Summary Neo-abolitionism, the social movement to abolish whiteness, contends that whiteness—not white people—possesses no humane or redeemable quality, in and of itself, but functions solely as the keystone of racialization and systemic racial oppression. Neo-abolitionism has not garnered legitimacy or secured broad commitment from any profession or discipline in the United States. This is unsurprising given the existential anathema, to a society founded upon white supremacy, of such a direct ideological affront and material challenge to the reigning social and institutional order. Practically speaking, though, neo-abolitionism has failed to translate theoretical philosophy to a viable sociopolitical agenda comprised of actionable routes toward social change that might subvert the hegemony of whiteness and erode the social construction of race. As whiteness increasingly inflicts harm and sows division in the contemporary historical moment, social work faces the imperative to seriously consider the merits of neo-abolitionism. Findings Where neo-abolitionism has stalled in attempts to move beyond theorization and academic debate in disciplines such as history and sociology, the organizing capacity, praxis techniques, and advocacy expertise of social work—as much a profession as a discipline—offer means of real progress toward abolishing the ideological and material supports of the social construction of whiteness at large, which proliferates racial injustice and undergirds myriad inequities beyond race. Applications Neo-abolitionism addresses the imperative faced by social work, in research, practice, and pedagogy, to move beyond mediation and toward elimination of the structural injustices and manifest inhumanities in lived experience propagated by white hegemony.

Summary Anger, hostility and mistrust towards refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants (hereafter migrants) are increasing across most Western societies. Media discourse, tough migration laws, and the escalation of right-wing views across Europe, all manifest a desire to exclude those who are seen as a threat to national interests and identities. The literature repeatedly confirms that discrimination has a harmful impact on the general well-being of migrants, while often weakening their trust on helping professionals. Social workers are among the professionals most often in contact with migrants, making them important actors in the field of migration. Findings This qualitative study was conducted in Madrid (Spain) and follows the interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. Findings revealed that Muslims and Blacks are the groups facing the most intense racial hostility. Emotions like fear, sadness, learned helplessness, frustration, rejection, anger, and general mistrust were underlined by participants. Some migrants highlighted negative coping mechanisms like isolation, aggressive impulses, approaching mafias, and risk behaviours, leading to further rejection from host societies, and thus initiating a vicious circle of hostility. Application These findings constitute a modest contribution to the literature, as they result from an integration of migrants’ and helping professionals’ perspectives. Several suggestions are put forward for social workers and other professionals. The two most significant suggestions are that professionals (a) use their field experience to raise awareness about racial hostility towards this population, and (b) help identify migrants who may rely on negative coping strategies and so prevent adverse consequences for both migrants and host societies.

Summary As refugees of the war in Southeast Asia, Hmong experienced various traumatic events. Evidence suggests the persistence of psychiatric disorders related to trauma in refugees even after prolonged resettlement in their host country. This systematic review aimed to summarize the mental health literature on the Hmong population with a focus on cultural and social factors. The databases PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, Social Services Abstracts, Web of Science, and PubMed were reviewed for peer-reviewed articles published up to April 2018. Forty articles were included in the final review. Findings Results highlight three primary themes: (1) mental health outcomes were associated with a variety of premigration and postmigration factors, (2) group and community-based treatment and interventions provided promising results, and (3) barriers to mental health care were primarily stigma, communication challenges, discrimination, and mental health literacy. The results of this systematic review shed light on the limited and small studies with the Hmong population. Applications Implications for social work and culture-sensitive research, practice, and policymaking for this population are discussed.

Summary Empathy is an essential attribute required for care providers to provide quality care and effective relationship-based practice. Cognitive empathy is understanding another person’s experiences, concerns, and perspectives, and affective empathy is sharing another person’s emotion. Cognitive empathy was found to be a significant protector to burnout and stress, while affective empathy was found to be a significant contributor to compassion satisfaction among social workers. This quasi-experimental study assessed the effectiveness of two empathy enhancement programs on 105 social workers working with older adults in South Korea. The experimental group (n = 52) received a simulation-based empathy enhancement program along with a brief mindfulness practice session, and the comparison group (n = 53) watched a 30-minute-long educational video about empathy. Data were collected prior to and two weeks after the intervention. Findings The experimental group showed significantly lower levels of psychosocial stress compared to the comparison group. It also showed significantly higher levels of cognitive empathy and significantly lower levels of compassion fatigue at posttest. Furthermore, the comparison group demonstrated significantly higher levels of a unidimensional factor of empathy, compassion satisfaction, and caring efficacy at posttest. Application Pre- and post-test differences, in different outcome measures from the groups, indicate the benefits of each empathy enhancement program on social workers working with older adults. In particular, the present study validates that the simulation-based empathy enhancement program can enhance the cognitive empathy of social workers and reduce burnout and stress. A further randomized controlled trial study is needed to examine the program’s effectiveness with minimal bias and confounding factors.

This book is one of four key titles in a new series of study skills texts for social work students. The material contained in the book focuses on the foundations of critical thinking, reflective practice, and critical reading and writing. A link is made to the British Association of Social Workers’ [BASW] Professional Capabilities Framework, highlighting this as a key professional document in relation to critical thinking, in social work education and practice. The book is aimed at all students and social workers in training, including international students. The book is intended to guide students towards an understanding of the meaning of ‘critical thinking’ and how to apply this to practice. Reflective practice is viewed as central to this process, with the aim of supporting students to find, what the authors refer to as, their ‘own voice’.

Summary This article reports a study that investigates the impact of a three-month online meditation programme for geriatric social workers in South Asian cities for mitigating stress, improving professional quality of life, and building work competencies. Findings Results indicated that the online meditation sessions were effective (Cohen’s d range = 2.21–4.17, p = . 001) in lowering perceived stress of geriatric social workers, mitigating burnout and vicarious traumatization and promoting higher levels of compassion satisfaction and geriatric social work competencies as compared to online music sessions. Meditation was more effective for women workers, Hindus and Buddhists, who undertook therapeutic interventions, and whose clientele were older adults with physical ailments, in home-care with cognitive impairments and hospice-living elderly. This was in comparison to men, Christian workers, whose work profile comprised resource mobilization and whose clientele were healthy community-dwelling older adults. Regular attendance of the online meditation sessions and self-practice were significant mediators of intervention impact. Applications The findings contribute to intervention research on mitigating stress at work and more specifically the stress of professional geriatric care-work. In addition to mitigating burnout and reducing emotional exhaustion, this person-directed online meditation programme also led to compassion satisfaction and bolstered competencies for geriatric practice.

Summary Social workers and students in a large teaching hospital explored the characteristics of psychosocial interventions during acts of political violence. The associations between hospital length of stay, Acute Stress Reaction, and the characteristics of the implemented psychosocial interventions were also examined. One hundred and forty patients (61.4% males) treated during the so-called stabbing intifada/uprising in the years 2014–2015 in Israel in one large hospital were included. Data collection was based on clinical data mining. Findings The most frequent patient interventions were trauma-focused, while the most frequent family interventions were needs assessment and support-system building. Most of the interventions with the family (but not with the patient) were associated with longer hospital stays. Greater severity of Acute Stress Reaction was associated with greater use of trauma-focused interventions with the patient (but not with the family). Applications The findings suggest that social workers hold implicit trauma-focused intervention theories that should be written up in order to develop practice-based intervention models in the context of political violence.