Person, People, Planet: Eco-Systematic Analysis of Older Adults' Experiences of Engagement with Nature and Discourse About Nature.

This study combined ecological, environmental, nature-based, and epistemic interpretations of older adulthood to gain a previously unresearched look at how older adults feel that their relations with nature are treated by others. Sixty older adults were interviewed in-depth, and data was analyzed using the Eco-Appreciation framework and Thematic Content Analysis. The results indicate the concurrence of processes of withdrawal of older adults from spaces of nature and discourse about nature. These processes obstruct older adults' wellbeing; entail the infliction of existential epistemic injustices and "eco-ageism" toward them; and emphasize the crucial role social work can play in responding thereto.

"Poster girl": The discourse constructing the image of "girls in distress" as existential epistemic injustice.

The present study is focused on understanding how the image of the girl designated "in distress" in official regulations guiding the provision of public social services to girls in Israel can be structured. The study takes a qualitative approach, and employs the critical-feminist paradigm to the analysis and interpretation of discourse, combining thematic content analysis and deductive critical discourse analysis. Its main findings disclose an organized process of establishing the normative authorities dominating the discourse on public social services for girls; classifying groups of service recipients to which a girl can belong; constructing their forms; and ultimately circumscribing the girls thereto, determining the performative acts on which receiving state assistance is conditional. Through discursive maneuvers of construction, the image of the girl is "born" as an undisputed "truth" deriving from the deviance attached to her every move. In this trajectory, basic epistemic injustices are perpetuated and solidified, and a new form of epistemic injustice-existential epistemic injustice-is revealed. This process's implications are proposed.

Perspective: Decolonizing postmodernist approaches to mental health discourse toward promoting epistemic justice.

Currently, it is possible to observe a slowly (but surely) growing volume of claims seeking to disprove Foucauldian ideas about knowledge and power as overlapping basic theories of epistemic justice. Prompted by these claims, alongside adopting tenets of Critical Race Theory to address injustices inflicted upon people facing mental health challenges, I propose applying decolonizing deconstruction to Foucault's terminology, toward identifying opportunities to enhance epistemic justice, primarily in direct interventions in mental health services.

The Nature of Social Work: An Ecocentered Analysis of Key Social Work Statements.

This article addresses references to people's natural environments in some of the central declarative statements that shape social work worldwide. Four types of documents were analyzed, including statements associated with the Global Definition of Social Work, the Global Standards for Social Work Education and Training, the Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles, and the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative. The analysis was driven by a critical-interpretive approach, seeking explicit and possibly implied references to nature and the environment across documents, with special attention to themes concerning the relationship between micro and macro perspectives, disciplinarity and inter- or transdisciplinarity, and relations between humankind and nature. In general, direct references to social work's possible intersections with issues related to nature and the natural environment were scarce in the materials examined. That having been said, our analysis did find that ecocentered interpretations enable locating prospective "bridges" for the incorporation of deeper ecological perceptions of social work into statements. Such findings constitute a call to action, and the possible implications of continuing to broadly disregard ecological aspects of social work in core materials published by influential professional institutions are discussed.

Professional identity, perceived job performance and sense of personal accomplishment among social workers in Israel: The overriding significance of the working alliance.

This study examined the associations between social workers' professional identity and the quality of their work, as reflected by their perceived job performance and sense of personal accomplishment. Based on literature attesting to the contribution of the working alliance between social workers and their service-users to the attainment of interventions' goals, a model in which the working alliance mediated the associations between social workers' professional identity and the quality of their work was also tested. The study's sample consisted of 570 social workers in Israel, from a wide range of professional and organisational backgrounds. The study was cross-sectional, and data were gathered using an online questionnaire. Its results demonstrate direct effects of social workers' professional identity on the quality of their work. At the same time, social workers' working alliance with service-users acted as a mediator in the association between certain aspects of workers' professional identity and the quality of their work. These findings reassert and broaden understandings regarding the crucial role of relationships with service-users in the discussion of social work professional identity and its outcomes. The specific associations found also offer sustenance to the idea that autonomous social workers, who are committed to their profession, manage to generate stronger working alliances with their service-users; which in turn makes them better at what they do.

Shifting the focus inward: Israeli social workers' participation in decision-making and their inclusion of service-users in intervention-related decisions.

