Option 1: Working with Families Affected by Australian Bushfires
There are numbers of practices and approaches to secure the human rights that includes various community practice, community intervention, community organizing, and community organisation. These practices can be practiced interchangeably with proper inclusion of the community organizing. The social work is a huge field where, people take care about every individual living and non-living entity within the community. To put it simply, the term sociology and community practices are not restricted within the community level. Community is merely a complex concept commonly used for conceptualizing the identity of every individual being. The selected movie to be discussed from the sociological lens is – ‘A street car named Bob’ directed by Roger Spottiswoode (Bowen, 2013). The main agenda of this movie is – a stray ginger can change the life of the protagonist James Bowen. The idea is to analyze the main theme of the movies with the anti-oppressive and structural human rights. The paper will also demonstrate the animal social worker ideas associated with the story. The study will investigate about the structural issues prevailing in the communities of Britain as well as in Australia especially within Queensland.
To provide a brief idea of the movie, the main characters need to be known first. The fictional characters of this movie are – Bob the cat, Bob was found by James in the hallway apartment building. James Bowen, the protagonist of the film. He was observed with a miserable life at the beginning of the movie. He passed the hardships of Australia and England’s hardships with his Mom. He was observed with the bad habits including drug addiction and finally the introduction with the cat changed his life. In spite of changing James became a new man when he came back to his family.
Mode of practice refers to the method or procedure of any particular profession. In this case, James Bowen had gone through the hardships of two major communities of Britain and Australia. James Bowen was suffering from homelessness and he was observed with heroin addiction (Ravenhill, 2016). He had been observed with spending majority of his life in the streets of London down. Hence, the protagonist is no longer associated with any kind of profession in particular. The concept of homelessness is associated with this film. For this, the mode of community intervention needs to be incorporated. It includes –
- Locality development – the broader spectrum of social workers is working together to address particular goals to develop the community. They are also associated to support the well-being of the entire community members. The prototype of the community development defined by United Nation mentioned is the process that create different suitable conditions for supporting the social progress.
- Social planning – It refers to the routinised and technical development of the community with the process of active community participation by community building. It often observed with encompassing the development of the community. It also includes different agencies working to meet the gap of the community development program.
The two particular sociological or theoretical ideas associated with this film are – the anti-oppressive and structural theories (Lee & Brotman, 2013). The anti-oppressive idea of human rights refers to the broader aspects of combating the relations and process of discrimination or the domination that create separation among the community members. According to the definition of the right, it refers to the inhuman or degrading treatment for any particular group or any individual. Injustice or hardships refers to the domination of the superior group over the inferior group. The concept of inferiority refers to the features of poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, cultural inferiority, inferiority related to the caste system and many others. There are many reasons behind these negative concepts within the community. Any individual or group belonging to the inferior group of the community always gets deprived by the superior group of the community. The central concept of the anti-oppressive practice speaks for the ideology to become a human being at first (Scrine & McFerran, 2018).
Option 2: Working with Australians of Chinese and other Asian Descent Subjected to Racial Abuse in Australia Related to the Coronavirus
In this film also, the concept of homelessness can be seen (Beatty et al. 2015). According to the Canadian study Kyle, (2013) homelessness refers to the condition where a person or a group of persons suffer from unsafe, unsecured, unstable, and inappropriate housing facilities. Home is one of the basic requirements for every individual living being. A community is observed with different types of people comprising of different cultures. Australia is the place where majority of the population belongs to the aboriginal community (Fromentin, 2013). On the other hand, Britain is observed with the dominance of Christianity. England is a place observed with the Welsh, Scottish, and Northern Irish culture. Both the places are observed with racial discrimination. Both the communities practice the unwanted social practice of discrimination. Racial discrimination within Australia and Britain raises many social, economic, and physical impact on the community members.
On the other hand, racism in Great Britain is termed as xenophobia according to the practitioners of Ethnic English group. The social workers need to work the professional role to address the issue of xenophobia as a serious issue related to community. The social workers are continually creating awareness to deal with the threatening issue of xenophobia from the society.
Other main issue includes the structural issues of both Australia and England. The main structural issues of both the places, which are prevalent within the film also include –
- Decreased investment on business – the capital spending for both the communities considering the share of GDP has been marked decreasing from the initial stage. The government has a planning for national infrastructure however the lagging time is not supporting the planning to bring fruitful result for the community members. The financial system of both the places are becoming reluctant for all the small and medium size businesses. Low investment is creating difficulties for the small-scale business owners hence contributing for the increased issue of discrimination.
