The Future of Fieldwork in a Market Economy
The economic reforms of the past decade have had a dramatic impact on social services. The application of market forces to the welfare sector—including competition, contestability, contracting and diminishing funding of strictly defined policy objectives—has exerted an influence on social work education. This impact has been particularly sharply felt by those engaged in supervised field practice programmes in schools of social work. In this paper, the writers outline their experiences and undertake a process of analysis and reflection with the aim of creating a shift in thinking about fieldwork which encourages the development of new models for the achievement of fieldwork goals.
Leading through collaboration: The National Field Education Network
Social work field education is under pressure across the globe, including in Australia. Current application of neoliberal principles to education and human services policy and service delivery impact on social work practice, social work education and the availability and delivery of practice placements. Social work educators are concerned about delivering quality social work education so that students can engage in supervised service delivery in preparation for professional social work practice. Field education staff in universities across the country experience significant challenges in ensuring and organising increasing numbers of quality student placements. The formation of a national leadership group was triggered by a collective realisation that all university field education programs were facing similar challenges. The purpose of a national group was to better respond to the identified challenges and identify directions for research. Collaboration has been effectively used across university-based field education programs as a leadership approach, in the development of the Australian National Field Educators Network (NFEN). This paper reports on the formation of the NFEN and the resulting identification of six themes affecting provision of social work field education as an example of collaborative leadership. The paper concludes with an appraisal of the opportunities and challenges of taking a collaborative approach in developing a national response and working as a unified national organisation.
Same Same But Different - also in Europe! A New Methodological Approach in Cross-Country Analysis of Communication Structuresapplied to five EU member states
The EU still lacks a truly European public sphere. On this level, there is still a clear lack of integration between individual member states. This means that national public spheres and cultures are still of great importance for European communication and media professionals. Comparative research into the similarities and differences between different nations is therefore valuable for cross-border PR communication activities. This paper lays out the methodological foundation for such research, discussing possible approaches and difficulties associated with comparative research. The author then introduces a potential heuristic framework for comparative analysis: the International Corporate Communication Compass. This framework is applied to five case-study EU countries (Denmark, Germany, France, Poland and the UK), showing the differences and similarities in a range of different contexts that affect public communication in all its forms. The conclusion examines how the results of such studies could be used in order to compare communication identities of different countries. This can potentially help in the development of a European public identity on the long run and in a first step can led towards a better, more adapted communication structure about European citizenship. Ultimately, communication structures within the EU might become more Europeanized than they