Don't borrow the latest buzz-policy: fit policy development to local culture and needs

Another post with my thoughts on issues raised by the new Spanish social work journal, Azarbe.

Some issues are experienced across the world, but are policy and service developments too ready to cull the answers from what's going on alsewhere rather than developing something that relates to their own culture and situation.

One article focuses on how social work methods are evolving to enable service users to be more participative, a policy that is exerting an unthinking tyranny across the world, but is this really the most important issue in practice development? Another is about case management to improve health and social care integration, but should how we work on the issues that individuals face be the vehicle for coordinating different professional aspirations and ideologies? Every country and culture should think about what fits its needs, not just adopt the current buzz-policy from somewhere else.

We need a new economics that does not blame the poor, 'anticrisis' jokes are not enough

Another post with my thoughts on issues raised by the new Spanish social work journal, Azarbe.

Economic crisis always has social impacts, in which economics blames the poor and individual failure rather than raising questions about the social impacts of economics. I recently took part in a Facebook debate about this issue, raised by a colleague in Portugal, also facing social effects of an economic crisis that has social consequences.  

Link to the Facebook comments.

One article has data on the effects of the Spanish economic crisis in family poverty. But should we really see this as a Spanish problem, or as a European responsibility, since the crisis is European? Another article comments on the need to develop a community social work, since the ‘economic crisis’ encourages a neo-Darwinism individualism in policy. We ned a new economics that does not lay the blame and the consequences of economic change on our poor and marginalised communities.

Visiting Spain recently...

I saw for sale labelled 'Anticrisis'...

...money boxes picturing Euros...

...and tissues in Euro form, too.

 

Being relaxed about immigration: we should not manage cultural diversity, but value it

Another post with my thoughts on issues raised by the new Spanish social work journal, Azarbe.

What country is relaxed about immigration? An article in Azarbe on public policy on immigration says this is a fairly recent issue for Spain, but I wonder whether any country has really relaxed about the changes that increasing migration across the world has raised. We are all exercised in various ways by this issue because of its cultural consequences. As another article here questions: should we be less concerned about immigration and more about how we manage the cultural diversity that, in various aspects, we all have to cope with? But is it just about managing, or should it be about valuing cultural richness in our societies?

Azarbe: new Spanish journal social work journal

A handsome new Spanish social work journal: Azarbe: Revista Internacional de Trabajo Social y Bienestar, published by the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Murcia arrives on my desk. Handsome even if the logo is yet another example of loving hands representing social work. Can't artists think of another metaphor?

It’s in Spanish of course, but there are English, or sometimes French, abstracts, and reading them raised some broader issues in my mind, as I interpret a sometimes brief account of what is probably a complex article into issues that I think about in my own national context. So in a series of posts on different topics this week, I have offered some thoughts about a range of issues that came up for me as I read through the journal abstracts. I haven’t covered everything.

Link to the journal website. 

You can download pdfs of the papers if you speak Spanish or just want to read the abstracts.

 

Podcasts on social work theory

I recently had a long-distance Skype conversation with an Australian colleague, Patricia Fronek, about social work theory for her Podsocs website; half an hour of convsersation about social work theory; who'd have thought it?

Podsocs interview on social work theory with Malcolm Payne

If you're a real glutton for punishment, and you want more, the University of Buffalo podcast series has an interview with Joseph Walsh, an American writer on social work theory, that you can download:

University of Buffalo podcast interview on clinical social work theory with Joseph Walsh

Three ways of connecting your faith with social activism or social work

In an interesting interview about activist Buddhism in the Huffington Post, Jonathan Watts of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, talks about analysing social problems from a Buddhist perspective. But the points he makes can be relevant to any spiritual response to social issues.

• Facing and trying to understand a social issue, you can go back to textual resources in your religion or faith, or
• you can start from trying to apply your understanding of that faith's approach to the issue, or
• you can so incorporate your faith into your life that your response to any social issue becomes imbued with your faith.

He argues, though, that first and foremost a Buddhist: it becomes your core identity so it inevitably forms the basis for social activism or social work.
HuffPost blog on activist Buddhism

The blog post has useful links to Buddhist writings on social issues.

Info from the 2012 Stockholm world conference + my Guardian article on social justice

The British Guardian newspaper has a website dedicated to the World Social Work and Social Development Conference in Stockholm last month.
Guardian website on World Social work & Social Development conference in July

It includes an article by me on social work and social justice:
Link to Malcolm's article on social work and social justice.

There is also an Conference website, which contains a link to videos of the Plenary speeches, including mine, the Conference film and to interviews with some of the interesting particpants (among which I am not):
Link to the Conference website.