A Bridge over Troubled Water: Managing Parties’ Mental Illness in Mediation

One in five individuals in society has or will have a mental illness at some point in his or her lifetime. Conflict resolution theory, however, largely assumes that all individuals operate within the range of behaviors considered mentally healthy. Evidence suggests that professionals who deal with conflict, however, may have to deal with individuals who have mental health problems more frequently than would be the statistical norm. Clearly then, new theories of practice and norms of mediator behavior are needed to respond to the distinctive challenges presented by engaging with those who face mental health difficulty. This paper surveys the research on how people with mental health challenges approach and respond to conflict and provides practical advice to conflict resolution professionals on how to recognize and tailor their approach to meet the needs of these individuals.     

Creating Settings for Youth Empowerment and Leadership: An Ecological Perspective

Youth development programs are increasingly focusing on youth empowerment and leadership, a shift which often requires adult staff to adopt new roles and practices. This article explores staff practice in the context of a multisite initiative designed to engage marginalized youth in social change through youth-led grants. Interviews with youth workers and managers revealed practices at multiple ecological levels. Individual-level practices supported youths’ capacities to participate. Group-level practices fostered social interactions and activities that actualized the youth-led approach. Setting-level practices created structures that supported and protected group activities while organization-level practices promoted a favorable environment for youth leadership. Analyzed from an ecological and activity settings perspective, these results contribute to understanding the multifaceted and complex nature of youth work in power-sharing practice models. Practice implications include identifying training needs to help practitioners navigate across multiple ecological levels and suggesting reflection questions for practitioners.     

Use of Self in the Context of Youth Work

Used in the education of counselors, nurses, occupational therapists and social workers, “use of self” is a way of understanding how practitioners bring about human change. In this article, the author discusses how use of self can be applied to youth work and is related to “developmentally responsive practice” thereby providing a deep theoretical construct for understanding youth work as relational. The author concludes by presenting the barriers to the use of self paradigm in the current climate of assessment and accountability, designed to measure static inputs and outputs rather than dynamic systems or ecologies and presents a challenge to the field for designing methodologies that are equally dynamic, responsive and relational.     

Not-Knowing or Knowing Naught: Revisiting the Concept of Collaboration and Expertise in Child and Youth Care Practice

This article discusses the complexities associated with adopting a not-knowing stance in Child and Youth Care practice. By highlighting some of the challenges, it also clarifies the distinctions between practitioner lack of knowing how to proceed and an intentional, uncertain attitude when working with children, youth and families. Recommendations or caveats are provided if a practitioner chooses to adopt this kind of orientation to practice.     

Why University Education Matters: Youth Work and the Australian Experience

In many countries youth work education in the university confronts a precarious future. Paradoxically, this takes place as the labor market is unable to meet demands for qualified practitioners. This article makes a case for further investment in university-based youth work education. While presenting labor demand and supply arguments, we also suggest that a good university education is important for producing graduates capable of becoming experts and good practitioners in the Aristotelian sense of the word. This entails the provision of learning opportunities to attain specialist knowledge, technical expertise and ethical capacities of the kind that distinguish youth work practice from other approaches to work with young people. Such an education also promotes the prospect that practitioners are able to develop a professional habitus that advances youth work as a discrete field of professional practice. While the material used in this article is Australian, we suggest there are sufficient commonalities between the Australian experience and many other countries for the arguments, findings and recommendations made here to have more general applicability.     

Why Do Social Work Practice Research?

Social work practice research focuses on researching all kinds of social work practice, including social work practice teaching, practitioner self-inquiry, and also social work services. In this article, first the dilemma of social work research in China will be analyzed; then the nature and position of social work research will be clarified; finally the procedure of practice research will be introduced. In short, the author intends to argue that as social work is a practice-oriented discipline, the creation of social work knowledge is for achieving social work professional goal and its research is practical and practice-oriented.     

国外应对弱势群体社会公平问题的现代实践与启示

伴随世界政治文明的进步和发展,各国循由不同的实践路径走向公平正义,取得了许多成功的实践经验,也不乏失败的教训。这些经验和教训,对于我国积极和有效应对当前及今后一段时间内凸显的弱势群体社会公平问题,全面实现"十二五"规划提出的今后五年"顺应各族人民过上更好生活新期待"、"保障和改善民生"、"坚定不移走共同富裕道路,使发展成果惠及全体人民"等战略构想,无疑具有重要的实践借鉴和启迪意义。     

社会计量在小组工作教学中的应用

小组工作教学与传统的教学方式不同。社会计量是检测团体动力的方法,在小组工作教学中有多种运用方式。在小组工作教学中,适当运用社会计量,既能促进班级同学的人际互动,又能让学生在体验中掌握专业方法。     

毛泽东的群众观及其对当代群众路线教育实践活动的启示

毛泽东的群众观内涵十分丰富。毛泽东的群众观重视人民群众在革命、建设中的主体地位,要求正确处理领导和群众的关系,强调人民利益高于一切。这对于当前深入开展党的群众路线教育实践活动具有重要指导意义:利于寻找影响党群、干群关系突出的"四风"问题的思想根源以及群众路线教育实践活动长效机制建设的路径选择。