• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.41
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• pp.7-42
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• 2000

Little empirical study has been conducted concerning social worker' empowerment that has very important function on clients' empowerment. Using the sample of 222 social workers selected from 92 community welfare centers, this study attempted to identify social workers' empowerment level and its predictors. This study used the empowerment scale developed by Leslie, Holzhalb, Holland (1998) that focuses on measurement of social workers's empowerment in social work agencies. Using confirmatory factor analysis, it was confirmed that the scale has three factors such as control of work environment, work relationships, and personal work orientation. This study showed that using 5 points scale, mean of social workers' empowerment is 3.67. In identifying predictors of the empowerment, this study used variables from the following aspects: organizational characteristics, job characteristics, and individual characteristics. Using regression analysis, it was found that variables related to job characteristics such as role ambiguities, role conflicts, and skill varieties are statistically very significant predictors of social workers' empowerment. Self-esteem in personal characteristics and participation in decision making and transformational leadership in organizational characteristics are also statistically significant predictors of social workers' empowerment. This study also revealed that self-control and self-esteem variables function as moderator in the relation with variables such as role ambiguities and role conflicts. Finally, this study discussed the direction of future research in social workers' empowerment and the areas that management efforts should be focused on for promoting social workers' empowerment.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.237-269
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• 2013

The purposes of the study are to describe the feature of the program components, and to identify their changes in the process of designing the social work programs in the community service agencies in Korea. In order to achieve these purposes, the researchers constructed an analytical framework including 24 program components derived from the related literatures. Data was collected by questionnaires answered by the social workers who were in charge of the program development and implementation. Descriptive statistics analysis and factor analysis were applied to exam the features of the program components in 195 social service programs developed by the funds from the Community Chest of Korea and a private funding foundation. As the result of the analysis, the three noticeable features are found; (1) the agencies have very actively involved in the designing work in the process of developing practice guideline, however they have less involved in the designing work in the process of implementing program; (2) program components which are low level in design activities are intervention models, staff education, and practical ethics; (3) 8 categories of components derived from the theoretical perspective are reduced to 6 categories in the process for developing practice guidelines, finally to 4 categories in the process for implementing the programs. The implications of major findings were discussed in academic and practical perspectives in Korea, including future research works in the area.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.443-475
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• 2010

Despite the rapidly increased concern on the circularity of the program development activities in the social service agencies, there are only a few studies about the phenomena. This study is to describe the characteristics of program development in the process of adopting, developing, and disseminating the social programs and to figure out the factors influencing differences in the 3 activities in social service agencies. The researchers constructed an explanative model including each 12-13 independent variables with 3 consecutive dependent variables on the basis of reviewing the related literatures. A multiple regression analysis was applied to predict the features of the program development using 195 questionaries responded from social workers in community service centers. As the result of the descriptive analysis, the two noticeable features are found; (1) the agencies have very actively adopted outside programs, developed appropriate programs for the agency, and disseminated the programs into other agencies in the community. (2) there are some positive aspects of the factors in related to the process of the program development. The results of the regression analysis show that the three dependent variables of the adoption, development, and dissemination are very closely interconnected with each others, showing the evidence of the circularity in the agencies. In addition, the 5 independent variables at the value of p .01 are statistically related with the circularity of the three dependent activities. The implication of major findings were discussed in academic and practical perspectives in Korea, including future research works in the area.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.55
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• pp.309-339
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• 2003

This study was made in order to evaluate the effectiveness on the activities of Community Welfare Association through the inter-agencies, carried out in 14 regions in our country as the examples. I'd like to emphasize the two main points in this study. One is whether the community practitioners have positive thoughts or not, about the evaluation on the activities through the inter-agencies. The other is how the receivers react to the inter-agency services. In order to find the solutions for two questions, the survey data of Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs were reanalyzed. First, the attitudes of the practitioners are as follows; that is, the directors of the organizations have negative opinions about the communication, while practitioners have positive evaluations. About the performance of its roles, 68.2 percent of practitioners showed positive reactions, and 77.8 percent answered it's necessary to manage the community association continuously. The receivers have positive evaluations in general about the inter-agency services. In the comparison of the community activities between before and after, domiciliary services were improved because there was a meaningful statistical difference, however, other services such as medical care service were not bettered. And there was no difference between before and after in the CSQ.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.52
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• pp.171-200
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• 2003

Social workers' behaviors in their organizations are governed not only by explicit rules but by implicit rules. This study aimed to measure the extent that the implicit rules exist in social work agencies, and to assess the impact of the implicit rules on the degree of social workers' devotion, burnout, and satisfaction in their own work places. This study also endeavored to search any sort of sanctions that agencies apply against workers who refused to follow implicit rules in their organizations, along with any harms and/or benefits which organizations may experience according to the extent that the implicit rules exist. The results showed that the implicit rules do not exist so much in social work agencies in Korea. Not so many sanctions in the organizations were not found against workers who violated the implicit rules. The amount of implicit rules, however, affected the degree of damages that organizations sustained. The more implicit rules exist in the organizations, the higher was the level of social workers' devotion, burnout, and dissatisfaction in the work places. The impact of implicit rules was powerful in a few areas of work. That is, social workers were required to do whatever things at hand rather than carrying out professional tasks only. Social workers were also asked to stay way beyond the closing hour. The explicit rules were dominant in the area concerned with social work ethics. Some strategies to substantiate social work practice were suggested on the basis of careful examination of the powerful implicit rules.

