Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The main aim of this research was to identify the relationships between the factors of family dynamics in people aged 50 and over with kinship relationships to migrants from Durango, Mexico. Based on a quantitative, non-experimental, cross-sectional and correlational study with men and women in early old age and old age, an intentional non-probabilistic sample was constructed with 629 participants providing information via a self-administered questionnaire. The data were processed using factor analysis, and four labels were constructed: affectivity, social support, conflict/violence and interaction. The results indicated a moderately positive relationship between affectivity and interaction, with a negative association between social support and conflict/violence. Variables such as type of kinship, age group, care and remittances also played a central role in exploring family environments. There is hence a need to continue investigating the complex situations that older adults face in contexts involving high levels of migration and make visible the challenges in terms of social work and social policy for this social group.

The violence suffered by women has gained greater public significance in recent decades. However, despite efforts made by the feminist movement, public awareness, social policies and legislative advances, stereotypes towards victims of gender-based violence and sexual assault are still present today, affecting their care and healing. The existence of these stereotypes among professionals could hinder or worsen the care provided to victims. The aim of this work is to identify the presence of gender stereotypes in professionals who operate in community social services (CSS), and who provide direct care to possible victims of gender-based violence and sexual assault. For this purpose, quantitative research has been carried out through the implementation of a questionnaire to 122 professionals of the community social services by municipalities of Mallorca who carry out direct intervention. Results indicate that the specific training of professionals may predetermine their intervention, as well as giving rise to the presence of some stereotypes. Based on these results, mandatory training in gender equality is proposed to be provided to professionals working in SSC centres, as this could improve their intervention regarding the identification and prevention of gender-based violence and sexual assault.

Foster families provide at-risk children with a family environment. In Portugal, however, there appears to be a major lack of political investment in foster care programmes, with only around 191 children currently placed with a foster family. To increase these numbers, we need to listen and give a voice to the social workers who provide support to foster carers. This empirical study uses a qualitative methodology based on interviews with practitioners working in the only two organisations offering a foster care programme. The qualitative analysis is inspired by categorical analysis. The findings suggest an urgent need for policy action to train workers throughout the child protection system so as to guarantee service quality standards. Moreover, this should be combined with a mass information campaign aimed at the general public. This would provide a real social image of foster families, as well as improving their recruitment and retention.

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of homelessness. First, the article reviews the main developments that have emerged since the 1970s, elaborating the background on which the current understanding of the reality of homelessness is based. Attention is also focused on the concept of "home". Through the concept of “home” and the contributions of international literature, an account is given of the conceptual paradigm under which homelessness is understood, as well as other forms of residential exclusion. The article also reflects on the potentialities and limitations linked to this approach to homelessness. Finally, it presents a comprehensive framework for approaching homelessness by considering the factors that are at the root of its emergence and maintenance. Thus, it establishes an analytical perspective that conceptualises and understands homelessness under the theoretical and analytical paradigm of social exclusion.

The international community has played an essential role in creating and building an international system as a global response to combat people trafficking. This development has taken place through international instruments to fight organized crime and based on a rationale of State security. States underpin the international system, and the majority are more concerned with prosecuting crime than protecting victims’ rights. Progress is being made, but this system does not guarantee the rights of all victims in a fully effective manner. The theoretical framework for the analysis presented in this paper is the critical theory of human rights; Spain is used as a case study. Spain is considered to have regulations that offer guarantees; however, rights are only effectively guaranteed in formal terms. The human rights-based approach is part of Spanish law and policy, but it remains insufficiently effective. There is a need for improvement and for mechanisms to secure continuous participation by all actors, including victims. This article has two aims: to offer a differential analysis perspective with a focus on human rights, and to promote a new public policy interpretation in the fight against trafficking, placing victims at the centre of policies and not treating them as mere objects or instruments in a criminal phenomenon.

Social accompaniment is a relational approach methodology, but also a right included in legal texts of some autonomous communities, as is the case of Navarra. In this community, thanks to the drive of the Network to Fight Poverty and Social Exclusion, a model of social accompaniment was established a decade ago, agreed between professionals from public administrations and social entities. In 2021, an action-research process was launched to analyze the implementation of this model, developing dialogue groups in which professionals participated, but also people who had been accompanied through this methodology. As a result, a series of consensuses were established regarding the path traveled to implement this methodology, the current moment of social support and future challenges. It was highlighted that the differential character of this methodology lies in the fact that the leading role is played by both the person who accompanies and the person who is accompanied. For this reason, the accompaniment requires attention focused on people (in the plural), on the two human beings involved in the relational process. Thus, the functioning of this human relationship will depend on, for example, managing the balance between horizontality and verticality, the management of different times, the adequate transmission of power until the accompanied person achieves autonomy, etc. In addition, it is necessary that these relational processes can take place in frameworks of community support, networking and flexible organizations.

Continental Europe has faced significant socio-political challenges in recent years: the 2008 financial crisis, the "refugee crisis" and the Covid-19 pandemic. This has resulted in an increasing social gap. The main aim of this research was hence to analyse the proposals of the European Union (EU) to promote the social integration of vulnerable groups through sport. Documentary analysis was conducted, with 75 documents selected and analysed following a systematic search in EUR-LEX. A book of families and codes was designed to systematize the information using the MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020 software. The documentary analysis revealed increasing numbers of policies from 1985 to 2014, with a significant change from 2014 onwards. The EU’s proposed interventions to promote integration through sport were aimed at migrants, young people at risk of social exclusion, people with functional diversity, women, the LGTBI community and older adults. In conclusion, the EU considers that sport favours intercultural dialogue, promotes normalization and prevents social exclusion. However, these policies are based on asymmetric relations of inequality and power which reproduce naturalized inequalities due to a lack of critical perspective: sport alone does not integrate. Rather, there is a need to address cultural and religious characteristics and the specific needs of each group.

The complexity of intervention contexts means that the professional practice of social work faces new challenges and ethical problems requiring something beyond the application of methods or techniques. A specific ethical framework is necessary to guide social workers in community projects: it should be constructed through interdisciplinary dialogue between social work and philosophy. Three ethical theories were selected for examination in this article due to their significant contributions to community social work: a) deontological ethics; b) teleological ethics; and c) ethics of care. These theories were used as a basis for proposing four ethical principles that are useful in community intervention contexts: respect, commitment, empowerment and social justice. The proposal presented in this article hence comprises two interrelated elements: the theoretical framework, made up of three ethical theories that contribute to an understanding of the situations that people go through and how they experience them; and a principlism-based approach that involves combining the four ethical principles to respond to the particular features of the contexts where they are going to be applied.

Social work intervention represents one of the key issues of professional practice. There is hence a need to examine how social workers implement their actions in different areas of intervention.   This article provides a comparative perspective of professional intervention focused on the countries of Spain and Cuba. It mainly examines the field of health, due to its historical relationship with social issues, as well as addressing the history of social work intervention in both countries. The article hence explains the impact of history, politics and culture on these issues, highlighting that they play a significant role in contemporary social work and in current interventions for the community.