Search

This article explores the impact of the 'hostile environment' on racialised migrant women's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth in England, arguing that the 'hostile environment' functions as a technology of 'stratified reproduction.' First coined by Shellee Colen, the concept of stratified reproduction describes the dynamic by which some individuals and groups may be supported in their reproductive activities, while others are disempowered and discouraged. This paper locates the stratified reproduction produced by the 'hostile environment' as intertwined with wider gendered and racialised discourses around British citizenship which have been 'designed to fail' racialised residents of the UK. Drawing on interviews with racialised migrant mothers in the north of England, this paper analyses how the proliferation and intensification of immigration controls interacts with gender, race, class, and other social regimes to differentially allocate the resources necessary for a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and how this is experienced materially by pregnant migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radicalisation has become a highly influential idea in British policy making. It underpins and justifies Prevent, a core part of the UK's counter-terrorism strategy. Experts have theorised the radicalisation process, often beset by a weak evidence base and mired in fundamental contestation on definitions and explanatory factors. Experiential experts have been active contributors to these debates, presenting a challenge to the low-ranking role often given to experiential knowledge in evidence hierarchies and a contrast to policy areas in which it remains poorly valued. This paper draws on interviews with radicalisation experts to examine the dynamics of this pluralisation in practice. With a focus on credibility contests, it explains how experiential experts can claim authoritative knowledge and the challenges they face from those who prioritise theory-driven empirical data as the basis for contributions to knowledge. The paper draws out the implications for understandings of expertise of this newly conceptualised, evidence poor and highly applied topic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines members' practices involved in accounting for discrimination against their own group in interaction. Applying membership categorization analysis to interviews conducted with Chinese international students in Japan, I show that membership categories and category-based knowledge constitute crucial resources for target-of-discrimination group members' making discrimination intelligible and reasonable. Specifically, interviewee accounts for discrimination by bounding certain activities/traits to the membership category being discriminated against. Meanwhile, those activities/traits are displayed as sanctionable given the social relation the discriminating and the discriminated sides are embedded in. Consequently, discrimination becomes reasonable and understandable in its given context. Interviewer, drawing upon common-sense knowledge about social categories, regularly challenges interviewee's account by problematizing the association between the proposed activities/traits and the membership category and by contending the proposed sanctionable nature of those activities/traits. Interviewee can either persist through such challenges by further categorization work or modify their original account of discrimination. As such, target-of-discrimination group members' accounting for discrimination as reasonable and intelligible is collaboratively accomplished through participants' categorization work in interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the ways in which participants in Indonesian political interviews address and refer to each other. Drawing on Raymond Williams's concept 'structures of feeling', it proposes levelling and differentiation as mechanisms by which interview participants orient to a common feeling. Levelling and differentiation form a dialectical process characterised by tension that emerges through positioning of the self and the addressee relative to social categories and social orders. Such positioning involves exploiting the semantic contrast between kin terms, which denote relationality, and pronouns, which individuate, in addition to mobilising other linguistic resources including names and titles. The article suggests that the differentiation made between how those in the highest office and politicians below them are addressed and referred to is indexical of a shared consciousness about the relevance of rank. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social workers must be prepared to work with all members of society given their commitment to social justice. This article reports the findings of a study examining the preparedness of Vietnamese social work practitioners to practise with sexual minorities. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, comprising a paper-based survey (N = 292) and semi-structured interviews (N = 12). The findings indicate that most practitioners felt ill-equipped to work with clients who identified as lesbian or gay. The discussion highlights the lack of formal and in-service training in this practice area. Implications for social work education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst recent discussions of anorexia nervosa have recognised key aspects of the illness experience, such as control and emotion regulation, there remains a cross-disciplinary emphasis on body image concerns as central. In dialogue with clinical, psychological and social analyses, this paper draws on ethnography and qualitative interviews with individuals diagnosed with anorexia to offer an alternative perspective. Focusing on individuals’ engagements with food and (not) eating suggests that material moments of starving, calorie counting, and thinking about food provide a critical lens onto what anorexia does for, as well as to, individuals living with the illness. Participants’ narratives suggest that anorexia can make it possible to retreat into a numb and protective ‘bubble.’ The illness may thereby offer a way to be in the world that both responds to and ameliorates distress; some individuals describe the ambivalent ‘safety’ of living through their anorexia. As such, food practices are a modality of holding onto anorexia’s valued safety. By outlining this relationship between practices of (not) eating and a desire amongst some individuals to maintain the illness, this paper contributes to discussions of treatment resistance. Intersecting with wider reflections on trauma, recovery and harm minimisation in mental health, the discussion considers how this desire might be approached ethically in both research and therapeutic practice. Individuals’ narratives suggest the need to reposition attention away from anorexia itself to the distress and traumatic life events that may underlie both the illness and the desire to maintain it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on feminist care ethics and political theory (Engster and Hamington, 2015; Held, 2006; Noddings, 2015; Tronto, 2013), this paper examines how educators working in private (Ontario) and public (Denmark) childcare systems think about and practice care. Through interviews with pedagogues (Denmark) and early childhood educators (Ontario), linkages between the public/private positioning of care and the care experiences of educators are explored. The findings reveal differences in how educators think about and practice care in