The life of Matthew O. Howard, PhD, an internationally recognized scholar whose work significantly impacted social work, psychiatry, psychology, and the addictions, is described. Dr. Howard’s scientific, policy, practice, and educational achievements are noted. His contributions to advancing the science of mindfulness as well as social work research and education over a 30-year career are outlined.
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Howard, Matthew Owen
Eric L. Garland and Jeffrey M. Jenson
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The State of Social Work in Egypt
Hamido A. Megahead
Although professional social work in Egypt has a 100-year history, there is a dearth of information in English about social work in Egypt and other non-Western countries. Five domains of social work in Egypt are (1) the international flow of Western social work practice into Egypt, (2) modern social work, (3) social work research and social work interventions, (4) social work education, and (5) fields of practice. These five domains that inform modern social work in Egypt were produced from international flows of Western social work practice into Egypt. It was also produced from social work research and social work intervention. Modern social work also comes from teaching bachelor of social work students professional social work courses. Social work knowledge was adapted, authenticated, and indigenized to meet local context. These five dominated themes have been detailed and explained. International flows of Western social work practice into Egypt include transmission (transplantation), authentication, and indigenization. Modern social work in Egypt includes social work practice and social welfare policy. Social work research has included explanatory, descriptive and experiment social work research studies. Social work intervention has included social work intervention of aiming at solving problems and stressors and social work intervention of aiming at applying resources for change. Fields of social work practice includes family and child Social Work and school social work. Social work education is focused only on Bachelor of Science in Social Work covering the professional social work courses group work practice, social casework practice, community organization, social welfare planning, policy and administration, fields of social work practice. A synthetic approach that knits together these five themes entail that modern social work has been produced from international flows of Western social work practice into Egyptian context. It is also produced from social work research and social work intervention. Modern social work also comes as results of teaching Bachelor Social Work (BSW) students the professional social work courses.
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Complex Systems Science and Social Work
John Halloran and Fred Wulczyn
Extending social work’s familiarity with the metaphorical use of systems concepts, formal systems science enables macro social workers pathways of understanding and description of system-level behavior. Systems, in a formal sense, are coherently organized and interconnected sets of parts that, when operating together, perform a function. The behaviors of complex systems are not reducible to the behavior of individual components, and behaviors of systems are unique to the system as a whole. We introduce a formal approach to systems thinking, provide an overview of central concepts in complex systems analysis, and conclude with an in-depth example of an agent-based simulation model, which puts complex systems thinking into action in a research and practice context.
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Wakabayashi, Tatsuo
Yasuhiro Kuroki
A Japanese social work educator and researcher, Tatsuo Wakabayashi was one of the founders and developers of the Japanese Association of Schools of Social Work (JASSW). Wakabayashi had a broad perspective and a solid ability to see the future of the times. He contributed to the development of social work theory and research in Japan.
