JOURNAL ISSUE 1
1998/1999
ARTICLE
ABSTRACTS
table
of contents
Spiritually
Sensitive Social Work: Key Concepts and Ideals
Edward
R. Canda, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
Social work is in the process of recovering from collective
soul loss. Compassion, justice, and helping with are traditionally
spiritual ways of living. Spirituality is soulful living but
social work has largely become disconnected from its spiritual
roots. Spirituality involves understanding the interconnectedness
of all people; compassionate concern rises from soulful awareness
of interconnectedness and the realization that self and others
are inseparable. Compassionate help is a natural way of life,
and human birth right. Attempts to formalize, systematize
and employ natural compassion through large scale social institutions
is a dangerous undertaking that has cut social work off from
the traditions of healers and helpers of all cultures. The
move towards technocracy has divorced social work from natural
helping. But the renewed interest in spirituality suggests
that social work maybe rediscovering its soul. Spiritually
moves us towards the realization of integration of all our
aspects while being in connection and communication with all
others. Spirituality inspires a sense of mutual responsibility.
The spiritually sensitive social worker is in harmony with
the many stages and types of changes in human existence and
is not close minded or confused by conflicting ideas. He/she
realizes one must take responsibility for the effects of one’s
actions. Spiritual sensitivity fosters an ethic of mutual
benefit and social justice rather than selfish one sided gain.
The spiritually sensitive social worker is socially active
and lives and acts in harmony with the processes social change.
This article will
focus on the development of spiritually sensitive social work
in the United States. One of the distinctive characteristics
of the American situation is that people from many different
religious and nonreligious spiritual backgrounds interact
within the social service systems. No one religion is promoted
by the state and all people are given the right to free exercise
of religion. The social work profession has come to realize
that we need an inclusive understanding of spirituality that
respects its diverse religious and nonreligious expressions.
Further, insights for theory and practice of social work come
from many different secular and religious perspectives.
In part one, I
will give an overview of historical trends in the connection
between spirituality, religion, and social work in the United
States. Then I will give brief definitions of the terms religion
and spirituality, as commonly used in American social work,
and some implications for creative revisioning of the mission
of social work. In part two, I will draw on key ideas about
the nature of social change in Western and Eastern philosophies
in order to provide a view of a person who is personally prepared
to provide spiritually sensitive social work and social activism.
This is not meant as a rigid prescription or sectarian belief.
Rather, it is meant to serve as a thought provoking set of
ideals and possibilities.
Psychological
Aspects of Reconciliation
Michael Striebel
ABSTRACT
Reconciliation cannot occur until victims move through
4 stages of grief work — defense, anger, breakdown, regression,
and adaptation. One must concede the truth of themselves,
the conflict situation and give some sign of this understanding
for reconciliation to occur. A good relationship to oneself;
others, God and nature is necessary to release the energy
necessary for peace work. A second necessary attitude is belief
in the equality of all people. With these beliefs, one is
able to move from grief work to conflict resolution.
Reconciliation
can be defined as a process in which two or more people or
parties revise mainly their behavior and partially their negative
thinking and feeling concerning the other to come to a new
form of coexistence. I address individuals facing the direct
or indirect consequences of armed conflicts although most
of what is said applies to other types of conflicts such as
marital or family disputes. I will not deal with reconciliation
and politics, economics, military, power distribution among
groups, mass convictions, and inter-religious conflicts.
Social
Work and Spirituality in an African Context
Therese
Sacco
ABSTRACT
The inclusivity of the traditional African world view stands
in contrast to the devastating brokenness of many parts of
the world. This brokenness may be addressed with components
of faith such as centers of value (social justice and empowerment);
images of power (compassion, peace, and interconnectedness);
and master stories. The development of a social work practice
embued with such faith may help social work to face the challenges
of brokenness and remain in touch with the commitment to alleviate
suffering.
Creating
Compassionate Community
Craig
Rennebohm
ABSTRACT
The Mental Health Chaplaincy began in 1987, as a response
to an increasingly visible number of homeless, mentally ill
individuals on the streets of downtown Seattle, Washington,
a city of almost 500,000 inhabitants. The chaplain walks a
daily route through the city center and nearby neighborhoods,
doing outreach and engagement with homeless, mentally ill
individuals who have lost contact with care or who have no
services. Outreach and engagement includes the four stages
of approach, companionship, partnership, and mutuality. The
aim is to share the journey from the street to stability within
the community assisting individuals to find and use a variety
of healing resources, and to foster the capacity for welcome
and hospitality in the community, and to establish long-term,
neighborhood scale patterns of care. The Chaplaincy works
with clusters of local congregations, assisting in equipping
churches to become centers of support with those who have
experienced major mental illness. A healthy neighborhood includes
those who are most vulnerable, stigmatized, and liable to
be on the margin. Neighbors will be willing to share in the
healing journey with a gift of themselves and their experiences,
wisdom, hope, and faithfulness. To address the systemic causes
of hopelessness, and maximize the healing capacity of neighborhoods,
the Chaplaincy has also been involved in a wider process of
community education and organization around the needs and
issues faced by those of us who struggle with mental illness.
