United States and Australia. In this paper we argue that case management represents a radical localization of governance wherein the rights and responsibilities between unemployed people and the state are articulated primarily in the relationship between the case manager and his or her client. This paper reports on a stud…
‘The more things change…’: Barriers to community services utilisation in Queensland
Community services are central to the lives of many elderly Australians or Australians with disabilities if they are to remain in the community. Over the past two decades, significant advances have been made in policy and associated programs, significantly improving the standards of service delivery. This research reports on the perceptions of service providers in community services for people with disabilities in six communities in Queensland. I…
Fixing the system? The experience of service users of the quasi-market in disability services in Australia
A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with 31 people with disabilities and 32 carers in the state of Queensland, Australia, found that their experience of supportive service delivery had not improved despite reforms of the service delivery system driven by a version of the quasi-market model. Instead of delivering increased consumer choice and improved efficiency in service delivery, service users experienced inadequate service…
The Promotion and Disruption of Community Service Delivery Systems
In this paper, we report data drawn from a larger project on the functioning of the Queensland community service delivery system, particularly that providing services to people with disabilities. Our reasoning for focusing at this level is that, from the service user's perspective, support is derived from the service delivery system, not just individual service providers. Defining the service delivery system as formal services and informal suppor…
Stability and Change in Nonprofit Organizations: The Volunteer Contribution
This paper reports on a study of the microprocesses of stability and change in a nonprofit welfare organization in Australia. We position volunteering and voluntarism as core constitutive phenomena in and of nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally, and examine volunteer agency in action. Developing a model drawn from neoinstitutional theory and adopting an ethnographic approach, the paper illustrates theoretically and empi…
Risk Technology in Australia: The Role of the Job Seeker Classification Instrument in Employment Services
Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determ…
Contingent on Context? Social Work and the State in Australia, Britain, and the USA
The notion that social work is an international profession, operating with generally similar goals, methodologies, and common values is considered critically. Examining the political and social contexts of three countries with liberal democratic governments - Australia, Britain and the United States - the role of social work within the welfare processes of each country is compared. While social work as an identifiable professional activity shares…
Workfare as welfare: Governing unemployment in the advanced liberal state
Case management has become a key technology in governing the problem of unemployment in western countries such as Britain, the United States and Australia. In this paper we argue that case management represents a radical localization of governance wherein the rights and responsibilities between unemployed people and the state are articulated primarily in the relationship between the case manager and his or her client. This paper reports on a stud…
Getting beyond 'Heroic Agency' in Conceptualising Social Workers as Policy Actors in the Twenty-First Century
The professional project of social work assumes a particular orientation to human agency on the part of social workers. Specifically, the social work educational literature focusing on the nature of the profession suggests that social workers exert considerable control over the means and ends of their practice. In this paper, we ask whether this assumption is warranted. While we conceptualise this issue as relevant to the entire spectrum of profe…
Motivating the Unemployed? Attitudes at the Front Line
Underlying employment services policy in many countries is the assumption that the unemployed exhibit a range of deficits. The goal of employment activation programs is to develop self-efficacy. Noting the determinants of self-efficacy, we illustrate how case managers and social workers think about the unemployed and suggest that negative attitudes held by case managers are not conducive to the promotion of self-efficacy, unlike the orientation d…
Feeling motivated yet? Long‐term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia
A key thrust of labour market policy in Australia and many other western countries is that long‐term unemployed people lack the personal motivation to engage proactively and successfully in the search for paid employment. In this paper we argue that the implementation of what are experienced as paternal workfare programs are counter‐productive to achieving the official policy goal of improving self‐efficacy and gaining paid employment. The empiri…
Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work
Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the poli…
The Role of Non‐profit Organizations in the Mixed Economy of Welfare‐to‐Work in the UK and Australia
This article charts the development of welfare‐to‐work policies and compares and contrasts the traditions of delivery in the UK and Australia. We find that in the UK, employment services and social security benefit administration have been dominated by the central state, traditionally affording a key role to civil servants as direct delivery agents. However, in federal Australia, mixed economies of welfare‐to‐work operate in the different states,…
Contingent on Context? Social Work and the State in Australia, Britain, and the USA
The notion that social work is an international profession, operating with generally similar goals, methodologies, and common values is considered critically. Examining the political and social contexts of three countries with liberal democratic governments - Australia, Britain and the United States - the role of social work within the welfare processes of each country is compared. While social work as an identifiable professional activity shares…
Patterns of Governance: The Curious Case of Non‐profit Community Services in Australia
