Natural disasters cause significant loss of life and heavily affect social, psychological, and economic well-being. Effective disaster management requires timely, adequate responses. Turkey, frequently exposed to disasters, needs strong management strategies. This retrospective study examines psychosocial service records to evaluate small-scale disaster responses in Samsun, emphasising temporary resettlement and survivors' psychosocial well-being. Psychological well-being was analysed using Maslow's hierarchy of needs as an analytical framework. Findings show mixed experiences: while survivors appreciated shelter, service quality, and social support, challenges such as poor food, lack of privacy, internet issues, and limited social activities dominated. Psychosocial analysis revealed that 93% did not use available psychological support, likely due to stigma, despite PTSD symptoms. These results underscore the need for social work practitioners to implement more engaging psychological interventions, guided by CSWE competencies, and for disaster initiatives to include systematic impact evaluation. Such measures can enhance survivor recovery, self-actualisation, and professional disaster practice.
This study explored perspectives on effective forms of support for Syrians who performed social work functions during the complex emergency in Northwest Syria through 29 interviews with international and Syrian practitioners. The study found that performing social work functions during the crisis was a unique and often difficult experience for practitioners, but performing social work functions was nonetheless important to them. Practitioners highlighted actions that supported and strengthened their practice, such as strengthening coordination and referral networks. This study's findings illustrate how actions to support local practitioners' well-being may also require efforts to strengthen social work practice.
Human trafficking remains a significant human rights and social justice concern that requires social work intervention strategies. Guided by the ecological systems framework, a qualitative research approach was adopted to gather insights from social services providers on what they consider components of a social work programme for women survivors of human trafficking (WSHT). Data was collected using interviews and analysed using a thematic analysis. The findings identified several components of a social work programme for WSHT. These include the provision of holistic and survivor-centred services, the establishment of specialised shelters tailored to the needs of trafficking survivors, skills development and empowerment initiatives aimed at promoting economic independence, and strengthened collaboration and networking among service providers. The results further highlight the importance of coordinated multi-sectoral responses. The study demonstrates that effective social work interventions must operate across multiple ecological levels, addressing survivors' psycho-social and economic needs while strengthening institutional support systems.
Adult social care practitioners in Nepal face emotionally complex and ethically demanding situations, yet little is known about how psychodynamic awareness affects their decision-making. This cross-sectional study surveyed 204 frontline practitioners from Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, and Bharatpur, including social workers, care assistants, and supervisors. A culturally adapted questionnaire assessed psychodynamic understanding, reflective practice, emotional confidence, and organisational support. Most practitioners valued emotional awareness, with 86% reporting improved decisions through understanding emotions and 82% noting reflection reduces bias and exhaustion. Only 29% had formal supervision or structured reflective support. Confidence was higher among senior staff, NGO-based practitioners, and those with prior training. Barriers included limited time, lack of formal training, organisational pressures, and cultural reluctance to discuss emotions. Findings underscore the importance of structured psychodynamic training, reflective supervision, and supportive organisational policies to enhance empathy, ethical reasoning, professional resilience, and overall adult social care quality in Nepal.
This qualitative study examines Jordan's Gender-based violence (GBV) perpetrators' motivations, psychosocial backgrounds, and early-life experiences through semi-structured interviews with 12 survivors and 9 social workers from the Institute for Family Health (IFH), guided by Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory. Findings reveal a gap in services for perpetrators. Intergenerational violence, rigid gender norms, economic stress, and familial influences emerged as drivers of abuse. Further exacerbated in instances of child-marriage and significant age-gaps between spouses. Men's reluctance to seek help is attributed to denial, stigma, and economic constraints. Social workers highlighted the need for enhanced skills, including empathy, communication, cultural competence, and self-care practices, but faced organisational challenges including lack of supervision and networks of organisations for referrals. Holistic approaches targeting individual behaviours, familial influences, and societal norms are required. Recommendations include tailored and online interventions for perpetrators, addressing economic factors, and outreach efforts. Empowering social workers with specialised training, supervision, and strengthened organisational support, including a comprehensive database is recommended.
This research sought to explore perceptions of courage, and courage education on Social Care Work courses in the Irish Technological University (TU)/ Institute of Technology (IoT) sector. An online survey was sent to Social Care Work Educators on state-approved Social Care Work courses in Ireland. Data was collected from 43 Faculty. Open-ended responses were examined using reflexive thematic analysis. Respondents felt that courage is an important attribute in Social Care Work. Six themes were identified within the survey data. These are: Diversity & Commonality; Overt absence; the CORU Hammer; Diverse methods; Modelling; and Change. Courage is highly valued in Social Care Work education. However, although concepts related to courage are routinely taught, the term courage itself is almost never used by educators. The State regulatory body for health and social care professionals, CORU, is seen as a blunt instrument enforcing minimum threshold standards of proficiency. A range of strategies are suggested to develop courage in Social Care Work students, including the explicit use of the term courage in teaching. Modelling by faculty is seen as a particularly important strategy to help teach courage to students.