public and private systems. At the same time, notable similarities emerged in how educators resisted neoliberal system requirements. The findings illustrate the complexities of connecting good care practices to the systemic level without diminishing the importance of individual human agency in experiencing/practicing good care in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Findings suggest that good care and commodification are both theoretically and practically at odds with each other, though neither absolutely precludes the other. Implications for policy makers, particularly relevant in the contemporary COVID context, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the tensions and paradoxes that arise during the life course of research groups as they strive to establish and maintain an identity, acquire and retain control of an ensemble of research technologies, and evaluate and choose the risks they are willing to accept in their work. My central aim is to rekindle interest in the ambivalences, tensions, and paradoxes of science by identifying and illustrating the tensions that characterize research groups. Among the questions of concern are: How does a group establish an independent identity while remaining connected with its field of research? How are consistency of focus and continuity of approach balanced against the freedom younger scientists need to develop as independent investigators? What varieties of risks are encountered in research and how are they evaluated and navigated? Based on intensive, repeated, face-to-face interviews with scientists at various levels of seniority at elite private and public universities, the paper examines the choices leaders make at these critical junctures and the consequences of those choices. Several sorts of tensions are examined, including autocracy versus democracy, varieties of risk, role conflicts, openness versus secrecy, competitive cooperation, ambivalences about priority claims, and balancing continuity and change, and their implications for science, scientists, and the research process are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on a body of work over the decades that examines how East Yorkers give and receive support. We go beyond the earlier work taking into consideration communication technologies and how they play a role in the ways people exchange social support across the life course. We draw on 101 in-depth interviews conducted in 2013–2014 to shed light on the support networks of a sample of East York residents and discern the role of communication technologies in the exchange of different types of social support across age groups. Our findings show that not much has changed since the 1960s in terms of the social ties that our sample of East Yorkers have, and the types of support mobilized via social networks: companionship, small and large services, emotional aid, and financial support. What has changed is how communication technologies interweave in complex ways with different types of social ties (partners, siblings, friends, etc.) to mobilize social support. We found that communication technologies helped siblings and extended kin to increase the frequency of interaction and help exchange support at a distance. Communication technologies helped solidify friendship ties by providing a continuous flow of interaction. We draw implications for theories of social support and for social policy associated with interventions aimed at helping vulnerable groups cope in hard times such as the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies have traced sociality and temporality as significant features of African healing. However, association between the two has not been explicitly investigated. This paper explores how sociality and temporality are associated in local experiences of distress and healing among northern Rwandans. The ethnographic research, including in-depth interviews, focus-group discussions and participant observation, was conducted in 2015–2016, with 43 participants from the Musanze district who have suffered from not only the genocide but also post-genocide massacres. Findings identified common local idioms of distress: ibikomere (wounded feelings), ihungabana (mental disturbances), ihahamuka (trauma), and kurwara mu mutwe (illness of the head, severe mental illness). One stage of distress was perceived to develop into another, slightly more serious than the previous. Social isolation played a significant role in the development as it activated 'remembering' and 'thinking too much' about the past and worsened symptoms. Subsequently, healing was experienced through social reconnection and a shift of time orientation from the past to the future; the healing experience traced a process of leaving the past behind, moving forwards and creating a future through community involvement. The experiences of distress and healing in this population were explained by two axes, i.e. sociality (isolation – reconnection) and temporality (past – future), which are associated with each other. Given the sociality–temporality association in African post-war healing, the study highlights that assistant programmes that facilitate social practice and future creation can be therapeutic and be an alternative for people who cannot benefit from talking-based and trauma-focused approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores barriers to gender policy implementation arising from the narratives framing gender as a policy issue. Through examining the influence of gender policy narratives on practitioners, it challenges those who represent policy failures as the result of unsupportive cultural contexts. The paper draws on Fraser’s (1995, 2005; Fraser and Honneth, 2003) conceptualisation of recognition and redistribution to highlight tensions between three different gender policy narratives: (1) gender as instrumental for development; (2) gender as women’s rights and empowerment; and (3) gender as relations of power requiring personal transformation. Interviews with 32 gender practitioners in 26 South African non-governmental organisations and observations of meetings between these organisations show how these narratives lead to unhelpful conflicts between practitioners. These conflicts inhibit both the uptake of gender policy recommendations and collaboration between practitioners in ways that undermine efforts to address gender inequalities in the South African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within social and personality psychology, researchers interested in narrative and storytelling have most often considered participants' life stories, or narrative identities. This focus has led to the construction of the "narrative identity approach," a conceptual and empirical paradigm tailored to assessing participants' storied sense of self. Narrative processing is a common route by which individuals understand not only themselves, their lives, and variety of social phenomena, including their romantic relationships. As such, we argue on behalf of the application of the narrative identity approach to the study of romantic relationships. In this paper, an overview of the theoretical and methodological components of this approach is presented. This is followed by a summary of a preliminary study piloting a method for assessing the story-based identity couple members have constructed about their current romantic relationships. Twenty female-male couples completed an interview assessing the story of their romantic relationships. These interviews were administered individually, such that each couple member provided his or