As a profession, social work has encouraged its members to run for public office to translate the values and ethics of social work into public policy. This study of 416 elected social workers around the country provides insight into the experiences of these elected social workers in their social work education. The classes, skills, activities,…

Urban Alliance serves at-risk youth through its high school internship program, which provides training, mentoring, and work experience to high school seniors from distressed communities. The program aims to help youth move on to higher education or employment after graduation. The Urban Institute is conducting a six-year, randomized controlled…

In New Zealand, the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act 2003 provides diversion for persons with an intellectual disability who have been charged with, or convicted of, a criminal offence. This unique Act moves the responsibility for such "care recipients" from the criminal justice system to a disability…

This study was designed to establish a caseload standard for child welfare workers. Understanding reasonable workload expectations for child welfare workers is a cornerstone of quality service provision and the recruitment and retention of qualified workers. Because of the analytic complexity of this question, qualitative and quantitative methods…

Organizational leaders often work to retain their employees and teach them the knowledge needed in becoming future organizational leaders. The purpose of the study examined in this article was to determine how mentoring within Camp Adventure Child and Youth Services contributes to the development of students selected to deliver programs to…

In West Africa, advisory services for family farms have been promoted to better address producers' needs. The paper aims to show that these services can be understood as a system whose functioning is strongly determined by the financing mechanisms, the governance mechanisms put in place, the quality of human resources delivering advice, and the…

The Safe Start demonstration projects, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) under the first phase of the Safe Start initiative, are primarily designed to influence change at the systems or macrolevels to reduce the incidence of and impact of exposure to violence for children aged birth to 6 years; direct…

Research suggests that the quality of out-of-school time (OST) programs is related to positive youth outcomes and skilled staff are a critical component of high quality programming. This descriptive case study of competency frameworks for youth workers in the OST field demonstrates how experts and practitioners characterize a skilled youth worker.…

We report in this article on the second phase of an in-depth project examining practitioners' use of a narrative model for 1-1 career guidance interviews in England, derived from the work of Mark Savickas. Using biographical narrative interviews, we explored the impact and constraints experienced by eight practitioner participants when engaging…

The paper draws on a study aiming to work with practitioners' perspectives to support involvement through family services. Data were collected from a cluster sample of practitioners conducting father groups in south-west England. The paper focuses upon working with their perspectives. Two issues in their perspectives were associated with…

The purpose of this article is to share results of a mixed-methods research study designed to shed light on similarities and differences between school-employed and agency-employed school-based social workers' preparation and practice as a precursor for collaboration in expanded school mental health. Online survey data from a national sample of…

Professionals who work with youth can have a tremendous impact on the development and life trajectory of these young people. This article reports on an effort to provide support and professional development for those who work with youth during nonschool hours in a youth development fellowship program. Combining intensive residency workshops and a…

There is consensus within child welfare services that the provision of timely and effective support to families in the community is of critical importance in terms of protecting children. "Family support" is a term used to refer to a broad range of activities aimed at supporting the functioning of families. It is generally accepted that…

This paper describes an action research project aimed at enhancing resilience in young people in a residential children's home. Two core areas were explored, namely: the needs of the young people as captured through a resilience framework; and the experiential and role-related issues arising from the attempts to enhance the young people's…

This study investigates the types of assessment models used by registered psychologists employed by Ministry of Education: Special Education (MOE:SE) who work in the area of severe and challenging behaviour. The aim of the study was to identify and explore frameworks for practice which are currently used at MOE:SE; the theories which underpin…