Critical Analysis of Social Work when Working with Children and Families - Literature review Example

Social Initiative Name Course Lecturer Date Introduction Homelessness is a major social problem in Australia. According to ABS statistics it affects up to 105,000 Australian every year. Homelessness impacts children profoundly who are more vulnerable to the pressures of living roughly. This paper explores the homelessness problem in Australia while focusing on child victims of the unfortunate social phenomenon. First, the paper presents worrying statistics about the seriousness of the homelessness problem in Australia. The causes of homelessness in Australia are also discussed briefly with domestic violence found to be the single largest cause of homelessness in Australia. Secondly, the paper discusses an innovative approach to homelessness that has been tried in the US. The 100,000 homes initiative is an innovation led by community Solutions that aims at ending the homelessness problem in the US through use of multi-agency collaboration and community participation to build as many homes as possible for the homeless. Finally, the report discusses features of an organization that allows for the faster spread of innovation within the organization. Homelessness in Australia According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2012), 1 out of every 200 Australians can be considered to be homeless. They live without secure, safe and affordable housing. Up to 105,000 Australians were homeless in 2010 (McLennan 2010). Further statistics show that one in every 154 was in need of assistance from homeless services (AIHW, 2011). Homelessness affects children greatly with one in every 39 children below the age of 4 seeking shelter from homeless services. About a quarter of Australia’s homeless are below the age of 18 (ABS 2012). Homelessness experience is common among children with one in every 42 children with an experience of homelessness. According to AIHW (2011), homeless services have to turn away people who need immediate assistance from homelessness services. This means two in every three homeless children are turned away from homeless services. In recent censuses the Australian Bureau of Statistics has made the collection of homelessness data a priority (ABS 2010). The 2006 census indicated that 105,000 Australian spend their night in insecure and unsafe housing on any given night. 44% of Australian homeless Australians are seeking shelter with their friends or relatives. Another 20% are housed in boarding houses and other temporary accommodations. Homeless services only provide 18% of the homeless with accommodation, while another 18% per cent are spending the night on the streets or other rough shelters (AIHW 2011). According to Chamberlain and Mackenzie (2008), the causes of homelessness in Australia are many. The main causes include poverty, shortage of affordable housing and unemployment. AIHW (2011) credits most cases of homelessness in Australia to domestic violence. Other cause of homelessness include mental illness, addiction, family breakdown, sexual assault, financial difficult, gambling and social isolation The linkage of homelessness to domestic violence is particularly strong. According to AIHW (2011), half the mothers in the homeless service system have run away from home due to domestic violence. Furthermore, 22% of homeless assistance requests are made by victims of domestic violence. On the other hand, young men and women are likely to seek homelessness assistance due to family breakdown. The cause of men seeking homeless assistance are related to substance abuse, mental illness and financial difficult. Gambling is also a major cause of homelessness in men. Most couples with children find their way to homelessness services as a result of financial difficulties and consequent eviction from their homes. Homelessness in a lot of families becomes a vicious circle and people who experience homelessness more likely to become homeless themselves. The impact of homelessness in Australia cannot be understated. Homelessness is costly to the community, individual, family and the nation both economically and socially. First, homelessness causes social isolation of homeless individuals from the families and friends. Secondly, the education of children who are homeless are likely to have their education interrupted therefore aggravating the social problems faced by those families. Thirdly, homelessness exposes people to unhealthy living conditions which result in chronic diseases. Parsell, Jones and Head (2013) accuses the Australian policy makers of denying 1 in every 200 Australians a fundamental human right to affordable and decent human right. According to Chamberlain and Mackenzie (2008) Australia needs to prevent and respond to the problems by adopting a holistic and comprehensive national action plan on homelessness. Secondly, homeless services need to be funded realistically and sustainably. Thirdly, children should be given special consideration as user of homeless services and homeless services funded to have the right kind of care for homeless children. Innovative solutions to the Housing Problem A Community Solutions is a US not-for-profit organization aimed at ending the homelessness