her stories separately and privately. Associations between the affective features of these stories, attachment styles, and relationship satisfaction are explored. Those who disclosed affectively positive stories tended to report lower levels of avoidant attachment and higher levels of relationship satisfaction. The narrative identity approach represents a noteworthy resource for relationship researchers that will be useful for future research on romantic relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores trade union strategies to protect wages in the face of EU migration after the enlargement of the European Union. We argue that unions have three instruments at their disposal to deal with the risks linked to downward wage pressure: closure through immigration control, equalisation through collective bargaining and minimum wages, and the organisation of migrant workers. Using comparative case studies of Sweden, Germany and the UK, we show how different types of power resources shape union strategies: unions with substantial organisational resources (in Sweden) relied on a large membership to pursue an equalisation strategy and expected to be able to 'afford' openness. German unions with low membership but access to the political system pushed for a mix of closure and equality drawing on political intervention (e.g. minimum wages). British unions, unable to pursue either, focused their efforts on organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Movement for Global Mental Health’s (MGMH) efforts to scale up the availability of mental health services have been moderately successful. Investigations in resource-poor countries like South Africa have pointed to the value of an integrated primary mental health care model and multidisciplinary collaboration to support mental health needs in underserved and underresourced communities. However, there remains a need to explore how these policies play out within the daily realities of communities marked by varied environmental and relational complexities. Arguably, the lived realities of mental health policy and service delivery processes are best viewed through ethnographic approaches, which remain underutilised in the field of global mental health. This paper reports on findings from a case study of mental health services for HIV-affected women in a rural South African setting, which employed a motivated ethnography in order to explore the realities of the primary mental health care model and related policies in South Africa. Findings highlighted the influence of three key symbolic (intangible) factors that impact on the efficacy of the primary mental health care model: power dynamics, which shaped relationships within multidisciplinary teams; stigma, which limited the efficacy of task-shifting strategies; and the silencing of women’s narratives of distress within services. The resultant gap between policy ideals and the reality of practice is discussed. The paper concludes with recommendations for building on existing successes in the delivery of primary mental health care in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New relationships between service users and the welfare state have emerged as a result of governmental strategies of public service reform in which participation has appeared as the cure for a putative welfare dependency. A new public has been invoked in technologies of governance which have conflated responsible citizenship with participation in the marketplace and have aimed to change the behaviour of welfare service users accordingly. This paper investigates the ability of welfare service users to resist, or amend, the disciplinary intentions of these discourses, to constitute ‘counter-publics’, and to formulate their own visions of public services. Drawing on research with English social housing tenants engaged in participation with their quasi-public landlords, and applying a theoretical framework based on the work of feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler, the paper explores the behavioural effects of participation on tenants and evidences their use of consumerist and communitarian discourses to construct alternative perceptions of a ‘public’, and re-imagine their relationship with public services. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper critically engages with a recent shift towards an emphasis on ‘resilience’ in policy and academic fields. The paper suggests that this shift is problematic for several reasons: that it supports normative value judgements; that it may overemphasize the ability of people to ‘bounce back’ and undervalue the hidden costs of resilience, especially those with gendered dimensions; and that it may be associated with policy prescriptions that shift responsibility for dealing with crisis away from the public sphere. The empirical illustration for this analysis is a qualitative study of the impact of economic decline in the Sussex town of Newhaven. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Buddhist practices have been increasingly influencing psychotherapy. For over 20 centuries, Buddhism has been the religion of a majority of Sri Lankans. However, there is little documentation of the use of Buddhist practices in psychotherapy in Sri Lanka. This paper presents a case study in which Theravadan Buddhist mindfulness meditation and cognitive therapy practices were used in the treatment of a client with depressive disorder. The paper also summarizes the influence of Buddhist concepts and mindfulness meditation on psychotherapy and illustrate how Buddhist doctrine and practices can be considered a psychotherapeutic method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Research examining the effects of severe, prolonged early deprivation has shown elevated rates of neurodevelopmental symptoms, which frequently persist into adulthood and are associated with functional and social relationship difficulties, as well as elevated rates of mental health problems. The behavioural manifestations of these symptoms closely resemble those of ADHD and also ASD. Here, we used qualitative methods to explore and characterise the social experiences and difficulties encountered by young adults exposed to profound early deprivation, in part to highlight any apparent parallels between the experiences in this group and those identified in typically developing samples with ADHD or ASD. To do so, we interviewed young adults and their adoptive parents (N = 18) from the English and Romanian Adoptees study, about their social lives. Participants were keen to describe not only the challenges they faced but also adaptive responses. A semantic/descriptive thematic analysis revealed that the young adults strongly desired social relationships but struggled to navigate social norms, resulting in frustration and frequent loss of relationships. This was accompanied by strong feelings of loss and rejection, all of which were perceived to have a negative impact upon self-esteem and mental health. Adaptive strategies included the fostering of casual friendships with older individuals and seeking employment with strong social components. Similarities and differences between our findings and the social difficulties experienced by typically developing groups with neurodevelopmental problems, and adopted individuals more generally, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a total of 22 social workers in Mainland China were interviewed to explore the effectiveness and challenges of providing services to adolescents using digital tools. By addressing the problems like permeable boundaries, perfunctory efforts, threats to implementation fidelity, and inefficient service delivery, we accordingly propose pragmatic recommendations to enhance digital social work practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conspiracy beliefs have been found to have negative real-world consequences that can impact interpersonal relationships; however, this remains an under-researched area. With the current popularity of conspiracy movements such as QAnon, more research into these phenomena is necessary. The present research therefore aimed to explore the impact of QAnon belief on interpersonal relationships. Fifteen participants aged 21–54 (M = 41) with a QAnon-affiliated loved one were interviewed about how QAnon has changed their relationship. Using thematic analysis, four main themes were identified: Malignant Q, Distance, Qonflict, and Attempts at Healing. Participants characterized QAnon as a malignant force in their relationships and communicated with their loved ones less as a result. Although QAnon was a source of conflict and tension for all participants, they were motivated to understand their loved ones. Most participants who still had relationships with their loved ones were motivated to heal or maintain their relationships, while those who no longer did had previously tried many different strategies to save their relationships. These findings provide greater insight into how QAnon can impact relationships, offering fruitful directions for future research examining how individuals can heal from QAnon-afflicted relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative well-being studies have shown that welfare recipients performing work activities in activation programmes report relatively high levels of well-being. This article asks how these findings can be explained, given welfare recipients' constrained autonomy. To answer this question a qualitative study was conducted in the Netherlands to explore the interaction between welfare recipients' constrained autonomy and how they experience work in Mandatory Work Programmes. This article uses concepts from critical theoretical approaches to meaningful work and autonomy to analyze the data. The findings show how the restrained autonomy of programme impacted the participants' work experiences in various, sometimes contradictory ways. It is concluded, among other things, that quantitative well-being research does not seem to fully capture people's experiences as having the status of a welfare recipient and, related to that, what it means for them when their autonomy is constrained in one or more dimensions. It is also recommended that future quantitative well-being studies clearly distinguish between types of activation programmes, particularly regarding their mandatory nature, their goals and their target groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Co-production in the human services is a way of working that includes the expertise of service users in service implementation. While co-production is often considered a net positive for the co-producing organisation, this can depend on how, with whom, and to what extent co-production is conducted. This study uses qualitative interview data from 26 employees at syringe service programs (SSPs) in a midwestern US state to examine how SSPs implement co-production, and how this challenges or maintains current power dynamics. As the structure of SSPs has been changing from a grassroots, peer-based model to one that includes the expertise of professional medical staff, it is important to consider what these changes might mean for co-production in the field. SSPs have a rich history of being peer-led, and this project uses interviews with SSP staff to determine how the transition into professional and bureaucratic organisations has affected co-production, and in turn, organisational power dynamics. Findings show that respondents reiterate the importance of co-producing services, although there are significant challenges in implementing co-production in an equitable and liberatory way. Staff (both peer providers and non-peer providers alike) remain enthusiastic about the role that peers play in the organisation and are able to acknowledge barriers in collaborative efforts. Implications for the use of co-production in rapidly changing fields is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 1.8 million people were displaced in northern Uganda as a result of the LRA conflict. This paper explores risk and protective factors as well as examples of resilience among women in northern Uganda resettling after armed conflict and internal displacement. The risk and resilience ecological framework is used to identify and understand these factors along the multiple levels of the ecological social system. Risk factors included poor health, loss of instrumental and emotional support networks, and land vulnerability. Protective factors included engagement in livelihood and sociocultural activities with others. Resilience was located in the women's coping and maintenance of family and social relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The context of this article is the use of employer sanctions, in the form of raids and fines on businesses found to be employing people who do not have permission to work in the UK, as a method of in-border immigration control. Drawing on qualitative interviews with undocumented migrants and ethnic enclave employers in London, this article examines the impact of sanctions from the perspectives of those who have been or are most likely to be affected. More specifically the article sheds light on individual experiences of and strategies against immigration enforcement raids, and the effect of raids on the labour market, conditions of work and more widely, on local community relations. The paper concludes that there is a disjuncture between the real impact of sanctions and at least some of the stated policy aims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introduction to the Special Issue Indigenous Youth Resilience in the Arctic reviews relevant resilience theory and research, with particular attention to Arctic Indigenous youth. Current perspectives on resilience, as well as the role of social determinants, and community resilience processes in understanding resilience in Indigenous circumpolar settings are reviewed. The distinctive role for qualitative inquiry in understanding these frameworks is emphasized, as is the uniquely informative lens youth narratives can offer in understanding Indigenous, cultural, and community resilience processes during times of social transition. We then describe key shared cross-site methodological elements of the Circumpolar Indigenous Pathways to Adulthood study, including sampling, research design, procedures, and analytic strategies. The site-specific papers further elaborate on methods, focusing on those elements unique to each site, and describe in considerable detail locally salient stressors and culturally patterned resilience strategies operating in each community. The concluding paper considers these across sites, exploring continuities and discontinuities, and the influence of cross-national social policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research article, we discuss the social construction of public services within the conceptual and theoretical framework provided by Lipsky. We are interested in what it means if/when street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) have an active role in the construction of a service system. We argue that there are multiple realities in terms of the construction