Service-users' inclusion (SUI) in decision-making regarding services provided by public social services has numerous benefits for both users and providers. However, studies show a gap between the evolution of inclusive discourse and policy, and the implementation of SUI in social services' daily practice. Focusing on the organisational context, the present study is the first to empirically test the relationship between social workers' perception of the services' participative organisational culture (POC), their actual participation in organisational decision-making (SWAP) and their inclusive praxes with service-users (SUI). Data were collected between January and March of 2019 via an online survey of 317 Israeli social workers from 173 public departments of social services. Findings show that social workers who find the organisational culture at their workplace to be more participative, do in fact take a significantly greater part in decision-making at the organisational level, and include service-users more in decision-making throughout the intervention. Furthermore, SWAP mediates the connection between services' POC and SUI. Findings suggest that establishing a POC is not enough to increase users' inclusion, as social workers' active participation in decision-making is vital for their ability to include their marginalised users.

Social welfare reform in Israel: Social workers' views on change, participation and professional values.

In recent years, many western welfare states have undergone reforms in their social services. These reforms are intended to influence the work of social workers in the public sector, and depend largely upon workers' ability and willingness to implement them. The research presented in this article addresses the reform in Israeli Departments of Social Services through the perspective of the social workers tasked with its implementation. Drawing on recent developments of the Knowledge-Power-Politics Triad model, the relationship between aspects of social workers' support for the reform and their perceived and actual involvement in reform policy making, general attitude towards change, and professional inclinations was examined. Our sample consisted of 180 social workers employed in departments currently implementing the reform. The study's results emphasise the vital role employee participation plays in forming support for reforms' goals, and at the same time expose the complex interplay between developing a 'sense' of participation and participation's actual realisation. They offer several insights into the way social workers' support for reform is constructed, and not less so, regarding aspects of examining such support.

National Reforms in Mental Health and Social Care Services: Comparative, Text-Based Explorations of Consumer Involvement and Service Transparency.

Consumer involvement and service transparency have, in recent years, become inherent components of policy guiding the provision of public mental health and social care services. The current study wished to deepen insights on these issues, as they unfold in public services reforms in Israel and England, through an examination of key policy documents describing reforms in both countries. The results of this research show the often tacit ways policy can "talk the inclusive talk", but only limitedly "walk the inclusive walk", offering some interesting observations regarding the linkage between involvement and transparency in mental health and social care services.

Social workers and unemployment: Factors associated with using employment-promoting practices in Israeli Municipal Departments of Social Services.

Unemployment is a harsh social phenomenon with far reaching negative implications. Unemployed individuals often seek assistance from social workers working in Municipal Departments of Social Services around the world. However, little to no research exists on the factors involved in social workers' choice to engage in employment-promoting practices (EPP). The current study aimed to tackle this gap of knowledge, providing initial conclusions about the relationship between social workers' attitudes towards unemployment, their knowledge regarding EPP, the extent to which they perceive their organisations as endorsing EPP and their actual implementation. The main research question dealt with the extent to which each of the examined factors, in itself or in combination with others, would be the best predictor of social workers' utilisation of EPP. The study sample consisted of 163 social workers in Israel with varied experience in working with the unemployed, all working in public sector social services. Structural equation modelling performed on the attained data revealed that knowledge, skills and perceived organisational endorsement of EPP were positively associated with implementation of EPP. Contrary to the hypothesised, attitudes towards unemployment were not associated with the implementation of such practices. At the same time, professional training and seniority were associated with EPP only through the mediation of perceived organisational endorsement. Ultimately, perceived organisational endorsement of EPP emerged as the most influential factor involved in social workers' decision to carry out EPP with their service-users. Consequences of these findings for social work education, supervision, research and policy making are discussed, referring to the local Israeli context as well as its possible international inferences.

Patient Retention in Therapeutic Communities for Substance Abuse Treatment: An Organizational-Environmental-Professional Perspective.

This study examined various organizational, environmental, and professional components of therapeutic communities in Israel and their relationship with patient retention rates. Key elements included the juxtaposition between objective and subjective components of social environments, as reflected in the perceptions of staff (mostly social workers) and patients. The current study's findings suggest that retention rates are predicted to be higher when staff receive more hours of supervision and identify less with their peers, and when their assessments of the organizational climate within facilities is closer to their patients' assessments of this aspect of organizational milieu. These findings are discussed using various organizational and professional perspectives, guided by a field theory framework.

