Summary Acquired brain injury is a major cause of death and disability. Due to the impact of acquired brain injury on an individual's and a family's functioning, social workers are likely to encounter individuals and families affected by the condition. This study aimed to (1) identify the existing level of knowledge and skills of social workers in working with individuals with acquired brain injury and their families and (2) examine the training needs of social workers to improve their knowledge and skills in working with those with acquired brain injury. A series of semi-structured interviews with newly qualified social workers (six), brain injury specialist social workers (nine), team leaders (two), and commissioners (three) were conducted and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings The data highlighted that social workers in England and Wales have no formal training around acquired brain injury but felt there was a need for different levels of training and guidance for social workers. Participants also discussed the need for better integration with health care and a greater focus on relational working to enact positive change for individuals and families. Applications Social work training should be embedded within prequalification training with additional postqualification training where appropriate. Work and training within social work should take an interdisciplinary approach. The authors have taken the data to develop a freely available online training program for social workers.

Summary With its long history as an academic discipline, social work in Germany has a substantial theory base. The dominant theory in the contemporary German canon is the lifeworld orientation, most closely associated with nonagenarian theorist Hans Thiersch. This paper reconstructs the theory's late twentieth-century evolution, contextualized for the international reader. Its basis is an analysis of Thiersch's own writing, considered with reference to the philosophical, political, and social work positions shaping it. The paper thus locates the theory ideationally, by examining contemporaneous academic educational-philosophical discourses; politically, in terms of social policy shifts; and professionally, with regard to the broader practice developments which it both responded to and triggered. Findings Contextual analysis of Thiersch's work locates it under the influence of hermeneutics/phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, and critical theory. The theory has a strong ethical core, with lifeworld-oriented practitioners demonstrating a mindfulness of clients’ subjective experiences, and a dialogical approach to working collaboratively with them. Applications The lifeworld orientation's social pedagogic roots and its focus on community interventions, prevention, participative processes, and the actual experiences and understandings of clients make it an approach highly compatible with the current interest in relationship-based social work and radical/critical social work. Detailed consideration of German theory evolution also throws light on broader international questions of theory development, as well as offering comparative social work theory insights.

Summary During the events of October 7, 2023, 240 men, women, and children were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists to the Gaza Strip. The current study explores challenges faced by social workers at Schneider Children's Medical Center in Israel as they performed an intervention with returning hostages from Hamas captivity and their families. This traumatic event is unprecedented in its characteristics, complexity, and the need to treat this unique group with a very limited prior research and clinical knowledge, within a short hospitalization period ranged from 5 days to 2 weeks. This qualitative phenomenological approach research aims to identify and describe themes related to the personal and professional encounters of 13 social workers with the returnees and their families. Findings The findings highlight a central theme: parallel processes in creating connections between different social workers and returning hostages. This process facilitated the creation of connections that allowed the return of nascent trust, security, and control among the returning hostages and their families. Applications Given the unique characteristics of the trauma, the social workers had to address the returning hostages’ collapse of basic existential feelings of trust, control, and security in themselves and others. The research suggests the feasibility of establishing secure attachment in a short period. The study also points to the necessity of considering initial attachment processes in the planning and guidance of social services for future trauma victims.

Summary This research aims to address formal support needs of informal caregivers (ICs) in the context of long-term care of older people (OP) living with chronic life-limiting illnesses and examine the relationships of ICs of OP with formal support in rural Ghana. We undertook ethnographic interviews with 15 OP; 15 ICs; and 10 healthcare professionals (HPs) after participatory observations during 6 months of fieldwork. This was supported with daily field notes used to collect the needed data and purposively sampled across Gomoa West District in Ghana. The average age of participants was 76 years. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, using a thematic analysis procedure as the data analysis approach. Findings OP living with chronic life-limiting illnesses and their ICs identify and endorse information and education and skill training in planning and coordination as enablers of ICs to manage such OP's care. Meeting ICs’ educational needs such as health literacy, family conferencing and encouragement from HPs made information and education effective for ICs. Planning and coordinating care activities offer sufficient coverage for OP, provide follow-up support, and help caregivers to meet their multiple responsibilities which are sociocultural in nature. Applications In line with the empowerment approach, social workers and HPs need to be aware of their roles to empower and support caregivers. They need to build on caregivers’ strengths, negotiate common ground with caregivers, encourage caregivers to express themselves in their own language, and support caregivers to focus on social change.

Summary Social workers and their young adult clients with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) often clash over money. This is hardly surprising given the very different meanings they attach to money. Social workers tend to see money pragmatically through pedagogical lenses as they seek to support their clients through financial education in order to keep their personal finances in order. But for young adults with MID who often suffer from poverty, debt, and abuse, the spending of money is a way to maintain self-worth. Findings This comes to the fore in our in-depth ethnographic qualitative study, including participant observation of 50 young adults with MID and of 75 social professionals in the Netherlands. This article builds on sociological discussions, combining Zelizer’s meaning of money and Lamont’s notions of self-worth. Applications Taking the meaning of money for young adults with MID seriously has significant implications for social work practice.

Summary Places, architecture, and materiality matter for social work. We aim to start a conversation between critical geographical and actor-network theory perspectives through an empirical analysis of two Danish job center sites to get a better understanding of the agency of social work architecture. Critical geographical perspectives offer conceptualizations of how place is produced and how this production is shaped by changing relations of dominance and power. However, they risk ending in a somewhat unsatisfying totalizing perspective when attempting to understand interventions performed and acted out by social workers. Actor network theory concepts of connections, scripts, and plug-ins are useful for understanding the enactment of social work practice in particular architectures, but they lose sight of how connections are molded by relations of power and political rationalities. Findings We explore the silent politics of an enabling and welcoming environment and the loud politics of interdictory spaces in two job center locations. We show that the social work architecture shapes professional roles, induce forms of conduct and interactions between social workers and young unemployed people. We highlight how the enactment of social work architecture is filled with ambivalences when social workers navigate political place production. We argue that taking into account the complementarity of critical geographical perspectives and actor-network theory might succumb the limitations of both. Applications We lack conceptualizations of the role of social work architecture in social work. The article aims to start a reflection on this in social work research and professional social work practice.