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This article examines the transformation of social work in South Africa in response to the transition to a developmental welfare approach. Always moulding and shaping itself in response to its social context, social work in South Africa, as elsewhere, is a reflection of the broader political landscape. In South Africa the social work profession has struggled to assert its independence and become self‐regulating. It is unique in the Western world in that since 1978 it has been regulated by a legislatively constituted statutory council. While the profession has tried to transform itself in the new democracy, outside pressures have found it wanting and deeply divided. Thus, despite progress in other areas social workers have not yet been successful in forming a strong, united professional association and this severely limits its ability to lobby politicians and advocate on behalf of clients. It seems, however, that the tide is turning and social workers are gaining recognition but, once again, the challenge remains deciding on the extent to which the profession cooperates with the government's agenda for change. Social work educators took the lead in setting education standards in response to higher education policy and are also playing a part in devising practice standards through their involvement in the social work board which falls under the umbrella of the Council for Social Service Professions. However, education and practice are somewhat out of step and professional unity remains a pressing issue on social work's transformation agenda.

Good quality assessment in Child Protection is crucial to ensure adequate protection and provision. This article explores social workers` experiences with two different Child Protection assessment models: the "professional judgment model", exemplified by Norway, and the "structured assessment model", exemplified by England. The aim is to explore the experiences of social workers who carry out assessments in England and Norway, and compare and discuss these experiences in light of "accountability" theory.

Transnational Social Policies specifically addresses the worldwide trend for national policies on human and social development to be increasingly influenced by agendas that are international, or "transnational," in nature. In doing so, the book examines the underlining international developmental, ethical, economic, and political issues shaping national policies in health, education, and employment in the developing world. This book's focus on the "transnational" character of the social policy debate makes it a truly unique and original contribution to the literature. It will appeal to the acad.

Abstract: This paper summarizes findings from the Austrian research team of the MascAge Project involving online focus groups with Austrian men aged 65 and over and a case study in literary and cultural studies in the form of an analysis of David Schalko's novel Bad Regina (2021). Both analyses suggest that negotiations of (declining) power are central to understanding cultural and social constructions of aging masculinities in Austria in the early 2020s. This paper provides an insight into an interdisciplinary endeavor on current dimensions of aging men in Austria that contributes to a better understanding of current debates in Austrian Studies.

Online social networks (OSN) are becoming more important in people's daily life, however, all popular OSNs are centralized, and this raises a series of security, privacy and management issues. A decentralized architecture based on blockchain technology provides the ability to solve above issues. In this paper, an OSN service is developed based on blockchain technology in order to make it operate decentralized. Large volume of data normally required low-security requirements can be stored in Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) to make data decentralized. A decentralized autonomous organization is developed for user autonomy, users can self-manage the OSN in a democratic way.

Technology is revolutionizing the practice of political advocacy, a fact that has important ramifications for the nonprofit sector. This exploratory study examines the current application of electronic advocacy techniques in the affiliates of a national social work professional association and considers what factors tend to predict the affiliates that are most successful at adopting these techniques. The study found that all of the affiliates were using some of these technology-based advocacy techniques in their advocacy practice and that the factors that predicted utilization depended on whether affiliates were planning new technology or actually using new technology.

All residential establishments for children have to be inspected by social services, particularly in relation to the Children Act 1989. This article describes how the inspection process could be implemented to take account of the special needs of children with visual impairments. These needs affect the way in which policies are carried out. They also have an influence on which policies are critical to the effective management of an establishment. It is suggested that effective inspection requires an orientation for inspectors, with the most constructive inspections achieved through a partnership between inspectors and establishments.

The recent lowering of some obstacles to the migration of Micronesians to Guam has resulted in a sudden influx of migrants. In a short time, Guam has experienced many of the impacts associated with large scale migration on population growth, provision of services and the issue of ethnic assimilation. An extensive demographic profile of newly settled migrants is presented, followed by a discussion of future implications. Micronesian migration is expected to grow, encouraging the formation of nucleated ethnic communities, a sizeable working class, and social costs and potential ethnic conflict that will draw increasing attention from the Guam government.