problem in the US (Kanis et al 2012). Their solutions include comprehensive and holistic programs to strengthen the communities and tackle the problem of homelessness. Community solutions enable connection and collaboration between the other non-profit and government services aimed at tackling the causes of homelessness (Kanis et al 2012). Community solution aims to establish housing systems that can cater for the community’s most vulnerable. Community solution aims to reduce homelessness by handling the most significant needs, establishing strong partnerships and undertaking high-impact projects that are easier to implement in the collaborative model. Community Solutions were involved in housing the people who had been made homeless by Hurricane Rita and Katrina. The partners for this project were the City, Federal and State agencies, Gulf Coast Housing partnership, HRI and the UNITY of Greater New Orleans (Kanis et al 2012). In Brownsville, Brooklyn, community solution is connecting non-profit organizations and government agencies to community resources that can help them prevent homelessness and reinvent the public housing project in the neighbourhood (Kanis et al 2012). The 100, 000 homes campaign is one of the innovative solution that has the largest impact on homelessness (Kanis et al 2012). Unlike other campaigns to tackle homelessness the initiative aims to end homelessness and not manage it. According to the Kanis et al (2012), the main obstacle of to housing the homeless is lack of collaboration between concerned organizations in handling the homelessness problem. The collaboration ask agencies and organization to work together to end the housing problem in the US. The 100,000 homes campaign success is hinged on dismantling the national homeless industrial complex (Haggerty and Kanis 2012). The 100, 000 calls all stakeholders who are concerned with the homelessness problem to come together to find a solution to the Homelessness problem. The 100, 000 requires the whole community including foundations, government agencies, landlords, outreach workers and social service to collaborate in ending the homelessness problem. The 100, 000 homes initiative is innovative as it seeks multiAgency collaboration in solving the homelessness problem (Kanis et al 2012). A similar approach in Australia can eradicate the homelessness problem. The main strength of the 100,000 homes campaign is the fact that it involves all concerned groups of interest in solving the homelessness problem. Therefore, the project benefits from rich and diverse ideas on management of the homelessness problem (Parsell, Jones and Head, 2013). Secondly, the aim of the project is to completely eradicate the homelessness problem. However, main weakness of the initiative is that it only seeks to address the physical aspects of homelessness without exploring ways of addressing underlying causes of homelessness (Parsell, Jones and Head, 2013). The initiative does not consider the impact of domestic violence on homelessness. It is impossible for any initiative to completely eradicate the homelessness problem without addressing underlying causes of homelessness. In this case treating the symptoms will only provide a short remedy for the homelessness problem. As seen with public housing initiatives failure to address underlying issues will only see the homeless return to the streets. For example, the initiative expects abused women to stay in their homes as physical housing has been provided. The AASW code of conduct is built on the following principles: respect for persons, social justice and professional integrity (AASW 2002). The 100,000 homes initiative realizes all these principles as it is it shows social workers respect the homeless. Furthermore, the initiative seeks to uplift the lives of the homeless and ensure there is social justice for the homelessness. The 100,000 homes initiative if applied in Australia will alleviate the problem of vulnerable children who are worst affected by homelessness. By participating in this initiative social workers show their commitment to professional integrity principle as they will be involved in collaborations with other organization and the interaction will assist in their personal development Webb, S. (2002). Organizational Features that Foster Innovation Allowing Failure To be innovative an organization has to create room for failure, which allows employees freedom to try new things (Tian and Wang 2014). If failure means an employee’s job is compromised then they will not be willing to participate in implementing or coming up with innovative ideas. On the other hand, if their careers are not endangered by their involvement in innovation, employee will take on the risk of participating and contributing to innovation. Care should be taken to ensure that early failure in projects does not kill the whole project. If project managers punish employee who fail at the early stages then the other employee are discouraged from innovating. Furthermore, organizations that allow failure also enable managers to get out of failed project before they become too expensive. In contrast, other organizations try to make obviously failed projects work, therefore spending too much time and organizational resources on