Browsing by Subject "social work"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Arts Organizations and Their Impact on Adverse Childhood Experiences
    (2017-05) Clarke, Kristine
    The following three questions will be examined through this study. First, what role do arts organizations play in relation to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)? Second, do art organizations make any impact on individuals who have experienced ACEs? Third, do these organizations create this impact knowingly or unknowingly? Through examining six organizations it appears that arts organizations serve as efficient supplemental tools in helping individuals suffering from side effects of ACEs. By combining organizational efforts around mental health, rehabilitation, and social work with those of arts organizations, individuals are able to find a pathway or alternative communication method to expressing their emotions, fears, and demons that they have been trying to keep hidden. The research has also shown that art organizations are helping people confronting ACEs without knowing that the programming is indeed helping individuals facing ACEs. Through examining these questions the recommendation from this paper is for mental health, rehabilitation, and social work organizations to acknowledge how useful the arts can be for their patients and clients, and to seek out collaborations with these organizations.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Connect [Fall 2015]
    (University of Minnesota: College of Education and Human Development, 2015-08) University of Minnesota: College of Education and Human Development
    Healthy practice: Social work master’s students gain skills for careers in health care. Special delivery: Creating a new way to prepare education assistants to teach students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Energy exchange: Two teacher educators take time out to coteach in elementary classrooms. Fashion forwards: Four women teamed up with a group of middle-schoolers to create activewear for East African girls.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The GADE Guide: A Program Guide to Doctoral Study in Social Work
    (Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work, 2016) Lightfoot, Elizabeth; Beltran, Raiza
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Mother America: Cold War Maternalism and the Institutionalization of Intercountry Adoption from Postwar South Korea, 1953-1961
    (2016-01) Lee, Shawyn
    In 1953 an armistice was signed suspending the conflict of the Korean War, a three-year long civil war between what is now the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea) (Cumings, 2010). Casualties and the wounded numbered well over a million (Halberstam, 2007). Of those who remained in South Korea were hundreds of thousands of widows and children (Korean Institute of Military History, 2001). Many of the children were mixed-blood, born of Korean mothers and fathered by U.S. servicemen. Because of their mixed parentage, they were oftentimes abandoned, unwanted (Burnside, 1956). Mounting publicity of the poor, helpless “waif” was used to implore the American public to come to the rescue of these desperate children (Oh, 2012). Historian Christina Klein (2003) argues that it was felt that intercountry adoption could strengthen foreign relations between the U.S. and South Korea. It became acceptable and expected that American families would welcome mixed-blood Korean children into their homes, thus symbolizing American prosperity and security. Social welfare agencies played a major role in shaping and formalizing intercountry adoption practices in the aftermath of the Korean War. Numerous scholars, many of them Korean adoptees, have investigated the origins of Korean adoption. They have examined the same time period and utilized the same archival material as this study. What their research has in common with the present study is the critical interrogation of the longstanding dominant adoption narrative of children’s best interests served by humanitarian rescue and American benevolence. However, for as significant a role that social work played in formalizing Korean adoption practice standards in the 1950s, there currently exists no research that centers the activities of the profession with respect to Korean adoption. Using historical research methods situated within a maternalist and social constructionist framework, this study undertook a critical analysis of social work child-rescue efforts in postwar South Korea from 1953 to 1961 as embodied by one international social welfare agency: the American Branch of International Social Service (ISS-USA). This social work organization established and institutionalized intercountry adoption practices in the 1950s in its efforts to save mixed-blood Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. The American Branch became the premier expert on international adoption beginning in the 1950s. Its practice standards are still used today. Content analysis, informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) and historical discourse analysis (HDA) methods, was conducted on primary source documents of ISS-USA. This archival collection is housed in the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota. Findings revealed both how ISS-USA set up a system of formalized adoption standards, and the extent to which maternalist ideological values influenced by Progressive Era maternalism placed thousands of mixed-blood Korean children into the embracing arms of “Mother America.” First, in order to relieve the emergency situation of the many needy children in postwar South Korea, ISS-USA developed a formalized system of intercountry adoption procedures through what it called case conference by correspondence, whereby everything from policy monitoring, practice methods, research, and adoptions were discussed and established through detailed letter writing between ISS-USA social workers, their foreign correspondents, and local and state welfare organizations. Second, in what I call Cold War maternalism, I expanded Progressive Era maternalist ideologies that established specific notions of proper motherhood as belonging to privileged white, middle- and upper-middle class Christian women to a national level. Cold War maternalism suggests that given the patriotic pronatalist, anti-communist contextual reality of 1950s America (May, 2008), by deeming American parents as suitable “mothers” for Korean children, in essence, the United States came to be seen as the best “mother” for South Korea and the many mixed-blood Korean children left after the war. Findings from this study provide another critical perspective of the Korean adoption origin story, but uniquely contribute to this growing body of research by critically examining social work’s central role in establishing intercountry adoption standards. Implications for social work research and practice include more focus on critical indigenous research methodologies, the importance of understanding historical aspects of the profession, and the consideration of historical trauma in current social work practice with intercountry adoptees.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Short-Term Cost-Benefits of Intensive Home Visiting
    (2006) Monroe, Kevin; Granger-Kopesky, Joan; Bakken, Gay
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Social Work, Intractable Conflict and Professionalism: A Case Study of Jewish-Israeli Social Work Practice
    (2023-05) Soffer-Elnekave, Ruth
    AbstractSocial workers worldwide share a common framework and mission: to provide aid to those in need and promote social justice (Abramovitz, 1993; Healy, 2008). Yet, as an international profession, both global and local realities contribute to the ways in which social work is understood and practiced in particular cultural contexts. This dissertation addresses social work in Israel, where social workers are practicing within the unique context of an intractable political conflict. Despite the historical prevalence of political conflicts and wars, there is a lack of research examining how these conflicts affect social work practice (Campbell et al., 2018; Moshe-Grodofsky, 2019; Ramon, 2008). In this dissertation I explored the ways social work is understood and practiced considering the global and local realities of Jewish-Israeli social workers. I used narrative and life story methods to interpret individual life stories as they are set within collective political and professional contexts (Hammack, 2011; Leiblich et al., 1998; Linde, 1993). Sixteen Jewish-Israeli social workers participated in two zoom interviews. They related their professional life stories of practicing social work in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Three approaches to social work practice emerged: 1) few (3) participants focused only on a micro-level mental health approach; 2) some (5) participants prioritized a macro-centered social justice approach; and 3) many (8) were conflicted, expressing an ongoing tension between their perceived professional social justice mission, and their actual professional roles. The findings suggest that social work in Israel has shifted away from applying a person in environment perspective. Excluding political contexts from the assessment of individuals, communities and society has limited social workers’ ability to promote change. Recommendations for incorporating a politically-aware framework to social work practice, research and education, internationally, are discussed. Also discussed are the implications of local realities on social work as an international profession.