Volunteerism is a form of service to do common good that is unpaid, but produces positive outcomes for the society and a rewarding experience on the part of the volunteer.The central aim of this study was to develop, test, and validate a questionnaire for assessing characteristics of volunteerism.The exploratory sequential mixed methods design was applied as a rigorous method in the development of the questionnaire.In this design, a three-phase approach was conducted.The first phase was a phenomenological study that used a semi-structured in-depth interview to describe the attributes of volunteerism based on the accounts of the 7 interviewed volunteers of their lived-experiences.In the second phase, the Volunteerism Attributes Questionnaire (VQ) was developed on the basis of the results of phase 1.In the third phase, two surveys were conducted to establish the validity of the VAQ.The first survey (N=125), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted to determine the factorial structure of the questionnaire and in the second survey (N=422), the constructs of the questionnaire were further validated using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA).This study offers a unique approach that outlined the process of developing a quantitative instrument for determining volunteerism attributes.It is now feasible for volunteers from various sectors and cultures to apply the VAQ in determining their inherent values of volunteerism using a common questionnaire.
Contemporary European social work is based on the principle of collective responsibility, human rights and social justice. The IFSW (International Federation of Social Workers) declared that social work was, and always will be, a human rights occupation.
This article discusses how social capacity can have an essential role as the key to thriving urban housing and settlement policies.This study used a qualitative case study research method using semi-structured interviews as a data collection instrument.Interviews were conducted with ten informants from government and non-government elements.The result shows that social capacity consisting of values and beliefs, community participation, local culture and knowledge, cooperation and social networks, as well as local actors and resources, has an essential role as the key to the thriving urban housing and settlement area policy innovation in Serang Municipality, Indonesia.The main finding of this study is that urban housing and settlement areas and policy innovations have not yet been integrated with the primary service needs of urban communities.The research findings also indicate that although people hold strong values and beliefs such as religion, some people still live unhealthy life behavior.Furthermore, community participation and cooperation are still partial and haven't been ideal yet.Various efforts need to be continued to realize social capacity in the context of participation and cooperation.The continuity of various efforts is important because, based on the research results, people have cultural diversity and differences.This research is expected to contribute to a better understanding of the importance of social capacity in policy innovation for urban housing and settlement areas and offer alternative policy formulations for policymaking at the central and local government levels.
This paper explores theoretical and conceptual developments in our understanding of resilience as these apply to single mother-led families. Rather than the earlier and simpler notion that resilience implied 'bouncing back' we suggest, consistent with work by other resilience scholars, that the varied demonstrations of resilience are a ‘changing of the game'. By this we mean that resilience involves the creation of new outcomes, or, new ways of being through constant adaptation. Further, we argue this transformation to resilient ways of being occurs across all categories of resilience. This is a significant contribution of this work as we submit that even for those single mothers who appear to be just coping, their behaviours manifest significant and strategic adaptation. This important finding suggests critically new and important ways in which the life experiences and adaptive responses of single mothers should be perceived. The findings and analyses offered here derive from feminist, participatory research with 18 single mothers in focus groups and 20 in semi-structured interviews. Following the requisite ethics review processes and ensuring the confidentiality of all data, we utilized this extensive data set to examine these mothers' responses to their experiences of adversity. These included the transitions associated with family break up, solo parenting, the stigma associated with being a single mom, loss of financial security (which often necessitated social assistance receipt) and for some, coping with abuse-induced trauma. Based on these findings, we offer policy and practice implications in relation to lone mothers and their families. Among others are suggestions that social workers and other frontline practitioners better recognize and appreciate the achievements that might be demonstrated by ‘just coping' and policy changes that support families through family break up.
Since the 1970s, the government in Sweden has developed many activities aimed at facilitating immigrants’ integration processes and their sense of belonging; one such activity that emerged in the 2010s is civic orientation. This activity is characterized by a high degree of standardization of both processes and content. The intention is for local activities and participants to adjust to general levels and standards. But even though standards can be seen as a solution for a set of problems, one must consider that standards do not perform any tasks by themselves; their functions depend on organizational routines, resources available, and staff members’ use of the standards. Therefore, one must consider how integration workers handle standards and how they bridge standards of routines and procedures with participants, immigrants, responses, and needs. The interest in this study concerns how such a dilemma intervenes at the local level and what it means for professional knowledge and autonomy. This study takes place at an integration unit in Sweden where integration workers meet in workshops to interpret standards and find ways to adapt them to local needs. The results show how cultural and pedagogical awareness form the basis for professional knowledge and how this also creates a space for action but also how standards form a structure through which expectations and demands are understood and form arguments and interaction patterns.