failed initiatives. Environment of Trust Employee have to feel their ideas are appreciated and they will not be ridiculed for contributing seemingly stupid ideas (Tian and Wang 2014). The risk involved in producing innovation means organizations have to show trust to employee so they can contribute. In an organization without trust, employee will distrust their colleagues and avoid sharing innovative ideas with them. Furthermore, if they do not trust their mangers they will not divulge innovative ideas because they fear that the managers will steal them and claim credit for those ideas. On the other hand, if employees are sure that outrageous ideas are accommodated, managers will welcome and credit them with their innovation and other employee will collaborate to improve the innovation they are more comfortable presenting their innovative ideas. Autonomy Allowing individuals freedom and responsibility over their work is one of the best ways of ensuring innovation in organizations. Managers only have to establish the goals of any individual and team task and leave the employees to work out a solution for solving the problem (Salveron, Arney and Scott 2006). On the contrary, Micro-managing employees will prevent employee from thinking creativily and will not stimulte the individual thought that is key to generation of innovative ideas (Tian and Wang 2014). From autonomy, employee can discover their intelligence, creativity and the capability to solve problems and thus enabling the organization become more creative. Leadership Leadership ranks as the most profound barrier and enabler of innovation in organizations. Managers may discourage creativity by the way they respond to ideas (Morcillo, Rodríguez-Antón and Rubio 2007). Organizational leaders must be ready to listen to employees creative ideas. Employee will not be motivated to be creative if nobody is concerned about their new ideas. Leaders must be willing to accommodate and implement innovative ideas. It is important not to shoot ideas down before giving employees a chance to articulate them (Arney et al 2009). Mangers should refrain from immediately shooting down ideas no matter how bad they sound. Organizational leaders who bar innovation are likely to block radical ideas if they have not been attempted before. Organizational culture The culture of an organization in most cases becomes a barrier to innovation. Culture in the organizational context refers to norms within the organization. Organizational culture determines many outcomes within the organization (Tian and Wang 2014). In an organization where it is not custom for employee to participate in decision making their ideas are considered peripheral (Nutley, Davies and Walter 2002). Employee used to such a culture will rarely contribute innovative ideas in the organization. In most organizations communication is top-down and rarely flows in the opposite direction. In such organizations employee will rarely contribute to innovation even when explicitly asked to do so In most cases, to make organizations more innovative, a culture that fosters innovation needs to be created and maintained in the organization (Beresford and Croft 2001). The organizations values and mission should reflect the need for innovation in the organization. A clear alignment between an organizations vision and existing norms and values is a strong indicator that an innovative culture exists in an organization. Resource and time constraints Lack of time and resources have been mentioned as significant barriers to innovation in most organizations (Gray 2006). If employees are too busy in their regular work they will have no time to contribute or think of innovative ideas. Furthermore, overworked employees will have no time to implement innovative solutions as most of their time is taken by ordinary work. On the other hand, some organization may not have the resources to fund the implementation of innovative solutions. Conclusion Homelessness is a very serious social issue in Australia. The problem affects over 100,000 Australians each year and denies them a basic human right to decent shelter. Vulnerable children form a large per cent of the number of people who have to spend a night out in the cold. Australia needs a comprehensive and holistic action plan to tackle the homelessness problem in the country. In this paper the 100,000 homes initiative innovated in the US by community solution is working to resettle homeless people in decent permanent homes. However, the initiative is faulted as it concentrates on providing physical shelter and does not address underlying causes of homelessness such as domestic violence. It is only possible to implement such an initiative in an organization that has the features of innovation in place through the adoption of the diffusion of innovation theory. References ABS 2010, General Social Survey: Summary Results, ABS Canberra\ Arney, F. M., Bromfield, L. M., Lewig, K., & Holzer, P 2009, Integrating strategies for delivering evidence-informed practice, Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate & Practice, 5(2) Australian Association of Social Workers 2002, AASW: Code of Ethics. Australian Association of Social Workers. 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