This research article draws on Norwegian child welfare workers' memories from a specific day working with instances of suspected child abuse. Guided by Hochschild's theory of feeling rules and emotion work, collective memory work methods were used to explore how social workers' emotions are socially regulated and shaped by institutional contexts. Analysis of the data showed how feeling rules shaped three inter-connected dynamics: institutional demands that rendered the work experienced as an 'impossible task'; expectations of urgency in situations framed as potentially dangerous and moral condemnation of child abuse that could extend into the condemnation of parents. Across these dynamics, ambivalence emerged as a marker of tension between 'felt' and 'expected' emotions, generating emotional strain and privileging procedural compliance over reflective and relational engagement. The study argues for ambivalence to be recognised as a legitimate and valuable professional response and for organisational conditions to be created that support reflective, relationally oriented practice.
We develop and test an application-specific language model for supporting ethical decision-making in social work. The model is built using Gemini 2.5 pro with seven agents, six of which are responsible for information aggregation of possible actions, relevant ethical issues, principles, standards, laws and values while the seventh is responsible for summarising the information and recommending and justifying issue-related decisions. We further test the model via 70 simulated cases. In evaluating the appropriateness of social workers' case-specific actions, the model's judgements showed 80% alignment with the answers from the casebook. It also provided sufficient reasons or appropriate remedial plans in nearly half of the cases. Errors were due chiefly to inaccuracies in understanding legal compliance requirements, inadequate consideration of case-specific situations, and logical fallacies. Conversely, in some cases the model provided responses that were more appropriate than those from the casebook. Accordingly, we see considerable scope to apply artificial intelligence in supporting social work ethical decision-making.
Sexual violence against boys and men remains underacknowledged in research, policy, and practice despite its psychological, relational, and social harms. Existing approaches, including trauma-informed care and common factors scholarship, identify important elements of support but do not fully explain how healing is shaped by ecological conditions for adult male survivors. This paper proposes the Ecological Common Factors Framework (ECFF), a conceptual, practice-informing framework that integrates ecological systems theory, common factors scholarship, research on male survivors' disclosure and help-seeking, and social work and trauma-informed practice literature. The ECFF organises recovery around four interrelated domains: client factors, practitioner factors, therapeutic relationship factors, and extra-therapeutic context factors across ecological levels. A composite case illustration demonstrates its relevance for assessment, intervention planning, advocacy, resource coordination, and cross-system social work practice. The ECFF offers a more contextually grounded account of healing and provides a foundation for future refinement, empirical testing, and operationalisation.
This study explored how social work supervisors can intentionally integrate self-care into the supervision process to support supervisee well-being and address rising concerns of burnout in the profession. The guiding research question was: What do social workers recommend as supervision strategies to address self-care with supervisees? This qualitative action research study used a generic inquiry approach, collecting data through semi-structured interviews with 13 participants, including social work supervisees, supervisors, and supervisor trainers. Participants were licensed social workers with relevant supervisory experience, recruited across the country. Thematic analysis was conducted using Delve software to identify patterns and key themes. Five primary themes emerged: defining self-care, the supervisory role in promoting self-care, challenges in practice, the evolving nature of self-care, and ethical obligations to support well-being. Findings revealed that supervisors play a critical role in modelling and fostering self-care, yet face challenges such as a lack of training, time constraints, and limited organisational support. The results informed the development of an informational pamphlet for supervisors outlining practical self-care strategies and recommended practices for supervision. This project contributes to the growing discourse on social worker well-being and offers actionable recommendations for improving supervision standards, supervisor training, and agency-level policy.
The transition to adulthood presents complex challenges for care-experienced youth, including accelerated emancipation, limited family and social support, and persistent stigmatisation. Recent socio-educational approaches emphasise strengths, autonomy, and the role of professionals in shaping life trajectories. This qualitative study explores how professionals perceive and re-elaborate their discursive practices within a participatory, reflective process in an innovation project on care-experienced youth emancipation. The sample included 142 professionals from 36 organisations. Findings indicate that professionals describe a shift in their discursive practices adopting communication strategies that are more empathetic, horizontal, and trust-building. Participants also reflect on how their expectations influence opportunities for youth and the importance of challenging stigmatising narratives. Professionals' shared spaces for reflection were highlighted as valuable for supporting professional learning and fostering more reflective and situated socio-educational practice. The study provides insights into the discursive strategies that professionals can use and into how participatory, reflective processes can facilitate professionals' discursive development.
This study explores social workers' perceptions of the potential contributions of artificial intelligence (AI) to social work practice in relation to the profession's knowledge, skills, and values base. Using an exploratory qualitative design, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 social work professionals in T & uuml;rkiye and analysed thematically. Results indicate that participants perceived AI as having the potential to enhance knowledge and professional skills by facilitating access to information, supporting decision-making, and improving intervention processes. At the same time, participants expressed concerns that AI may challenge value-based aspects of practice, particularly cultural responsiveness, confidentiality, and justice. The results highlight the importance of integrating AI into social work with careful attention to ethical standards and professional values. Future research should investigate context-specific ethical guidelines and examine interdisciplinary collaboration to support effective and value-congruent AI use in social work practice.