Occupational health and safety hazards may have direct or indirect effects on employee participation levels in service businesses as well as other forms of industries.Adequate employment conditions and effective management of occupational health and safety (OHS) help companies attain their goals and improve job satisfaction and efficiency.Occupational, health, and safety is an inter-discipline field concerned with ensuring the protection, wellbeing, and welfare of employees or working people.Recent injuries at work have encouraged employers to place a greater focus on workplace health and safety procedures.Occupational safety and health risks are issues associated with safeguarding the life, health, and wellbeing of individuals employed or living.Occupational safety and health services have as their goals for the development of a safe and secure work atmosphere.Job-related tension, disputes, work capacity problems, ill health, and other hazards OHS workplace conditions can hinder employee well-being and productivity.Employers are responsible for handling risks and addressing challenges within the work environment according to OHS regulations.This study was to describe occupational health and safety hazards as operational risk-related issues affecting employment commitment and the support they require in these situations.
Any discussion around India's Social Policy, Social Welfare and Social Development ought to be laid in the context of India's sixty years of planning history. In this critical essay, I explore the views and treatise of octogenarian Shankar Pathak on social welfare policies and development of the poor in India. In those sixty years of planning, India has certainly made strides, such as producing some billionaires that enter into who's who list compiled by Forbes, alongside its poor making world's record officially included into the top ten poor nations. India's situation can be aptly captured and surmised by borrowing the famous saying of American Political Economist ‘doing better but feeling worse' (Wildavsky,1977, pp 105). The current paper examines Pathak's views on social policy, welfare and social development in India and to an extent his views on social work profession in India, that were made available to Indian social work academia through his book ( 2013) on ‘Social Policy Social Welfare and Social Development' brought out during his sojourn in Bangalore and further through a cursory view of his blogs.
This paper presents an introduction to the two concepts of coping and resilience, with their varied dimension. In order to unravel the concepts, the paper begins with brief narratives that show how individuals, groups, communities and nations display both coping and resilience every day. The analysis, then shifts to the meaning of every-day stress and adversity that are inevitable parts of our daily jigsaw puzzle of life, defines the contexts of coping and resilience and brings in strengths perspective into resiliency and finally signals the efficacy of an inner strengths approach. Part of this was previously published in a book entitled ‘Perspectives on coping and resilience', published earlier by authorspress 2013.
In this study, it is aimed to determine whether secondary traumatic stress as a result of the interactions between social workers and clients is affected by psychological resilience.191 social workers participated in the study.The data were obtained from the participants via e-mail and face-to-face interviews.Personal and professional information forms were filled out by the participants to determine their socio-demographic characteristics.The "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms Scale -Self-Report Version" Form (PSS-SR) was used to measure secondary traumatic stress and "Psychological Resilience Scale for Adults" (PRSA) was used to measure psychological resilience.The SPSS package program was used to analyze the data.Multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the effect of psychological resilience on secondary traumatic stress.According to the findings obtained from the analyses, self-perception and social competence, which are among the sub-scales of psychological resilience, had an effect on total score of the PSS-SR and they were found to be significant negative predictors of arousal cluster.It was found that self-perception had a significant negative effect on re-experiencing and avoidance clusters.As a result of the study, it was found out that psychological resilience of social workers had an effect on secondary traumatic stress.
In Islamic societies, the idea of philanthropy is considered to be a backbone of the Islamic commitment towards personal and social responsibility. In order to increase people desire to promote the welfare of others and to participate effectively in voluntary work which is one of the philanthropy type of work, within this social responsibility vision, the Sultan Qaboos Award for Voluntary Work (SQAVW) was created in Oman since 2011 as one of national awards for promoting individuals, groups and institutions voluntary work. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of the Sultan Qaboos Award for Voluntary Work in promoting philanthropy in social development related to education. The study analyzes quantitative and qualitative data collected through closed and open-ended questionnaires from 17 participants. All participants are winners of the Sultan Qaboos Award between 2011 and 2014, and their voluntary projects are still active. The findings revealed that the Award had a vital role in motivating the respondents to participate in voluntary work (mean=4.28). The participants also stated that the winning projects were those that were creative and had a social impact and contributed to the economy. The results also pointed out that the projects had an added social value that varied according to different areas and that those related to education contributed to easing the burden of the ministry of education through the establishment of kindergartens, raising cultural and technological awareness, and enhancing the knowledge and skills of rural women and many other activities.
Young people constitute the majority of population in Asia and Africa region now and will remain, the same for few more decades.Young people are identified as the reagent of development across the globe.In fact, the Sustainable Development Goals, which has been proclaimed recently by the United Nations -which is a follow-up global agenda to the Millennium Development Goals also emphasizes the importance of young people in the course of sustainable development.Life skill training has become an invincible ingredient of discussions; particularly while the discussing about development in line with young people.The recent discussions by all international bodies have significantly gladdened the topic and mounted country specific policies and programmes allied to the same.Countries like India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia has already started to capitalize young people and impart life skill training for them.The enormous amount invested on young people is been equalized to the future of the country.The current paper investigates on the possibility and strategies to slot in the life skill training in Asian countries to equip the young people to ensure their productive contribution to the economy.It further describes different approaches to the life skill training across globe and the success identified.The study is purely on the basis of the secondary data available with the Commonwealth Secretariat and other international bodies.
