Social Work and Social Welfare

Purpose: With the rapid growth of volunteering in worldwide, the question of how to recognize volunteers at the national level to motivate volunteering has become a pressing matter. In a few of developed nations, volunteering is motivated by the establishment of national recognition awards for volunteer. As a result, the goal of this paper is to aid decision-makers in enhancing volunteering by drawing on the experience of these developed countries.
Methods: This paper adopts a literature-based approach and presents a comparative analysis of national recognition awards for volunteer in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, and Ireland. The comparison factors include the objectives of awards, categorization criteria, eligibility prerequisites, nomination requirements, and the evaluation process. Following that, an examination of similarities and differences between the awards will be presented, and the article will end with some suggestions.
Results: Each of these four countries has established standardized and effective criteria for volunteers’ recognition awards, despite that each country's practices vary to some extent. Based on these circumstances, nations conscious of the importance of volunteer recognition which should expedite the establishment of national recognition awards for volunteers, broaden participation, focus on the effectiveness of service, establish reasonable application standards while ensuring the transparency of the selection process, and actively seek to expand cooperation with other social organizations.

This qualitative study explores the lived experiences of Shona/Ndebele inter-tribal families in England, the challenges they face, and their responses to these. The findings show that the atrocities of the Gukurahundi continue to cast their shadow on some of these families. Disapproval of the marriage from one or both sides of the couple's parents leads to the couple's parents' subsequent lack of interest in the children born in these families. This is then extended to the wider family. Gender imbalances, culture shock and communication difficulties were other challenges faced by such couples. Couples learned to compromise and bring their cultures together, for example through cooking. The three-legged pot' metaphor was used by older women to teach younger, mainly Ndebele, women to accept male infidelity. This study will inform practitioners working with such couples as well as other mixed couples, especially those originating from areas of conflict.

Social work organizations (SWOs) are under rapid development in Mainland China, and they are characterized as both non-government organizations (NGOs)' features and Chinese features. This research investigates SWOs' capacity to develop community empowerment through a case study on two SWOs in Xiamen China. The study found that SWOs organized individual activities, family activities, group activities, and community activities; their community empowerment strategies are soft and modified in the Chinese practical environment and political background; SWOs' empowerment approach emphasizes personal empowerment but not organizational or institutional empowerment; SWOs' interventions are not that successful but are still under development towards community empowerment with their path, and their over-dependence on government leads to their sluggish promotion in community empowerment. The study suggests that SWOs in China should change their development strategies, diversify their funding sources, and explore their professional methods to develop equal connections with other organizations, especially governmental departments. It is necessary to re-conceptualize the definition of community empowerment in China. 

The study examined the experiences of African American grandmothers living in rural settings providing care to their grandchildren, in the mist of their own chronic health issues. The study explored the health, physical functioning, well-being, support, and resources of these grandmothers. The custodial grandmothers reported challenges and needs which included their own health issues, lack of support, financial concerns, transportation and childcare issues.   The findings revealed that developing health education programs and other formal supports focusing on health, and resources have a positive effect on the grandmother’s perceptions regarding their health and support.

Opinion polarization on social media raises a lot of concerns today. In this study, the author provides a systematic review of publications about the issues since 2013 to show the achievements in the existing research on the topic, to sort out the relevant knowledge, and to provide some inspirations for future research in this area. This paper finds that opinion polarization on social media is initiated by three patterns of factors: increasing the homophily in discussions, increasing conflict in social media discussions, and facilitating the spread of misinformation. It also summarizes the existing findings on how to detect and measure opinion polarization in social media, and comes up with opportunities for further researches on this topic.