The Chapliancy has been criticized as utopian but takes heart
from the example of Geel, Belgium, with a 700 year history
of neighborhood care for the mentally ill.
Lessons
Learned from Volunteer Work with Croatian and Bosnian Refugees
Robert
P. Conte
ABSTRACT
The lessons learned are from a personal journey of one mans
effort into humanitarian relief work during and after the
conflict in the former Yugoslavia. He became involved and
volunteered his services to a Croatian founded humanitarian
organization that provides psychosocial services to refugees
and displaced people. New relationships developed from interaction
with national-international volunteers, networking with other
organizations, writing of a policy-program manual, working
in refugee camps, and follow up with refugees who have resettled
into another country or returned to their homeland after the
war. The experience is from seven years and thirteen trips
to Bosnia and Croatia. Well-meaning foreigners often have
their own agenda which may or may not be beneficial. Clear
guidelines are needed for international aid. Persons in turmoil
will need assistance and communities fragmented by conflicts
will need community building strategies. Charity must be temporary
and come ladened with kindness, dignity, and the philosophy
of empowerment for self help and independence.
From
Pathology to Participation?: Reflections on Local Community
Development Programmes in Bosnia and Croatia and Prospects
for the Future
Paul
Stubbs
ABSTRACT
Community development approaches have been relatively underdeveloped
in Bosnia and Croatia dispite the often stated axiom that
social work is work with individuals, groups and communities.
A legacy of pathologising, individualistic, frameworks, dominated
by psychologists and defectologists has combined with dominant
political trends to make social perspectives seem like socialism
and therefore bad. The conflicts since 1991 have produced
an unholy alliance between local and foreign psychologists
which has emphasized expensive, professionalizing, and centralized
psycho-social work rather than community development. The
impetus, ideology, and practice of community development could
emerge from 'Western' countries (e.g. US and UK) where local
community development is part of a politicized social work
seeking to challenge poverty and oppression, from the developing
world where social movements involve social workers in promoting
social mobilization and advocacy, and in Central and Eastern
Europe where people power, allied to concepts of civil society,
has produced profound social changes, and may lead to new
definitions of social work. Local community development approaches
are more effective than other approaches because of their
non stigmatizing features. However, community development
is primarily an approach and an attitude and not a set of
hard and fast rules which can be applied in all situations
and all cultures. There are examples of projects in Croatia
and Bosnia-Herzegovina which, at least implicitly, adopt a
community development approach. These include an NGO working
in a deprived area of Zagreb with a large Roma population
and an international volunteer project in Gornji Vakuf, a
divided Croat-Bosnjak town in Central Bosnia, which combines
local social development and peace building. Questions are
asked about how such projects should be evaluated, and about
the balance between local, international NGO, and public provision.
The true community development social workers in Croatia and
Bosnia who are human rights activists, workers in emerging
women's groups, and so on, rather than those with a Diploma
whose role is primarily one of administrative relief of poverty,
individualistic work, and/or being the servants of psychologists.
The
Neighbourhood Center: A New Strategy for Survival in Bulgaria
Elka Todorova
ABSTRACT
Seven years after the declared transition to a market economy
and the start of reform in the social security system, social
protection problems in Bulgaria are seen as an issue for the
state regulation system. The idea that the Non Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) (2,800 in number, about 30% doing social
activities) will play a corrective role in universal social
policy has turned out to be unrealistic. In a situation of
deep economic crises, when about 40% of the population is
engaged in active state social measures, charitable activities
are seen as the only other way to do social work. Is there
a way to bring together these two extremes? Neighborhood centers
as community support systems existing beyond the state-private
dichotomy are a challenge to them both as well as a challenge
to the ideology of division of private property and group
rights.
Some
Possibilities on the Use of General Systems Theory and Thermodynamic
Theory in the Development of Local Communities
Mladen
Knezevic
ABSTRACT
Social work is analyzed from the view of general system theory
as presented in works of J.G. Miller and thermodynamics theory,
particularly the second axiom. Thermodynamics theory helps
explain some life experiences in local communities from a
wider prospective and provides a more complex understanding
of dimensions of social work.
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Copyright
for the I.U.C. Journal of Social Work Theory and Practice
is owned by the Social Work Program, Department of Social
Relations and Services, Bemidji State University, Bemidji,
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