• Journal of Korean Public Health Nursing
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.5-15
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• 2006

Purpose: The objectives of this study was to measure the outcomes of interventions on the health and social welfare of the elderly in a rural community in Korea. The project involved integrating services of one public health center with that of one social welfare agency, which were under different administrative structures. Method: A single group pretest-posttest design was used for this research. Seventy-five elderly residents living alone in a rural community participated in the study. All of them had coverage of free basic medical care and social welfare services by the government. Major activities for the intervention included: developing partnerships among community leaders/institutes; forming committees of community residents; educating care providers and volunteers; developing 8 integrated service programs and instruments; and organizing the networks. The 20-month intervention was care-managed by a public health nurse whom collaborated with social worker, and was assisted by volunteers. The t-test was utilized to analyze the outcome variables including the elder's health, social welfare and quality of life. A major limitation of this study was the lack of a control group. Results: The outcome of the intervention was shown by improved elder's health, social welfare needs, and quality of life. Integrating the services of public health centers with those of social welfare agencies is an effective way to improve the health of the elderly in the community. Conclusion: Developing community capacity with such integrated services will pay an important role in improving the health of the elderly who live alone.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.47
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• pp.148-177
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• 2001

Service learning usually has two aspects. One aspect is associated with applying class learning to related fields. The other aspect is associated with challenging and dynamic volunteering experiences. This study examined experiences of 70 social work students who took service learning courses at a university. After the courses, these students were asked regarding (1) evaluation and satisfaction of overall service learning experiences, (2) evaluation of service learning contents and the following activities, (3) the process of volunteering activities, and (4) the differences between service learning courses and other regular courses. Results were as follows: students generally regarded service learning experiences as positive; students reported understanding of social work practice and learning of professional skills; however, the service learning courses seemed to be very demanding in time and adjusting personal schedules; teamwork among students seemed to be good, especially in cooperation and emotional support; however, some students reported struggling experiences in allocating roles among team members; finally, the relationship between students and social workers at the agencies and the coordination of community resources seemed to be weak. In order for service learning courses to be more effective, this study presented some suggestions in the conclusion.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.165-176
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• 2015

In this study, as recently there is active discussion in academia and relevant industries relating to delegation of social welfare facilities to the private sector, self-regulations relating to such delegation by Seoul was analyzed for systematic supply of social welfare service and find ways to improve self-regulations that will be enacted or amended by local governments. The data was collected from self-regulations of Seoul based on the self-regulation information system as of May 1, 2015, and analyzed according to the steps of delegation to the private sector proposed by Hyangsun Choi, in terms of presence of clauses and contents. Based on the analysis, the study prosed: first, clarity in description of application criteria and relevant facilities and dual system of the delegation agencies; second, improvement in criteria for selecting the delegation agencies and the head of committee; third, clauses related to supervision of an administrative agency; fourth, overall improvement of clauses related to evaluation nd review of delegation and institutional arrangement for more transparent evaluation.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.42 no.2 s.119
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• pp.177-195
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• 2007

The central aim of this paper is to identify the distributional pattern of poverty and to investigate the spatial relationship between poverty and welfare service providers in Busan, Korea. It is intended to explain how the relationship of service-dependency between impoverished people and social welfare services leads to uneven social geography. Welfare services controlled by public or private agencies may support the impoverished people in different ways, generating social outcomes. By exploiting the spatial variations in the incidence of poverty and the provisions of social welfare services, this paper is to understand the dynamics of the geography of poverty from a local scale so that it can help us understand how various governmental and nongovernmental area-based service providers are spatially uneven when they are compared to the distribution of service dependency group such as impoverished people. From this research, it is finally argued that the implications of locational interdependence between such needed groups and social welfare services for their support demand a paradigm for urban social geography that centers on the changing welfare provision structure and the linkages between population and service-provision.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.201-227
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• 2007

This study is to investigate determinants of social workers' career commitment, compare the level of career commitment of social workeks by social work organization, and analyze the effects of career commitment on job attitudes. Social workers working for government agencies and community welfare centers and institutions in Busan city and Gyeongnam province were surveyed using structured questionnaires and 326 usable questionnaires were obtained. The questionnaires were analyzed for job, career, role, and organizational justice characteristics models and comprehensive model using SPSS/PC+.. The results are as follows; the level of social worker's career commitment was relatively high but the level of career commitment of social workers working for government agencies was slightly lower than that of social workers working for private agencies. According to the demographic characteristics, the level of career commitment of males was higher than that of famales. That of older workers was higher than that of younger worker, that of 2nd rank workers was higher than that of 1st rank workers. Task significance, task identity, feedback for the job done, career satisfaction, low role conflict, high distributive justice and interactive justice were related to higher level of career commitment while the skill variety was related to the lower level of career commitment. However, the main determinants differ according to the social work organization. Career commitment affected negatively on the career turnover intention while it affected positively on organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job involvement, and intrinsic job satisfaction. Therefore, different approaches and systematic measures are needed according to the organization.