of public services and we approach the question by deploying Lipsky’s notion on SLBs by empirically analysing middle managers’ views on how SLBs act and their role in this construction process. This paper is based on empirical interviews (N=100) collated in 2012 from Barcelona, Den Bosch, Glasgow, Melbourne, Toronto, Vancouver, the Greater London area, and the US state of Vermont. The research collation strategy was to include reform-oriented cities and countries in terms of developing and delivering public services. We found that SLBs have three different kinds of strategies in the construction process: policy-making, working practices, and professionalism. We found that there are no conflicts arising from SLBs’ beliefs, organisational demands, and rules and regulations. Instead, SLBs try to solve conflicts or bridge gaps between policy-making and practical work in the boundaries between SLBs and service users. Based on this research, the role of SLBs and the built-in flexibility and agility of public service leadership and organisations must be addressed and developed further. The role of organisational learning and changing organisational cultures must also be scrutinized in the context of public service systems. The analysis of professional resilience in the context of public services planning needs more theoretical and empirical attention. The resilience of organisations and the capacities of SLBs need to be researched more. Finally, there is the need for better cultivation of the role of the SLBs and service users with regard to accountability aspects (horizontal and vertical). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American literature on international adoption suggests that adoptees' pride in the culture of their birth country improves their self-esteem and helps them to cope with experiences of racism. Parents are therefore encouraged to teach their adopted children multicultural skills to improve their psychological well-being. French psychologists, on the contrary, suggest that adoptees should feel fully members of their adoptive country and families. These practices shed light on the respective multicultural and universalist paradigms in the US and France. Few papers, however, consider the opinions of adoptees. This study explores internationally adopted children raised in France and their spontaneous curiosity about their birth country. The present study used semistructured interviews with 19 adoptees aged 8-18 years old, to explore their attitudes towards the culture of their birth country. Transcripts of recorded interviews were analyzed according to interpretative phenomenological analysis. While there was striking consistency of interest in birth countries, adoptees' expression of curiosity varied across time. Children described distinctive goals: knowing more about their history, finding relatives, becoming a multicultural citizen, or simply helping people. Their parents' involvement was thus seen as helpful, but adoptees stress the need to feel ready and may prefer independent ways of learning about their birth country. Adoptees' multiple feelings of belonging derive not only from multicultural training but from a lifelong construction of self. Professionals and parents may need to adapt to adoptees' individual development, distinctive time frames, and ways of learning to provide better support to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, disappointing poverty trends and welfare state limitations in many European countries – including constraints on minimum income benefits – have paved the way for a larger role of the third sector. An interesting but controversial form of third-sector in-kind support is food aid provision. In Europe, food aid is, so far, a non-rights-based practice displaying worrisome discretionary and stigmatizing characteristics. Yet, the phenomenon of food aid in Europe has spread, professionalized, and penetrated the institutions of the welfare state. This raises the question if, how and to what extent food aid plays a role in bypassing structural constraints on minimum income protection. This article applies an exploratory case study approach to estimate the monetary value of food aid in relation to statutory minimum incomes in four EU-countries. We use cross-nationally comparable food reference budgets to price food aid packages in Belgium, Finland, Hungary and Spain. The results show that food aid, although not sufficient to close the at-risk-of-poverty gap, is non-trivial for some European households. In Spain and Belgium food aid packages can reach up to €100 a month (expressing 7% to 11% of respective minimum income benefit levels). Importantly, we perceive (formalized) cooperation and interaction between local welfare agencies and food charities in all countries, suggesting that welfare state actors use non-rights-based food aid for filling gaps in the social safety net. The large between- and within-country variation of the monetary values of food aid packages points, however, to food aid as a problematic discretionary practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the EU evolving towards a Re-Insurance Union? The creation of SURE, an EU financial tool to support national short-time work (STW) schemes in the midst of the pandemic, has revitalized debates on fiscal stabilizers as a means to counter economic downturns and protect jobs within the European Union. Drawing from document analyses and 17 interviews with EU and national stakeholders, this study explores the politics underpinning SURE's adoption following a decade of heated and unsuccessful debates on the European Unemployment Reinsurance Scheme (EURS). Through the lens of 'purposeful opportunism', the article illustrates how the European Commission leveraged prior EURS insights and the emerging consensus on STW schemes to craft SURE in a way which addressed national concerns about EU-wide welfare harmonization, while positioning the EU as a holding environment for national welfare states. Looking ahead, making SURE a permanent 'second line of defence' against macroeconomic shocks could contribute to further substantiating new, EU-wide, social rights codified in the European Pillar of Social Rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free School Meals (FSM) have been the site of renewed contestation and extensive campaigning in the last half-decade. Until recently, children in families with 'no recourse to public funds' because of their immigration status were excluded from accessing FSMs, despite being some of the most destitute in Britain. Through an analysis of campaign materials and interviews with advocates, we consider this dynamic policy terrain in light of the UK's 'hostile environment' and consider lessons for campaigners. By exploring imaginaries of childhood, poverty, and nation shaping FSM policies, we offer a warning that campaigns can end up justifying exclusions at the same time as aiming for more expansive support. How campaigns represent their causes has implications, which, in this case, is often through the exceptionalism and hyper-deservingness of childhood. We argue these representations reduce discussion to technical questions about who is 'deserving', thereby risking shoring up an exclusionary and hostile state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes stressors experienced by Syrian mothers in Lebanon in 2020 and emphasizes the necessity of addressing their distinct needs. Through in-depth interviews, it identifies stressors linked to living conditions in Lebanon, the economic crisis, health care access, and the impact of the