Attitudes towards poverty, organizations, ethics and morals: Israeli social workers' shared decision making.

OBJECTIVE: Partnerships between service users and social workers are complex in nature and can be driven by both personal and contextual circumstances. This study sought to explore the relationship between social workers' involvement in shared decision making with service users, their attitudes towards service users in poverty, moral standards and health and social care organizations' policies towards shared decision making. METHODS: Based on the responses of 225 licensed social workers from health and social care agencies in the public, private and third sectors in Israel, path analysis was used to test a hypothesized model. RESULTS: Structural attributions for poverty contributed to attitudes towards people who live in poverty, which led to shared decision making. Also, organizational support in shared decision making, and professional moral identity, contributed to ethical behaviour which led to shared decision making. CONCLUSION: The results of this analysis revealed that shared decision making may be a scion of branched roots planted in the relationship between ethics, organizations and Stigma.

Involvement as inclusion? Shared decision-making in social work practice in Israel: a qualitative account.

Shared decision-making (SDM), a representation of shared knowledge and power between social workers and their clients, is gaining popularity and prevalence in social services around the world. In many senses, SDM reflects values traditionally associated with social work and service provision, such as equality and anti-discrimination. In the complex context of social problem-solving, however, the relationship between SDM, social workers and their clients is multi-faceted and deserves particular attention. The current study examined SDM and the dilemmas it entails through interviews conducted in 2012 with 77 Israeli social workers and policy makers whose responses were analysed according to the guiding principles of descriptive phenomenological content analysis and dialogical commonality. Participants' responses represent notions of hope, change, identity and choice. Findings are discussed in correspondence with current and recent trends in Israeli social services, and the social work profession in Israel.

Teaching a systematic and evidence-based approach in an ambivalent context: a case example from Israel.

Systematically planned intervention (SPI) and evidence-based practice (EBP) have become widely known and influential concepts in Israeli social service administration and provision. Nevertheless, the lack of success in implementing SPI and EBP in the social work field has returned the discussion regarding its importance and development to social work scholars and educators. The following article presents a case example describing an attempt to build social workers' capacity to use SPI and EBP among graduate (Master level) Israeli social work students in a university-based practical workshop. A detailed description of contextual considerations and manifestations, alongside main teaching challenges and responses, general assessment of the attainment of the workshop's goals, concluding comments, and recommendations for SPI and EBP capacity builders are offered.

Are social workers required to engage in participatory practices? An analysis of job descriptions.

The participatory approach is depicted as inherent to the social work profession in social workers' theoretical literature, codes of ethics and practical discourse. The current study examined whether, and to what degree, social workers in Israel are indeed formally required to engage in participatory practices in the job descriptions of diverse social care services. A quantitative content analysis of 78 formal social workers' job descriptions revealed this requirement to be very limited. Most participatory actions required of social workers represented low-level service-user participation, pertained only to the initial and concluding stages of intervention, and referred to professional domains in which service-user participation is already required by law. A greater emphasis on participatory practice was found in job descriptions in the health field and those relating to community social workers. Various interpretations and implications of these findings are discussed.

Investigation of exposure-symptom relationships in a context of recurrent violence.

Preliminary investigations of disasters, including terrorism, have identified degree of exposure as a highly reliable predictor of trauma symptoms. However, this effect has not been consistently demonstrated in studies conducted in Israel. One explanation for this may be found in the different mechanisms that influence the relationship between exposure and symptoms in situations of recurrent versus one-time terror events. We examined traumatic symptoms and response to life events as variables which may be affected by repeated exposure to violence. Students from Tel Aviv University (n=65) and the College of Judea and Samaria, in the West Bank (n=47), completed measures of exposure to terrorism, trauma symptoms, life event stress reactions, and psychopathology. As in previous studies, no relationship between the overall degree of terror-related exposure and trauma symptoms was found for either group. General level of anxiety mediated the relationship between terror-related trauma symptoms and life event stress reactions. For the Ariel group, exposure to terror was related to anxiety and hostility. Direct terror-related exposure was negatively related to life event stress for the Tel Aviv group. In summary, our findings suggest that the exposure-symptom relationship may function differently in a context of ongoing threat than in a context of single-event terror.