“Community” has taken on a new significance in Australian social policy discourse. Seemingly sound and morally justifiable, in the context of neo‐liberalism the language of community positions non‐profit delivery of services as superior to state‐provided services. As a consequence, non‐profit community services are being centrally positioned to mediate the relationship between the state and citizen subjects. In the first part of this paper we tra…
Omissions and commissions: An analysis of professional field education literature
This article reports a review and analysis of 67 publications in the professional literature discussing social work field education published between 1980 and 1996. In doing so, it identifies a patterning of the discourse, reflecting on significant omissions (what is not discussed), as well as commissions (what is discussed). It notes that certain perspectives, particularly those of universities, dominate, while others, such as those of students …
Stability and Change in Nonprofit Organizations: The Volunteer Contribution
This paper reports on a study of the microprocesses of stability and change in a nonprofit welfare organization in Australia. We position volunteering and voluntarism as core constitutive phenomena in and of nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally, and examine volunteer agency in action. Developing a model drawn from neoinstitutional theory and adopting an ethnographic approach, the paper illustrates theoretically and empi…
Risk Technology in Australia: The Role of the Job Seeker Classification Instrument in Employment Services
Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determ…
Reconstructing and re-conceptualising social work in the emerging milieu
As we approach the twenty first century, social work as a collective activity is experiencing considerable uncertainty. This paper argues that the strategy embodied in promoting traditional professionalism, while moderately successful in the past, has become increasingly problematic. Similarly, the ongoing utility of current approaches to practice theory as a key part of the professional project is questioned. Identifying key challenges emerging …
Fixing the system? The experience of service users of the quasi-market in disability services in Australia
A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with 31 people with disabilities and 32 carers in the state of Queensland, Australia, found that their experience of supportive service delivery had not improved despite reforms of the service delivery system driven by a version of the quasi-market model. Instead of delivering increased consumer choice and improved efficiency in service delivery, service users experienced inadequate service…
The challenges of the new institutional environment: An Australian case study of older volunteers in the contemporary non-profit sector
Increased emphasis on efficiency and regulation is changing the nature of the non-profit sector in western countries. In this paper, we explore the impact of these contemporary changes on older, more traditional volunteers. Specifically, we use neo-institutional theory as a framework to explore the micro-effect of these processes in one large, multi-service non-profit organisation in Australia. The findings of an ethnographic study are presented …
(Re) Shaping Social Work: An Australian Case Study
Contemporary policy development via various nationally contingent processes of welfare reform poses significant challenges to social work. This paper explores the initial impact on one group of generalist social workers in working in the Australian income support agency—Centrelink. Positioning welfare reform within a theoretical framework of institutional change, the authors suggest that the associated policy developments have the capacity to ser…
This is Who We are and This is What We Do”: Social Work Education and Self-Efficacy
Citing anecdotal evidence about the poor self-efficacy among graduating social work students manifesting in student claims that they lack the skills to practice effectively, the present paper suggests that the cause may lie, in part, in the manner in which social work education is undertaken. Instead of adjusting curriculum content, the author suggests that educators need to moderate the emphasis they place on social work as a professional projec…
Emerging Areas of Practice for Mental Health Social Workers: Education and Employment
In recent times in Australia there has been a slow but steady trend among mental health services to employ generic mental health workers from a variety of professional backgrounds. These workers undertake the jobs that were traditionally assigned to social workers. Although many social workers compete successfully for these positions, a question that needs to be explored in the contemporary service and policy context is social work's distinct con…
Social Work in the Workfare Regime: A Comparison of the U.S. and Australia
Australia and the U.S. are both liberal welfare states. During the past quarter century, they have begun the transition from a welfare to a workfare state, albeit at different rates and through different paths. Social work developed in each country in ways congruent with the local liberal welfare state, and as such, has been destabilized by the transition to the workfare regime. Drawing on neo-institutional theory and extant empirical research in…
Children and Poverty Why their experience of their lives matter for policy
Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant ine…
Internal Control and Accountability in Non‐profit Human Service Organisations
The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non‐profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non‐profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, int…
The challenge from within: Organisational commitment in nonprofit human service organisations
Recent developments in Australia's method of delivering personal social services rely heavily on the nonprofit sector. As yet, not a great deal is known about employees of the sector. Furthermore, less is known about their attitudes towards their employing organisations and the factors which impact on employee attitude development. This paper unpacks the dimensions of organisational commitment in a sample of nonprofit human service organisations …
Poverty in Australia and the Social Work Response
