Professional Work

"The supposed extinction of the Indigenous Beothuk people of Newfoundland in the early nineteenth century is a foundational moment in Canadian history. Increasingly under scrutiny, non-Indigenous perceptions of the Beothuk have had especially dire and far-reaching ramifications for contemporary Indigenous people in Newfoundland and Labrador. Tracing Ochre reassesses popular beliefs about the Beothuk. Placing the group in global context, Fiona Polack and a diverse collection of contributors juxtapose the history of the Beothuk with the experiences of other Indigenous peoples outside of Canada, including those living in former British colonies as diverse as Tasmania, South Africa, and the islands of the Caribbean. Featuring contributions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous thinkers from a wide range of scholarly and community backgrounds, Tracing Ochre aims to definitively shift established perceptions of a people who were among the first to confront European colonialism in North America."--

This edited international collection of contemporary and emerging career development theories and models aims to inform the practice of career development professionals around the globe. In addition to serving both new and seasoned practitioners, the book is intended to be used as a text for undergraduate and graduate career counselling courses. In order to effectively serve clients and the public, career practitioners need to be equipped with the latest theories and models in the field. Ethical career practice requires practitioners to be up-to-date with their knowledge about theory and how theory informs practice. This publication provides practitioners with a tangible resource they can use to develop theory-informed interventions. Contains 43 chapters on the theories and models that define the practice of career development today Contributors are 60 of the leading career researchers and practitioners from four continents and nine countries: Australia, Canada, England, Finland, India, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa and the United States Featured authors include the original theorists and those who have adapted the work in unique ways to inform career development practice Presented in a reader-friendly format, each chapter includes a Case Vignette that illustrates how a theory or model can be applied in practice, and Practice Points that summarize key takeaways for career practitioners to implement with clients. Additional references are also included.

How is the world of professions and professional work changing? This book offers both an overview of current debates surrounding the nature of professional work, and the implications for change brought about by the managerialist agenda. The relationships professionals have with their organizations are variable, indeterminate and uncertain, and there is still debate over the ways in which these should be characterized and theorized. The contributors discuss these implications with topics including hybrid organizations and hybrid professionalism; the changing nature of professional and managerial work; profession and identity; and the emergence of HRM as a new managerial profession. This book will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students seeking a comparative study on contemporary professional work. It will also be of use to a number of practitioners, namely human resource managers, looking for ways in which to approach the changing professional world.

Current challenges to the legitimacy of expert knowledge has caused professional control over knowledge, autonomy at work, orientation toward public service, and social status to have declined. In this collection, scholars examine the nature of these changes and how they have altered the experience of professional workers.

How are identities formed among social workers, many of whom perform complex, challenging and ambiguous public sector functions on a regular basis? Why does identity come to matter for professional social work? This book, the first of its kind in the field, examines professional identity in relation to social work by asking how practitioners think of themselves as a "social worker", a professional self-concept often entangled in a range of relations, beliefs, values and experiences. Bringing together the perspectives of an internationally renowned group of specialists, the collection addresses a range of issues associated with professional identity construction and "being professional" in the context of a rapidly changing inter-professional environment. It introduces new concepts to social work, including materiality, enactment, performance, affect, entanglement, capital and worth, to consider the vexed issues surrounding matters of professional identity in social work. This will be an essential guide to all those keen to debate the challenges and possibilities confronting contemporary social work through the lens of professional identity, whether they are students, educators, practitioners, researchers, managers, policy-makers or associated professionals. It will also appeal to those interested in social theory, organisational sociology and leadership as well as anyone working in related fields of health and education.

If social work students are to flourish in their careers, and go beyond a basic sense of ‘competence’ in practice, it is essential to develop a sense of Professional Self. This book will help students develop critical understanding of their own social work practice, and the tools and skills required to become a professional social worker. It includes: Chapters on practising Reflexivity and the importance of Relationships in social work Contributions from leading social work academics A focus on building a professional identity through learning and practice The emphasis is on developing your professionalism, and how that journey translates into everyday practice. To help this growth there are further chapters on getting the best from continuing professional development, challenging poor practice and professionalism and ethics. Professor Jonathan Parker is Deputy Dean for Research and Enterprise and Director of the Centre for Social Work and Social Policy at Bournemouth University. He is currently conducting cross cultural research on learning and practice with colleagues in Southeast Asia. Professor Mark Doel is Professort Emeritus in the Centre for Health and Social Care Research at Sheffiled Hallam University, and a registered social worker. Mark's research experience is in the fields of practice education, social work practice methods, and service user involvement.

Weiss, Gal, Dixon, and their contributors provide the first large-scale cross-national and cross-cultural examination of the views and the perceptions of social workers through this analysis of graduating social worker students on the threshold of their careers in social work. They identify and analyze the graduating social work students' attitudes towards the sources of social distress, the preferred ways to deal with social problems, the goals of social work, and their professional preferences with regard to client groups, types of professional activity, and place of work. Since first being practiced more than a century ago, social work has become an international profession and is today an integral part of the social services in many different countries. However, as Weiss, Gal, Dixon, and their contributors make clear, there is a distinct lack of ideological consensus over the goals, tasks, desired technologies, major client groups, the preferred sector in which to operate, and a variety of other issues. Throughout its history, social work has undergone a constant process of change; nonetheless, despite the existence of a common professional core, social work is quite clearly socially constructed and takes very different forms in the various national settings throughout the world. This book provides the first large-scale cross-national and cross-cultural examination of the views and perceptions of social workers through an analysis of graduating social worker students at the threshold of their careers in social work. The country chapters identify and analyze the graduating social work students' attitudes towards the sources of social distress, the preferred ways to deal with social problems, the goals of social work, and their professional preferences with regard to client groups, types of professional activity, and place of work. Experts on social work provide analyses on Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabawe.