Child Welfare Social Work Students Annotated Bibliography

Hardwick, L. (2013). Advocacy versus social work: what the setting-up of an advocacy rights hub reveals about social work's ability to promote social inclusion. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 1700-1716.

Advocacy involves promotion of social inclusion, social justice, and equality. These principles are similar to those of professional values of social work. The article focuses on advocacy hub whose attention is on areas with sociospatial inequality. Individuals from this region have limited voice. These advocates address discriminatory practices, failures in the provision of services and unmet need. The social workers may be limited to achieve them, and they should work together with the advocates to address the social injustices and inequalities in the society.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

From the article, I learned that advocates are not trained, supported and supervised like social workers. With this lack of knowledge base, ability to challenge injustices will be affected. This is important to note, since, in the future, those individuals who have masters in social work can also get a degree in advocacy. Adoption agencies and child advocacy organization rely on the expertise that trained social work professionals to have. This will significantly impact the future child welfare policy as they will take the role of child advocacy.

Sheppard, M., & Clibbens, J. (2015). Preventive therapy and resilience promotion: an evaluation of social work led skills development group work. Child & Family Social Work, 20(3), 288-299.

The article discusses the professional role and therapeutic potential of social work. Social workers have placed more emphasis on the protection of a child rather than early prevention. Resilience is important for those who want to help children overcome adversity. There, social skills play a significant role in maintaining social relationships, developing a personal identity and coping with transition and stress.

It is interesting to note that social workers did not have to be trained to learn this resilience skills but instead they taught themselves how to carry out these skills. This unsupervised capacity to obtain the skills will play a major role in future. They will be located in many organizations and contexts including social enterprises. With these skills, they will have an opportunity to improve the social care market and facilitate co-production of services with the community.

Riebschleger, J., Norris, D., Pierce, B., Pond, D. L., & Cummings, C. (2015). Preparing social work students for rural child welfare practice: Emerging curriculum competencies. Journal of Social Work Education, 51(sup2), S209-S224.

Special populations require special workforce preparation in addressing educational programs. Social work students should be prepared to promote child welfare in rural areas. The article provides a competency framework that should be applied in rural child welfare practice. It acknowledges the importance and the challenges of a partnership between agencies that provide a workplace in rural areas and social work programs. Empowerment, community resource development, and system change are some of the emphasis made on preparing social work students. It was interesting to note that despite the challenges that come with working in rural areas such as inadequate access to resources and isolation, working in rural areas has its advantages such as beautiful surroundings, more independence, and interdisciplinary teamwork.

The information from this article will be useful in reducing the rates of workforce turnover and shortages in future. The domains address an article such as retaining rural child welfare workers should be integrated. It is also important for collaboration of universities and the community in the development of child welfare competencies that will provide support to the social work students who will become child welfare workers in the future.

Pecukonis, E., Greeno, E., Hodorowicz, M., Park, H., Ting, L., Moyers, T., ... & Wirt, C. (2016). Teaching Motivational Interviewing to Child Welfare Social Work Students Using Live Supervision and Standardized Clients: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 7(3), 479-505.

Motivation interviewing is effective and should be taught to students of child welfare social work. This approach has a higher potential of being incorporated into the curriculum of social work. This practice has helped in motivating students to make the needed change in behavior. It is an efficient curriculum that enhances the development of motivational interviewing. This knowledge is important for future research on how the training will be incorporated into real-world practice.

The article provides support to future child welfare workers who will develop and maintain use of motivational interviewing in typical scenarios and learn to use it in clinical practice. Interaction of the client and learning needs of the trainee will shift the clinical practice of child welfare workers. I learned that Live Supervision strengthens the start of acquiring skills of motivational interviewing.

Deglau, E., Ray, A., Conway, F., Carre-Lee, N., Waldman, W., Cunningham, K., ... & Powell, T. (2015). Practice change in child welfare: The interface of training and social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 51(sup2), S153-S172.

The article depicts ways in which education in social work can be lined up with the necessities of state child welfare system. This can be identified by adopting a change model that is system wide. The professional education was critical to the skills and knowledge they required in the implementation of the new practice model which was the family team meetings. The article captures the challenges that exist in making connections between schools and social work department to agencies dealing with child welfare needs.

I learned that social work education and training add value to the workplace experience. It has a great impact on child welfare since what is learned in class can be incorporated into our daily practices. Hence, social work programs should partner with graduate agencies. This article will be useful in future in identifying workplace conditions that facilitate excellent and effective social work practices. Additionally, the article will contribute greatly in identifying steps that should be taken by social work programs to prepare graduates effectively as they go into child welfare workplace.

Gray, M. (2013). The swing to early intervention and prevention and its implications for social work. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 1750-1769.

The article is focused on the topic of social investment. It shows a shift to early and prevention education during early childhood. It addresses the position of social work and how it related to human and social capital investment. Social investment and social inclusion capitalize on the strengths of an individual and the community, their capacities and capabilities in overcoming disadvantage. From the article, I learned that social work preventive interventions are most effective when there are well-informed assessments and when problems are developing. And for effective prevention and early interventions, social workers should be consistent and continuous in the provision of their services.

The article will be useful in addressing the effectiveness and success in addressing highly constrained practice contexts which are likely to have reduced long-term outcomes. Social work should shift their focus from investing in families and children.

References

Deglau, E., Ray, A., Conway, F., Carre-Lee, N., Waldman, W., Cunningham, K., ... & Powell, T. (2015). Practice change in child welfare: The interface of training and social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 51(sup2), S153-S172.

Gray, M. (2013). The swing to early intervention and prevention and its implications for social work. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 1750-1769.

Hardwick, L. (2013). Advocacy versus social work: what the setting-up of an advocacy rights hub reveals about social work's ability to promote social inclusion. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 1700-1716.

Pecukonis, E., Greeno, E., Hodorowicz, M., Park, H., Ting, L., Moyers, T., ... & Wirt, C. (2016). Teaching Motivational Interviewing to Child Welfare Social Work Students Using Live Supervision and Standardized Clients: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 7(3), 479-505.

Riebschleger, J., Norris, D., Pierce, B., Pond, D. L., & Cummings, C. (2015). Preparing social work students for rural child welfare practice: Emerging curriculum competencies. Journal of Social Work Education, 51(sup2), S209-S224.

Sheppard, M., & Clibbens, J. (2015). Preventive therapy and resilience promotion: an evaluation of social work led skills development group work. Child & Family Social Work, 20(3), 288-299.