- Decreased productivity growth – As a consequence of the decreased capital investment, the productivity rate has been decreasing from the past few decades. In the UK the output per employed person has wilting and remaining below the expected productivity rate. Same condition can be observed within Australia especially within the place Queensland also. There are many small scale and medium scale business organizations within Queensland suffering from slow or little productivity growth.
- Structural unemployment – In this regard, Britain is one of the top most developed countries as per the record of the statistics (Hore, 2013). Apart from this, UK is also observed with 5.7% increase within the labor force. However, Flatau et al., (2015) mentioned that the structural problem of unemployment is still remaining within the place. On the other hand, Australia is always observed with the issue of unemployment till now. More than, 30% of the Australians are suffering the growing issue of unemployment and also underemployment(Morris & Wilson, 2014).
- Structural decrease in manufacturing – Australia is a place where the structural decline in the field of manufacturing can also be observed. On the other hand, the export growth in the recovery is marked with a fact of disappointment for UK. Hence, the most reliant and dominant field of Britain is the financial services.
- Structural lack of competition – Monopoly is the dominating power over the marketplace of both the countries. Both the trading field of the countries are observed with lack of competition that fuels up the high price of the products. It is affecting the incomes of millions of people(Davidson, 2014).
- Inequality – this is one of the major issues within both the places. The society is divided into superior and inferior classes. Recently the middle-class people aroused within the community. The inequal distribution of the resources creates the concept of inequality within the community(Gizyatova, 2016). Considering the class structure of Australia, the aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities are the dominant classes of the place. Aboriginal people are observed with lack of facilities regarding education, power, health, and security (Mitton-Kukner, Kearns & Tompkins, 2016). History has the evidence that aboriginal people are the original people of the community. They were being marginalized after the consequences of British settlement and colonization.
- Under-funding public services – the economic, demographic and social pressure over the administration create a continuous mount on the public services including the NHS. According to Kaleveld et al., (2018), NHS requires extra funding to maintain the wages and salaries to the employees. On the other hand, the Australian public servants also suffer from under funding structure related to salary and wages.
The theme of homelessness during the opening scene of the film and the process of drug addiction motivated to study about the film. On the other hand, the story keeps the viewers engaged to witness the threatening addiction related consequences the protagonists undergo throughout his entire life. The turning point of the story is the meeting with the cat Bob during his first night at his flat. The concern of James for the cat and the assumption about the cat that it had escaped from somewhere kept him engaged for that night. The returning back of Bob to James with a wounded leg helped him to grow more attachment for the creature. Along with this, the death of Baz and Betty’s hatred for the drug addict catered for a mixed emotion for James. This scenario also presents the reality of the community. The character of the neighbor Betty represents the community members and their sceptic attitude towards the drug addicts.
According to the study Scrine & McFerran (2018), the main themes of the movie are the concepts of addiction and homelessness. The film was created mainly to serve the purpose of family entertainment. The statistical representation of British government mentioned that more than 3,500 people spend roofless nights within the grounds of England. More than quarter of the people belong to the streets of London. There are more than hundreds of community members require proper assistance for housing schemes to avoid the sufferings of homelessness.
Option 3: Working with Children with Disabilities in Poorer Suburbs, Unable to Access the NDIS
The film provides the social message for the social workers to pay more attention for the concept of community interventions. The filmmaker provides the other resources including the community background of UK and a little bit from Australia. This can increase the initiative of the social workers to pay more attention to the deprived and inferior class of people dwelling within the community of Britain and Australia. The film provides a further research by the social workers about the number of people living without home, proper nutrition, and proper mental care and living within the community.
The strength of the movie as well as the study is the subject matter. It is associated with the growing concern of the society. It represents the serious issues including the homelessness and drug abuse or addiction. The young generation of England is observed with mostly addicted towards drugs (Crowley et al., 2013). The young generation of the place is observed to live an unstructured life. Most of the community members are running behind invisible hunger for making more money with the baseless ground. With the weak foundation, the community is moving closure to downfall. Within Australia, the aboriginal people are already suffering from numerous suffering and they are undergoing the fear of being abolished by the superiority of the non-aboriginal people of their community.
The study challenges the social workers to find out the root causes of the concepts of homelessness and addiction within this community. This challenging situation is providing various opportunities to the social workers to work with dignity. They can provide proper remedies to the sufferers. Or the social workers can make awareness about the growing amount of suffering by these people of Australia and Britain. The social reformers can take the responsibility to make the society able to live by all the living entities of the world. They need to promote the humanistic attitude within all the community members. All the community members need to think about all the living beings and help each other to promote humanity within the community.