pandemic. The study recommends that social workers should utilize and enhance existing support systems. It also recommends social policies facilitating mobility for Syrians to reunite with their families and livelihood programs enabling families to prioritize their own financial stability. This comprehensive approach has the potential to alleviate the challenges faced by Syrian mothers in Lebanon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Minority groups have been disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19's effects. Whereas, social workers have been instrumental in countering those effects, their roles have been understudied, particularly during the 'new normal' that followed the outbreak. This gap is addressed by drawing on interviews with 28 social workers in the Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) society in Israel, held after the outbreak and during the 'new normal'. Three main roles are identified: first responders, during the outbreak; a voice for community needs, in the 'new normal'; and policy translators – throughout. The findings contribute a temporal aspect to the literature by highlighting social workers' dynamic roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the differences between Norwegian and US welfare state ideologies, and if or how they are reflected in the respective foster care systems and in the daily practices of foster parents. Our analysis combines a review of policy documents and legal regulations, with interviews in a sample of 141 exemplary foster parents (87 from the US and 54 from Norway). The paper identifies clear differences in how these two states take responsibility and provide services for families in general and foster parents in particular, examining distinct differences in the conditions foster parents have for exercising their parenting tasks. The findings from the interviews show how the conditions play out in real life for foster parents and foster children in relation to recruitment of caregivers, time and resources available to children, and how caregivers negotiate and advocate for children’s needs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many mental health clinicians in South Africa use informal interpreters, who are employed to perform other functions, such as cleaners and security guards; there are no formally trained interpreters. Drawing on qualitative semistructured interviews, this paper examines the experiences of informal interpreters working within a psychiatric setting. Furthermore, this paper explores how working in this invisible capacity affects informal interpreters’ views of themselves and the contribution they feel they are making by acting as interpreters. An interpretative phenomenological approach enabled an in-depth analysis of the experiences of the ad hoc interpreters. The results of this study reveal a dilemma. On the one hand, informal interpreters interviewed jeopardize ethical principles by breaching confidentiality and reporting on patient behaviour without their consent. On the other hand, they report fulfilling an additional beneficial role in terms of the overall care of patients which goes beyond the ambit of the interpreting session. The impact and extent of the informal interpreters’ involvement in care could not be ascertained solely from the data obtained in this study, but it is clear that informal interpreting may usefully be viewed as a form of hidden care work. A detailed ethnographic study aimed at exploring this further is therefore recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This briefing paper aims to show the most common paths to homelessness in a post-socialist state: the Czech Republic. Homelessness in the Czech Republic is worthy of examination because the generous provision of social assistance and tenure security in this country has provided a more secure safety net against homelessness than many other EU member states: yet homelessness has still arisen. The theoretical approach applied in this paper attempts to move beyond the structure–agency debate in the homelessness literature by focusing on the characteristics that most homeless people share on their paths to homelessness. Simple associations among factors associated with homelessness cannot provide a definitive account of the causes of homeless; such data can, however, provide invaluable insights into the constellation of factors that are associated with the phenomenon of homelessness. This briefing paper reveals that the pervasiveness of consumer credit has often been a critical juncture on the pathway to homelessness in the Czech Republic, despite the assistance available from a strong welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Policy discussions relating to the selling of sex have tended to fixate on two spaces of sex work: the street and the brothel. Such preoccupation has arguably eclipsed discussion of the working environment where most sex is sold, namely, the private home. Redressing this omission, this paper discusses the public health and safety implications of policies that fail to regulate or assist the ‘hidden population’ of sex workers, focusing on the experiences of home-based workers in Sydney, Australia. Considering the inconsistent way that Home Occupation Sex Services Premises (HOSSPs) are regulated in this city, this paper discusses the implications of selling sex beyond the gaze of the state and the law. It is concluded that working from home can allow sex workers to exercise considerable autonomy over their working practices, but that the safety of such premises must be carefully considered in the development of prostitution policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The increasing number of recipients of disability and long-term sickness benefits has resulted in the introduction of specific employability programmes in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. In the UK Pathways to Work involved enabling and support measures for benefit recipients with long-term health conditions. In Denmark ‘flex-jobs’ are an integral occupational health intervention for both employed and unemployed people with reduced working capacity. Through a comparative analysis primarily based on stakeholder interviews in both countries, this paper argues that the concept of an inclusive labour market strategy is crucial to assisting these groups into work, underpinned by governance and a politics of representation. In Denmark both the role of the social partners and subsidized employment are significant. In the UK governance has been constrained and insufficient attention has been paid to income security. Comparing these two models highlights policy learning for the UK from the successes of and challenges to the Danish model. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The promotion of ‘active’ ageing in later life has been a key development in recent health and social care policy. These changes not only challenge the prevalent view of old age as an inevitable process of biological decline but also signify the tendency of lay and expert discourses to increasingly use the notion of risk. At the same time, older people’s social identities need to be negotiated in the context of positive (active) and negative (passive) images of ageing. This paper reports findings from a study that explored visual images associated with health, risk and well-being targeted at people aged 50 years and over. Two key themes emerged: (1) Active Ageing: which included images of being active through physical activity, group activities, the promotion of paid and unpaid work, and images of learning opportunities in later life, such as computing; and (2) Health, Risk and Dependency: which included visual images of health risks, everyday risks associated with safety and security, and images of embodied dependencies, such as the use of mobility aids and informal/formal care relationships. Perceptions of risk were heightened by intersecting images of domestic space with symbols of risk, danger and alarm. Gender, ageing and the body were further intertwined within these visual images, with men more likely to be portrayed as active and the women as dependent, at risk and passive. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of these findings for policy and social care services, in particular, the ways that visual images not only reflect and reproduce social differences, but can influence our bodily conduct and perceptions of risk in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper concerns the use of photo-elicitation interviews in constructing migrant narratives of health and well-being. It argues that photo-elicitation can be particularly effective in producing nuanced understandings about relationships among culture, place and health. It explores how, through this method, subject-centred understandings of health and well-being are able to challenge dominant discursive constructions that tend to ‘other’ and potentially stereotype minority groups in explanations of health behaviour. The paper includes discussion of issues of power and representation in research with marginalized populations, which further elaborates the value of photo-elicitation in developing a non-essentializing view of minority groups. The paper concludes with comment on the potential value of this method in the formulation of health and social policies aiming to incorporate the views and needs of marginalized or minority groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the UK the number of state social workers supplied by independent employment agencies has increased significantly since the mid-1990s. Although state sectors of welfare such as education and health have always relied upon a steady supply of locum staff, there is no such tradition within social work. This paper explores some of the ethical tensions that have become apparent with the expansion of contingency social work. Questions remain about the ‘opportunity cost’ of agency social work, as well as subsequent problems of recruitment, access to training, collegiate relations and any impact upon service users. The paper notes tensions that persist between a push for more flexible labour, the ethics of practitioners and the needs of service users. Recent policy responses which aim to push responsibility back to local authorities and social work managers are also questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The primary objective of the majority of social assistance schemes is to reduce poverty, and targeting is often considered an important tool to reach this objective more efficiently and effectively. This paper investigates the efficiency and effectiveness of a targeted benefit scheme that uses a hybrid form of targeting and is subject to a tight budget constraint, namely the social assistance scheme in Kosovo. In recognition of the long-term detrimental and negative consequences of child poverty, we focus particularly on the scheme’s impact on children. A mixed method approach is used to investigate both the economic and non-economic costs and implications. Findings suggest that the social assistance scheme is highly efficient but excludes many poor children. Poverty impacts are limited and the scheme does not resonate well with its recipients. Policy simulations indicate that incremental budget increases have the potential to greatly reduce child poverty when implemented hand-in-hand with amendments to the current social assistance scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Children across the globe have been implicated in armed conflict as both victims and participants. During Sierra Leone’s decade-long civil war, thousands of children, both boys and girls, participated directly in armed conflict or were recruited for labour or sexual exploitation in armed groups. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 80 children formerly associated with Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, this paper explores children’s experiences of violence during the armed conflict, traces the realities that children faced in the aftermath of the war, and examines the ways in which participants attempted to cope with the war’s profound after-effects. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for social work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws from interviews conducted with leaders of 46 immigrant Christian churches in Vancouver. The congregations comprise newcomers from Korea, ethnic Chinese who are primarily recent immigrants and an older post-1945 German migration. The churches are identified as a hub in which relations of trust and compatibility generate bonding social capital; from this base, a wide range of personal and social services is provided, significantly aiding co-ethnic members to adapt to their new conditions. In a neo-liberal era, the state is facilitating such activities as part of a policy of contracting-out its own former in-house functions. The capacity of the immigrant church to serve both its own members and adherents and also a broader expanded constituency beyond its co-ethnic clients is important. The paper examines the activities of some of the churches in this transition from bonding to bridging social capital and the challenges that they confront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysis of media representations of AIDS needs to examine the narrative construction of `otherness' and `expertise'. This paper is part of a project examining the narrative representation of the `new expertise' in Australia in a variety of popular media forms after the 1983 pessimism of the `Grim Reaper' television campaign. It examines the radio debate around Michael Fumento's The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS in terms of the empiricist and culturalist discourses of the main protagonists (Professor John Dwyer and Fumento), and their positioning and framing by radio interviews. The paper examines the way in which interviewers' procedures to display neutrality interact with intertextual authenticating devices to position each protagonist as `expert' when interviewed singly, though the consistent recycling of authenticating pre-texts in the Dwyer interviews gave him greater definitional scope. The paper concludes with an analysis of the semantic and rhetorical strategies employed by Fumento and Dwyer when on-line together, and an account of Dwyer's positioning of the audience in his construction of scientific consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mayors play a major role in determining their locality's welfare policies and significantly influence the welfare bureaus' work. This study employed in-depth semi-structured interviews with 19 mayors of local Arab governments in Israel to examine this issue. It found that the mayors fiercely criticize the welfare bureaus in four areas of concern, claiming that they ignore particular needs, neglect core target populations, lack culture-sensitive responses and their functioning is defective. The mayors' criticism of welfare bureau inadequacies sheds light on Welfare Ministry policies that allocate lower discriminatory budgets to Arab welfare bureaus and are insensitive to Arab society's