Municipalities and county councils try a multitude of different strategies when they design and steer health and social care markets to ensure that goals such as quality and equity are met. Depending on the strategies used, different problems arise. The aim of this thesis is to examine how local authorities can design quasi-markets in a way that achieves public goals such as equity and high quality. To answer the aim, four empirical studies were carried out. The studies show that when designing a market by contracting-out through public procurement, the issues lay primarily at specifying and defining what is meant by quality before a service is privatized. This is especially difficult to do concerning soft areas such as elder- and healthcare. If this is not done properly, it can lead to crucial issues for monitoring quality since the contracting authority cannot hold the provider responsible for delivering an aspect of a service if that aspect is not specified in the contract. When a market is designed as in the patient choice systems in primary care, it creates a whole other set of difficulties for the local governments. Here, it is not as important to specify quality beforehand in the contracts since quality monitoring is done retrospectively by both the counties themselves as well as the patients who with their choices can monitor quality by punishing providers with poor quality by registering with another provider. Instead, the crucial problem is how to design reimbursement system that will lead to an equal access to health care. In this respect, the county councils utilize different methods. However, despite these measures, the primary care choice reform have led to inequity, both geographical inequity in regards to where new private primary health care centres are located but also, to a larger degree, socio-economic inequity relating to what kind of socio-economic groups of individuals are registered with private PHCCs. In other words, county councils do not manage to fully counteract risk selection behaviour by the design of their reimbursement system which could imply issues with unequal access to health care.

ResumenEl colapso del Rana Plaza en 2013 concienció acerca de las condiciones de trabajo abusivas en la industria del vestido. Se ha prestado mucha atención a la responsabilidad de las empresas minoristas, pero no tanta a la de las empresas de auditoría social. Las autoras investigan los sistemas existentes para detectar y corregir las auditorías deficientes e ineficaces y concluyen que, en la práctica, la supervisión y las sanciones en este ámbito son limitadas. Se explora pues cómo las iniciativas de cumplimiento social pueden mejorar la verificación de la calidad de las auditorías y la rendición de cuentas.

This paper analyzes two social protection policies implemented in Argentina, with emphasis on those most vulnerable people: the `Plan de Inclusión Previsional´ (2005) for the elderly and the `Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social´(2009), aimed to children and adolescents less than 18 years old whose parents are not covered by the contributory family allowance system. The results show that both programs have had major impacts on the expansion of social security coverage, and reduction of poverty and extreme poverty, which effects extend to the entire family. ; En este trabajo se analizan dos políticas de protección social implementadas en la Argentina con énfasis en aquellos sectores más vulnerables: el Plan de Inclusión Previsional (2005) destinado a adultos mayores y la Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social (2009), destinado a niños, niñas y adolescentes menores de 18 años, cuyos padres no estén amparados por el sistema de asignaciones familiares contributivas. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que ambos programas han tenido importantes impactos en la ampliación de la cobertura de la seguridad social, y la reducción de la pobreza y la indigencia, que se extienden a todo el núcleo familiar.

This paper analyzes two social protection policies implemented in Argentina, with emphasis on those most vulnerable people: the `Plan de Inclusión Previsional´ (2005) for the elderly and the `Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social´(2009), aimed to children and adolescents less than 18 years old whose parents are not covered by the contributory family allowance system. The results show that both programs have had major impacts on the expansion of social security coverage, and reduction of poverty and extreme poverty, which effects extend to the entire family. ; En este trabajo se analizan dos políticas de protección social implementadas en la Argentina con énfasis en aquellos sectores más vulnerables: el Plan de Inclusión Previsional (2005) destinado a adultos mayores y la Asignación Universal por Hijo para Protección Social (2009), destinado a niños, niñas y adolescentes menores de 18 años, cuyos padres no estén amparados por el sistema de asignaciones familiares contributivas. Los resultados obtenidos muestran que ambos programas han tenido importantes impactos en la ampliación de la cobertura de la seguridad social, y la reducción de la pobreza y la indigencia, que se extienden a todo el núcleo familiar.

The social theory of Johann P. Arnason (Praxis und Interpretation: Sozialphilosophische Studien [Praxis and Interpretation: Studies in Social Philosophy], Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp), constitutes a hermeneutical turn in contemporary social theory. Hence, Arnason tries to both retain & extend the Marxian concept of praxis while incorporating the culturalist legacy of Max Weber through a parallel reading of both Jurgen Habermas & Carlos Castoriadis. For Arnason, the respective linguistic & psychoanalytical models of these two thinkers forestall a more hermeneutical turn. However, Arnason's theory itself seems able to deal with a concept such as power only from a culturalist perspective because the conceptual foundations of a theory of power from an action-theoretical perspective are insufficiently established. In short, it is argued that there are both dangers & advantages in making a hermeneutical turn within contemporary social theory. Modified AA