This paper introduces some aspects of the Indian philosophy and the spiritual quest, which can be seen as leading to 'ultimate wellbeing' and 'ultimate wellness' for it involves how to live a most meaningful yogic life in full clarity and with respect to all that exists around oneself. Indian spirituality, as depicted in the Vedas and resumed in the Bhagavad -Gita, also embraces and guides as to how to live both a material and spiritual life in parallel and at some point, dropping the material tendency and embracing spiritual enlightenment. Additionally, this paper outlines how Indian spirituality is also unusual in that there are followers of three underlying philosophies of Advaita, Dvaitha and Vishistadvaita that live side by side and these three traditions do not attempt to dominate each other. In this sense, tolerance and harmonious co-existence seem to be the basis of the Indian philosophic system, which also spills over into everyday life.
An exploratory Animal Assisted Intervention study was conducted employing farm animals with individuals living with dementia living in a residential environment to assess if the intervention had any impact on behaviour.Fifteen individuals met the eligibility criteria but only 10 were able to participate in more than 67% of the sessions that consisted of petting, grooming and walking the animals; singing animal related songs, learning about the animal's history, species and breed; training the animal; reminiscing about past human-animal interactions and relationships; and reflecting on the animal's behaviours and story in relation to their own self.Individuals engaged in three one hour sessions for each of eight weeks.Outcomes were either positive or neutral with increased restful sleeping, decreases in verbally aggressive behaviour and depression and being less resistive to care was documented.The outcomes were sufficient to warrant a larger scale investigation working with farm animals and this population.
Although Native Americans, like many indigenous peoples worldwide, speak of many abstract concepts; consciousness, in an explicit sense, is not one of them.However, by learning their teachings about cosmology, the Good Medicine Path, and healing, we can discover a consistent practical view of consciousness that points toward a truly blessed future.We learn these teachings most effectively not by academic discourse, but by hearing simple stories and comments in the way that the children learn from the grandfathers and grandmothers.Having learned these teachings, we take on the responsibility of living according to our new understanding.
Well-being is a multifaceted construct that endeavours to provide an explanation to the length and breadth of human experience.Research on well-being currently focusses on a couple of perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses primarily on happiness and defines well-being regarding fulfilment of pleasure and escaping or avoiding pain, and the eudaimonic approach, which emphasises on finding meaning and Self-realization in the Indian context is Atma sakshatkara which is different from actualizing potentials.The objectives of this paper are three-fold.To explore how people, perceive optimism, hope, and resilience.To explore the meanings of the traditional Indian concepts of ananda, sukha and dukha, and to relate this to the process of meaning making in cancer patients in the west.How have they found acceptance to face their daunting odds and in turn how did they explore hope?Surely hope makes survivor's lives (and the lives of those around them) more liveable.
The theory of the Six Main Levels of Consciousness of the philosopher Arka, is an analysis of the main levels a practitioner will go through when he or she undertakes the inner journey of Self-discovery using a heart-based meditation method such as the Intuitive Meditation (IM) method.It opens science to a new way of understanding and researching consciousness for it permits phenomenological experiences associated with the different levels, to be researched using different methods including the scientific method.As it addresses the experiencing aspect of consciousness, it cuts through the dilemma posed by Chalmers, which he terms the "hard problem of consciousness".In addition, by recognizing the thinking Mind (often associated with the brain) as the first level, it helps incorporate the work already undertaken by many scientists.The levels mentioned by Arka are: 1) M (Mind) -Consciousness, 2) SM (Subliminal-Mind) -Consciousness, 3) F (Feeling-Mind) -Consciousness, 4) H (Emotional-Heart) -Consciousness, 5) HS (Heart-Soul) -Consciousness and 6) PS (Pure-Self) -Consciousness.In a recent study using a repeated measures design, it was found that participants showed a significant shift towards a more feeling-based consciousness after learning the Intuitive Meditation Method and practicing it a minimum of five times over a 6-week period as measured by the same Feeling Consciousness Scale.This gives support to the third Feeling Mind level of consciousness Arka mentions in his theory.As the role of the heart is said to play a key role in this theory, in this article we present information regarding the heart, embryonic development and pulsation to understand more about the relevance of the heart and why it has been used as a center of attention in meditation practices throughout the ages.Embryogenesis also poses interesting but difficult questions, which, as yet, Western Science has not addressed.It also stimulates the enquiry into the nature of "consciousness" and the fundamental question: Who are we?