cultural-religious needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing literature on what contemporary cultural theorists have broadly termed the “postsecular”: the abandonment of clear-cut boundaries between the secular and nonsecular in the industrialized West and an embrace of a complex understanding of what is real that neither accepts nor rejects the supernatural. These new cultural currents may affect not only philosophers and theologians, but also the ways in which individuals with psychosis make sense of their experiences. This paper reports on the key findings of an in-depth qualitative analysis of 19 interviews of individuals diagnosed with psychotic disorders. The majority of participants described ongoing and self-conscious struggles to demarcate their experiences as the products of the real world or a “crazy” mind. With equal frequency, participants weighed and debated competing secular and supernatural explanations, often juxtaposing and blending different explanatory frameworks. We found that this syncretic process affected not only the content of psychotic experiences—what delusions or hallucinations are about—but also the type of arguments or logics used to justify particular interpretations. We discuss the implications of these observations with respect to clinical practice and the broader phenomenology of psychosis, challenging often oversimplified discourse on “insight” and suggesting that polarization(s) between “biomedical” and “psychosocial” explanations may be of less relevance to patients’ real-world experiences than is often assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee young people have been identified as a group with high risk for mental health problems, due to their experience of trauma, forced migration, and stressors associated with settlement. A high prevalence of mental health problems is reported in this group, however some research suggests refugee young people have low rates of mental health service access. There is little information available on barriers and facilitators to mental service delivery for this group. Using data from 15 focus groups and five key informant interviews with a total of 115 service providers from 12 agencies in Melbourne, Australia, this paper explores barriers and facilitators to engaging young people from refugee backgrounds with mental health services. Eight key themes emerged: cultural concepts of mental health, illness, and treatment; service accessibility; trust; working with interpreters; engaging family and community; the style and approach of mental health providers; advocacy; and continuity of care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Immigration Act 2016 is central to the Conservative Government's drive to create a more hostile environment for potential migrants and current 'illegal' migrants residing in the UK. The Right to Rent provisions of the Act, which require private landlords in England to conduct mandatory immigration document checks on prospective tenants, or face sizeable fines and criminal prosecution, have been highlighted as a key facet of the legislation. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key experts and analysis of Home Office guidance documents, we argue the Right to Rent has turned the private rental market into a border-check, with landlords responsibilised to perform 'everyday bordering' on behalf of the State. This creates a potentially discriminatory environment for all migrants, as well as for British citizens who lack documentation and/or may be subject to racial profiling. It may also be forcing vulnerable, undocumented migrants into even more precarious housing situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1977 homelessness legislation in England has offered limited statutory accommodation rights to unintentionally homeless people who are judged to be in priority need and able to demonstrate a local connection. Using data generated in interviews with homeless people and staff working to support them, this paper considers the impact of current homelessness policy and practice and explores how decisions about intentionality, priority need and local connection serve to exacerbate the social exclusion experienced by single homeless people with multiple support needs. It is concluded that a more genuinely inclusive welfare state will only emerge when, and if, policymakers and wider society are able to abandon their current fixation with using welfare policy to punish ‘irresponsible’ behaviour and refocus instead on providing services to adequately meet the basic needs of marginalised people. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background/aims: Clinical trial oversight is central to the safety of participants and production of robust data. The United Kingdom Medical Research Council originally set out an oversight structure comprising three committees in 1998. The first committee, led by the trial team, is hands-on with trial conduct/operations ('Trial Management Group') and essential. The second committee (Data Monitoring Committee), usually completely independent of the trial, reviews accumulating trial evidence and is used by most later phase trials. The Independent Data Monitoring Committee makes recommendations to the third oversight committee. The third committee, ('Trial Steering Committee'), facilitates in-depth interactions of independent and non-independent trial members and gives broader oversight (blinded to comparative analysis). We investigated the roles and functioning of the third oversight committee with multiple research methods. We reflect upon these findings to standardise the committee's remit and operation and to potentially increase its usage. Methods: We utilised findings from our recent published suite of research on the third oversight committee to inform guideline revision. In brief, we conducted a survey of 38 United Kingdom–registered Clinical Trials Units, reviewed a cohort of 264 published trials, observed 8 third oversight committee meetings and interviewed 52 trialists. We convened an expert panel to discuss third oversight committees. Subsequently, we interviewed nine patient/lay third committee members and eight committee Chairs. Results: In the survey, most Clinical Trials Units required a third committee for all their trials (27/38, 71%) with independent members (ranging from 1 to 6). In the survey and interviews, the independence of the third committee was valued to make unbiased consideration of Independent Data Monitoring Committee recommendations and to advise on trial progress, protocol changes and recruitment issues in conjunction with the trial leadership. The third committee also advised funders and sponsors about trial continuation and represented patients and the public by including lay members. Of the cohort of 264 published trials, 144 reported a 'steering' committee (55%), but the independence of these members was not described so these may have been internal Trial Management Groups. Around two thirds of papers (60%) reported having an Independent Data Monitoring Committee and 26.9% neither a steering nor an Independent Data Monitoring Committee. However, before revising the third committee charter (Terms of Reference), greater standardisation is needed around defining member independence, composition, primacy of decision-making, interactions with other committees and the lifespan. Conclusion: A third oversight committee has benefits for trial oversight and conduct, and a revised charter will facilitate greater standardisation and wider adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]