Although a wealthy country, Australia nevertheless has pockets of poverty which remain resistant to anti-poverty policies. After describing the dimensions and demographics of poverty with emphasis given to Indigenous Austalians, the paper describes how Australian governments have responded, particularly in terms of the system of income security. Within that system, social work plays a unique role; one which illustrates how social workers can cont…
The Promotion and Disruption of Community Service Delivery Systems
In this paper, we report data drawn from a larger project on the functioning of the Queensland community service delivery system, particularly that providing services to people with disabilities. Our reasoning for focusing at this level is that, from the service user's perspective, support is derived from the service delivery system, not just individual service providers. Defining the service delivery system as formal services and informal suppor…
Human service professionals in the community services industry
The community services industry is in the process of substantial change, resulting in uncertainty about its future within a reconstructed Australian welfare state. This paper explores the existing status of human service professionals within the industry, and identifies a series of macro and micro processes that may influence their future role. It concludes by discussing some implications and possible opportunities for human service professionals…
Deinstitutionalised or Reinstitutionalised? Developments in the Nonprofit Human Services Sector
Recent developments in the environment surrounding the nonprofit human services sector in Australia have been viewed with some concern, especially given the role of the sector within the Australian welfare state. This paper reviews these developments, noting that some are less visible than others, and that the process of change is more widespread than often perceived. By explicitly employing a theoretical framework derived from organisational the…
Political-economic structures—Approaches to traditional and modern medical systems
On Health and Acculturation
Social Work Interviewing and Feminism
Feminist therapists and counsellors have developed a distinct paradigm which combines feminist analysis, values and practice. Much of what they have developed is applicable to the social work interview. This article attempts to draw out the main features of the feminist paradigm so that social workers will be able to assess its value in respect of their practice
The challenge from within: Organisational commitment in nonprofit human service organisations
Recent developments in Australia's method of delivering personal social services rely heavily on the nonprofit sector. As yet, not a great deal is known about employees of the sector. Furthermore, less is known about their attitudes towards their employing organisations and the factors which impact on employee attitude development. This paper unpacks the dimensions of organisational commitment in a sample of nonprofit human service organisations …
Deinstitutionalised or Reinstitutionalised? Developments in the Nonprofit Human Services Sector
Recent developments in the environment surrounding the nonprofit human services sector in Australia have been viewed with some concern, especially given the role of the sector within the Australian welfare state. This paper reviews these developments, noting that some are less visible than others, and that the process of change is more widespread than often perceived. By explicitly employing a theoretical framework derived from organisational the…
Omissions and commissions: An analysis of professional field education literature
This article reports a review and analysis of 67 publications in the professional literature discussing social work field education published between 1980 and 1996. In doing so, it identifies a patterning of the discourse, reflecting on significant omissions (what is not discussed), as well as commissions (what is discussed). It notes that certain perspectives, particularly those of universities, dominate, while others, such as those of students …
Internal Control and Accountability in Non‐profit Human Service Organisations
The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non‐profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non‐profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, int…
Human service professionals in the community services industry
The community services industry is in the process of substantial change, resulting in uncertainty about its future within a reconstructed Australian welfare state. This paper explores the existing status of human service professionals within the industry, and identifies a series of macro and micro processes that may influence their future role. It concludes by discussing some implications and possible opportunities for human service professionals…
Professional Futures? Progressing the debate
Our paper on reconstructing and re-conceptualising social work in the emerging milieu is intended to contribute to an ongoing debate about the organisation and conceptualisation of social work in the Australian social, political, economic and cultural context. The responses to our paper by our colleagues, O'Connor, Furlong and Ife, provide a diversity of important perspectives for the social work profession in Australia to consider. It is our hop…
Reconstructing and re-conceptualising social work in the emerging milieu
As we approach the twenty first century, social work as a collective activity is experiencing considerable uncertainty. This paper argues that the strategy embodied in promoting traditional professionalism, while moderately successful in the past, has become increasingly problematic. Similarly, the ongoing utility of current approaches to practice theory as a key part of the professional project is questioned. Identifying key challenges emerging …
Patterns of Governance: The Curious Case of Non‐profit Community Services in Australia
“Community” has taken on a new significance in Australian social policy discourse. Seemingly sound and morally justifiable, in the context of neo‐liberalism the language of community positions non‐profit delivery of services as superior to state‐provided services. As a consequence, non‐profit community services are being centrally positioned to mediate the relationship between the state and citizen subjects. In the first part of this paper we tra…
Stability and Change in Nonprofit Organizations: The Volunteer Contribution