Possible future direction for the social workers is to help the inferior community of the community. They need to deprive the concept of discrimination from the society. On the other hand, the social reformers need to incorporate the concepts of humanity, cooperation, and collaboration to increase the support system. It can also help the social reformers to enhance the living style of the homelessness. Rather than this, they need to deprive the concept of homelessness from the society itself. Along with this they need to promote the urge for proper education, funding, and health facilities for those who are in need of these facilities (Milner, Page & Lamontagne, 2014). The society need to be grounded on the field of equality. The government will equally distribute all the facilities to all the community members not supporting any particular group of people.
Option 4: Critical Social Work Analysis of the Film ‘A Street Cat Named Bob’
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the film ‘A Street Cat named Bob’ is a light mood movie that was created to serve the purpose of family entertainment. however, consciously or unconsciously, the film presents two important and negative sides of the community. It includes the concepts of homelessness and drug addiction. Both the conditions are completely unwanted by a healthy and positive community members. Hence, the paper mentioned the related theories to this concept including the anti-oppressive practice for human rights and the other structural issues related to both the communities of Australia and Britain.
References
Beatty, C., Foden, M., McCarthy, L., & Reeve, K. (2015). Benefit sanctions and homelessness: a scoping report. London: Crisis.
Bowen, J. (2013). A Street Cat Named Bob: And how He Saved My Life. Macmillan.
Chatterjee, S. (2015). Rethinking skill in anti-oppressive social work practice with skilled immigrant professionals. British Journal of Social Work, 45(1), 363-377.
Crowley, L., Jones, K., Cominetti, N., & Gulliford, J. (2013). International Lessons: Youth unemployment in the global context. Lancaster University.
Davidson, P. (2014, August). Long-term unemployment: The ‘Achilles heel’of the Job Services Australia model. In Manuscript presented at the.
Flatau, P., Smith, J., Carson, G., Miller, J., Burvill, A., & Brand, R. (2015). The housing and homelessness journeys of refugees in Australia. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute: Melbourne, Australia.
Fromentin, V. (2013). The relationship between immigration and unemployment: The case of France. Economic Analysis and Policy, 43(1), 51-66.
Gizyatova, L. A. (2016). A historical perspective on the issue of youth drug abuse in Great Britain and Russia: Problem solving styles and approaches. Man in India, 96(3), 899-906.
Hore, B. (2013). Is homelessness a matter of social justice for counselling psychologists in the UK? A review of the literature. Counselling Psychology Review.
Kaleveld, L., Seivwright, A., Box, E., Callis, Z., & Flatau, P. (2018). Homelessness in Western Australia: A review of the research and statistical evidence. Department of Communities, Western Australia.
Khattab, N., & Johnston, R. (2013). Ethnic and religious penalties in a changing British labour market from 2002 to 2010: the case of unemployment. Environment and Planning A, 45(6), 1358-1371.
Kyle, K. (2013). Contextualizing homelessness: Critical theory, homelessness, and federal policy addressing the homeless. Routledge.
Lee, E. O. J., & Brotman, S. (2013). Speak out! Structural intersectionality and anti-oppressive practice with LGBTQ refugees in Canada. Canadian Social Work Review/Revue canadienne de service social, 157-183.
Milner, A., Page, A., & Lamontagne, A. D. (2014). Cause and effect in studies on unemployment, mental health and suicide: a meta-analytic and conceptual review. Psychological medicine, 44(5), 909-917.
Mitton-Kukner, J., Kearns, L. L., & Tompkins, J. (2016). Pre-service educators and anti-oppressive pedagogy: Interrupting and challenging LGBTQ oppression in schools. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 44(1), 20-34.
Morris, A., & Wilson, S. (2014). Struggling on the Newstart unemployment benefit in Australia: The experience of a neoliberal form of employment assistance. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 25(2), 202-221.
Ravenhill, M. (2016). The culture of homelessness. Routledge.
Scrine, E., & McFerran, K. (2018). The role of a music therapist exploring gender and power with young people: Articulating an emerging anti-oppressive practice. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 59, 54-64.
Williams, L. (2016). Muddy waters?: Reassessing the dimensions of the normalisation thesis in twenty-first century Britain. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 23(3), 190-201.
YouTube.com. (2020) retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b0hh3pM0K4 (online) accessed on 31st May, 2020.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
