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In applied professions achieving a professional identity is a key educational goal during the transition from student to professional. To facilitate this transition within academic teaching, it is essential to establish dedicated reflective spaces using creative methods. The study investigated the perspectives of final-year social work students on their professional identity formation as near-future social workers, using the photovoice methodology. Conducted within a dedicated research seminar course, the study involved 29 participants between 2018 and 2021, resulting in the collection of 289 photovoices. Four components of the social worker’s professional identity emerged: a) between the personal and the professional; b) professional responsibility; c) spaces of guidance, maintenance, and support; and d) personal-professional growth. From the reflexive perspective of final-year social work students, this study indicates a dynamic approach to understanding their professional identity formation as near-future social workers, shaped by the interconnectedness of knowing, being, and doing social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how older adults who participated in an online photovoice-based group intervention program reported their experience. In a qualitative-phenomenological study, in which 13 older-adult people participated, data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed through content analysis. The findings point to three central themes: a) Challenges—technical difficulties, difficulties in finding a subject for photography, investing time in photography, and an emotional-intellectual effort to put their experience into photography; b) Growth: New knowledge and skills—acquiring new knowledge, acquiring skills, experiencing skills regardless of age, and empowerment; c) Meaning—reflexivity, the ability to project feelings onto images, connection to the outside world, mindfulness, ability to choose, creativity, and critical consciousness. The findings share the way in which the use of creative visual engagement with photography contributed to coping with various challenges and enabled various gains within the process among the older-adult participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the burnout and coping in the work experience of educators-caregivers (ECs) employed in early childhood day-care centers in Israel, given that the interaction between ECs and children is a decisive factor in the quality of care for children. The study included 40 participants and used qualitative-phenomenological and arts-based approaches in both individual and group interviews. Informed by the literature on burnout, feminist theory, and a coping model, we found that while the ECs' strength lay in experiencing childcare as meaningful and rewarding, they lacked enabling working conditions. Specifically, the high number of children per EC, lack of institutional support, and parents' negative attitudes added to their daily stress and eroded their sense of self. In giving voice to the ECs as experts navigating complex realities, this study contributes to the understanding of their burnout and coping from interpersonal and social perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jewish Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) society is characterized by high fertility as part of what it sees as an inherent female identity. This article examines patterns of health behaviors and subjective experiences during pregnancy and childbirth among Israeli Haredi women, based on a qualitative study designed to investigate these phenomena within the Haredi cultural and social context. The research question of interest was: Given the importance of fertility and children in the Haredi population, how do women cope with normative pregnancy and childbirth experiences and with those that may be challenging, difficult or traumatic? Twenty Haredi women were interviewed, and the content of their interviews was analyzed.Six themes emerged that highlighted issues faced by Haredi women: social pressure to conceive; availability of social-communal resources for women after childbirth; seeking knowledge about reproductive health; medical practices and choices; traumatic experiences of reproductive events; and spiritual issues. These themes emphasized the unique characteristics of the Haredi woman's pregnancy and childbirth experiences. The findings point to the central role of the rabbi, religious faith and spirituality, considerations when using medical services and the importance of modesty as resources that help the women to navigate pregnancy and childbirth, which are seen as experiences that build identity among ultra-Orthodox women. Adverse reproductive events may lead to distress, but there is a reluctance to discuss them or seek treatment. The discussion integrates the findings with the current state of the literature, points to areas of change and adaptation and proposes practical recommendations that reflect the need to promote culturally sensitive reproductive health practices within the existing Israeli health care system., INTRODUCTIONPregnancy and childbirth are significant emotional and social events in a woman's life. (1) However, while childbirth is an integral part of the lives, experiences and identities of women around [...]

This study used drawing and semi-structured interviews to access the visions of self-actualisation of a group of at-risk young women in an employment support group in Israel. The findings point to the synergetic relationship between the self-defined goals of the young women such as inner peace, self-regulation, assertiveness, good relationships and entering employment. These goals were understood through a social, but also through a humanistic perspective that assumes everyone has a right to reach self-fulfilment in a broad sense: how employment interacts with this right according to the women's understanding is discussed so as to situate gaining a job within the women's self-defined visions of self-actualisation that were shown to be beyond basic financial needs.

War poses a challenge for social workers, adding exposure to direct risk of personal harm to the general stress of social work practice. Artworks are frequently used in health care settings with people in high distress. This study had three goals: (1) to characterize the stressors of social workers living in a war zone, (2) to teach social workers in crisis situations to identify stress and resilience factors in their artworks, and (3) to develop a general self-care model for arts intervention for professionals in these situations. Common stressors experienced by participants were anxiety and fear as a result of bombs, sirens, worry over loved ones, and overexposure to media. These were layered onto professional stressors, including constant work communication on cell phones during war and dilemmas related to work-family conflicts. Allowing social workers to name and identity the sources of their stress and then change their artwork to enhance resilience helped them to gain a sense of control over diffuse sources of anxiety. The authors propose this method as an effective intervention model with social workers in high-stress situations.

This paper outlines a rationale and a methodology for an art-based community-visioning model to facilitate visioning of the community's future by young people from marginalized communities. The model presented was implemented among young people from the Mountain Jewish Community in Israel. It was found that the use of personal drawings made it possible to simultaneously identify and communicate personal narratives, and thereby develop a shared community vision. The theoretical and practical implications of the model are discussed, as well as its applied potential for community organization processes with young people from marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the work of mental health practitioners and laywomen who have developed and applied a new model of working with women in groups, a model founded on feminist principles that uses women's writing as the vehicle for group work. The model maintains a delicate balance between the needs of the group, the needs of the women in their social environment, and the women's ability to be the broker of their time, place, and mode of expression. This article presents the theoretical roots of the model and the qualitative evaluation of the writing groups that have been held over seven years, and it discusses how and why this model works for women of all ages and from all walks of life. KEYWORDS Coping through self-expression, feminist therapy, women's groups, writing

An arts-based research is used on marginalized impoverished Bedouin women within the welfare system in Israel to explain the struggle they face during cultural transition.

The article helps to elucidate through art as a form of self-expression the role and different issues that marginalized Bedouin women play and helped to give them strength through their creativity.