The Kenya government was between 2008 and 2015 completely stretched in terms of intentions and resources to resettle and reintegrate more than 650 000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who fled their homes following violence arising from 2007 disputed elections.This study examines the strategies used by the government and nongovernmental actors in the resettlement and reintegration of IDPs in Eldoret.The study is informed by the Cernea (2000) Impoverishment Risk and Livelihood Reconstruction (IRLR) model which helps in the analysis and prediction of risk, impoverishment and reconstruction, in their relation to resettlement.It employs the ex post facto comparative research design to draw comparisons between 189 in camp and a further 189 out of camp respondents drawn from a population of 7,249 IDP households, regarding their views on the design and implementation of the resettlement and reintegration programs by the government and nongovernmental actors.Results indicate that the process suffered many gaps, like failure to profile the IDPs, poor distribution of resources and failure to consult the victims, which made IDPs doubt the commitment of the actors to resettle them.The study concludes that the process would have been conclusive if there was adequate coordination.
This paper sets out the history and development of social work, primarily in the UK, in the context of uncertainty and ambiguity.The paper suggests that in an age of increased precariousness, social work itself represents a precarious activity that can be misconstrued and used for political ends as well as for positive change.As a means of countering potentially deleterious consequences arising from this, the concept of sacrifice, taken from Durkheim's research concerning the piaculum, is used to consider social work's societal role as scapegoat on the one hand and champion of the oppressed on the other.The paper concludes that social work's potential for developing and encouraging resilience and hope is indicated in the 'sacrifices' social workers make when walking alongside marginalised and disadvantaged people.
In Kenya, self-help groups are the main means used by change agencies to work with members of communities on development and welfare matters.However, only a few studies of self-help groups have been completed in the country.This study was based on the self-help approach, the life cycle of self-help groups and the social capital conceptual perspectives.Data presented in this article were collected from 23 self-help groups and their 15 members from nine districts (now, counties) of the country.It was found, among other things, that leaders of the groups were aware of various problems of their communities as well as registration requirements for their groups.Most of the groups had been formed by local leaders with development and welfare concerns as their objectives.About 70 per cent of the groups had performed better compared to the remaining ones.However, among the characteristics of the groups studied, only their formalization in terms of better observance of corporate governance practices and number of activities they carried out explained their better performance compared to the others.Whereas the groups had 15 or more members at the time of registration with the Department of Gender and Social Development, the membership of about a third of them had declined below the required 15 members after their registration.Most of the members were youthful, married and with dependents.All of the members sampled reported making monetary and other contributions, and more than half reported benefitting from their groups.We examined a few groups in detail as case studies and obtained more insights from them on their formation, membership, objectives, activities, performance, achievements and challenges.It was concluded that self-help groups were positively contributing in meeting the development and welfare needs of their members and that there was potential for their efforts to be strengthened.
Sound is a form of energy produced by vibrations caused by movement of particles.Sound can travel through solids (such as metal, wood, membranes), liquids (water) and gases (air).The sound vibrations that reach our ear are produced by the movement of particles in the air surrounding the source of sound.The movement or vibration of particles produces waves of sound.Sound waves are longitudinal and travel in the direction of propagation of vibrations.The pitch of sound is related directly to its frequency, which is given by the number of vibrations or cycles per second.The higher the pitch of sound, the higher is its frequency, and the lower the pitch, the lower is its frequency.Human ear can hear sounds of frequencies ranging from 20 -20,000 cycles per second (or Hertz -Hz).Sound waves can be visually seen and studied using 'Chladni' plates, which was devised and experimented by Ernst Chladni, a famous physicist with a passion for sound/music.In this experiment the source of sound is connected via a wave driver to the Chladni metal plate with fine sand strewn on it.The sound vibrations cause the plate to vibrate at the same frequency, which causes movement of the sand particles to form patterns of the sound generated.The visual patterns comprise of nodes or regions where the sand particles accumulate, and antinodes or regions where the sand particles drift away from.Each frequency of sound causes a particular pattern to be formed on the plate.The study of wave phenomena is also called 'Cymatics' (Raghu, 2016).Sound vibrations can come in contact physically through the body and have an effect on our consciousness at the mental, emotional and spiritual levels.Sounds that are musical can be categorized as consonant sounds that are pleasant, and dissonant sounds that are unpleasant or not so pleasant.Musical sounds are comprised of notes in increasing or decreasing order of pitch (frequency).The interval between notes can give rise to consonance and dissonance.Example, an interval of an octave -a range of seven notes -is said to be consonant, whereas an interval between adjacent notes can be dissonant.These are studied by experimenting with musical notes and intervals, their visual patterns and their effect on consciousness.While consonant intervals can cause happiness, joy, courage or calmness, dissonant intervals can cause tension, anger, fear or sadness, thereby affecting the emotional aspect of consciousness.