This paper reports on a study of the microprocesses of stability and change in a nonprofit welfare organization in Australia. We position volunteering and voluntarism as core constitutive phenomena in and of nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector more generally, and examine volunteer agency in action. Developing a model drawn from neoinstitutional theory and adopting an ethnographic approach, the paper illustrates theoretically and empi…
Risk Technology in Australia: The Role of the Job Seeker Classification Instrument in Employment Services
Promoted as the key policy response to unemployment, the Job Network constitutes an array of interlocking processes that position unemployed people as `problems' in need of remediation. Unemployment is presented as a primary risk threatening society, and unemployed people are presented as displaying various degrees of riskiness. The Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) is a `technology' employed by Centrelink to assess `risk' and to determ…
Contingent on Context? Social Work and the State in Australia, Britain, and the USA
The notion that social work is an international profession, operating with generally similar goals, methodologies, and common values is considered critically. Examining the political and social contexts of three countries with liberal democratic governments - Australia, Britain and the United States - the role of social work within the welfare processes of each country is compared. While social work as an identifiable professional activity shares…
‘The more things change…’: Barriers to community services utilisation in Queensland
Community services are central to the lives of many elderly Australians or Australians with disabilities if they are to remain in the community. Over the past two decades, significant advances have been made in policy and associated programs, significantly improving the standards of service delivery. This research reports on the perceptions of service providers in community services for people with disabilities in six communities in Queensland. I…
Fixing the system? The experience of service users of the quasi-market in disability services in Australia
A qualitative study involving semi-structured interviews with 31 people with disabilities and 32 carers in the state of Queensland, Australia, found that their experience of supportive service delivery had not improved despite reforms of the service delivery system driven by a version of the quasi-market model. Instead of delivering increased consumer choice and improved efficiency in service delivery, service users experienced inadequate service…
The Promotion and Disruption of Community Service Delivery Systems
In this paper, we report data drawn from a larger project on the functioning of the Queensland community service delivery system, particularly that providing services to people with disabilities. Our reasoning for focusing at this level is that, from the service user's perspective, support is derived from the service delivery system, not just individual service providers. Defining the service delivery system as formal services and informal suppor…
Workfare as welfare: Governing unemployment in the advanced liberal state
Case management has become a key technology in governing the problem of unemployment in western countries such as Britain, the United States and Australia. In this paper we argue that case management represents a radical localization of governance wherein the rights and responsibilities between unemployed people and the state are articulated primarily in the relationship between the case manager and his or her client. This paper reports on a stud…
Challenging Social Work: The Institutional Context of Practice
Room to move? Professional discretion at the frontline of welfare‐to‐work
Outcomes of social policies have always been mediated by the discretionary agency of front‐line staff, processes which nevertheless have received insufficient attention in policy evaluation and in the social policy literature more broadly. This article takes the case example of the policy reforms associated with the Australian government's welfare‐to‐work agenda. Drawing on two discreet research projects undertaken at different points in the poli…
Challenging Social Work: The Institutional Context of Practice
xi, 239 pages ; 22 cm
Assessing the policy trajectory of welfare reform in Australia
Although its roots reach back into the 1980s, the Australian version of welfare reform has intensified over the last decade under the direction of the conservative Howard government. In this article we chart the path to welfare-to-work policies, noting both the discontinuities as well as a degree of continuity with Australia’s traditional approach to social protection. As such, welfare reform in Australia is both revolutionary and evolutionary. F…
This is Who We are and This is What We Do”: Social Work Education and Self-Efficacy
Citing anecdotal evidence about the poor self-efficacy among graduating social work students manifesting in student claims that they lack the skills to practice effectively, the present paper suggests that the cause may lie, in part, in the manner in which social work education is undertaken. Instead of adjusting curriculum content, the author suggests that educators need to moderate the emphasis they place on social work as a professional projec…
Motivating the Unemployed? Attitudes at the Front Line
Underlying employment services policy in many countries is the assumption that the unemployed exhibit a range of deficits. The goal of employment activation programs is to develop self-efficacy. Noting the determinants of self-efficacy, we illustrate how case managers and social workers think about the unemployed and suggest that negative attitudes held by case managers are not conducive to the promotion of self-efficacy, unlike the orientation d…
Feeling motivated yet? Long‐term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia
A key thrust of labour market policy in Australia and many other western countries is that long‐term unemployed people lack the personal motivation to engage proactively and successfully in the search for paid employment. In this paper we argue that the implementation of what are experienced as paternal workfare programs are counter‐productive to achieving the official policy goal of improving self‐efficacy and gaining paid employment. The empiri…
Political science (30 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Public relations (18 works) · Economics (17 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Business (13 works) · Economic growth (12 works) · Healthcare innovation and challenges (12 works)