The Hong Kong Journal of Social Work

This article aims to give some perspectives on social welfare in a globalizing world. The focus is on the West and East in a narrow sense; West from a European Nordic and East from an East Asian cultural perspective. Undoubtedly, modernization and globalization have brought about economic, technological and social progress and therefore, favorable effects on the development of postmodern society. However, progress is also followed by new risks and uncertainties which are not only found in the daily lives of individuals and families, but also the need to redesign social protection systems.

Of course, risks always exist and are as old as industrial society, but in modern times, life is more complex than ever and the increase in complexity has probably been the most rapid in parts of the world where the economic, technological and social changes have escalated. In economically and technologically advanced societies, individuals and families are exposed to multiple risks and this can be disturbing to their social reality.

In Finland, where the principles of the Nordic welfare model have been adopted, many people are still without work and financial resources of their own in maintaining an adequate standard of living. Young families with children have been affected the most. A welfare policy question is: ''How can the social protection system succeed in handling all new and changing problems in modern living?'' In order to minimize risks in the future and provide a fair standard of living for individuals and families, social investment in children seems to be an important challenge for social policies and social work. Both in the West and in the East, there is a growing call for a joint responsibility that addresses an appropriate social protection against risks and uncertainties.

People in modern times have more diverse and specific welfare needs than previously. The fulfillment of new and changed needs by welfare providers is becoming more difficult due to slowness in paradigm and policy renewals. It is a challenge for researchers to generate new knowledge from the study of different welfare systems. Scenario modeling and fuzzy logic may be good planning tools for future visions. While countries in the West are slow to adjust to new circumstances, their counterparts in the East have a new welfare climate for change, but there also exists unique resistance against policy changes.

Domestic Violence defined as intimate partner violence is differentially understood and responded to within and between countries and it frequently falls short of being seen as a human rights issue which requires government, community and professional responses. This article explores definitions and explanations of domestic violence that have been put forward and considers the associations that have been made between violence and abuse. It also reviews multi-country links between women's health and domestic violence and examines controversial issues surrounding fathers who have been domestically violent. As part of the discussion, professional responsibility and responses are also appraised. It is argued that domestic violence is intrinsically related to gendered power imbalances which have different manifestations in different social and cultural contexts. However the view that violence is inevitable in certain situations is challenged. The ethical imperative of zero tolerance is emphasized, but further research in relation to how gendered power imbalances foster intimate partner violence in some contexts but not in others and how this can be explored in ways which move the discussion away from pathologising explanations, is highlighted as an area for further investigation.

Studies on the relationship of volunteerism and self-esteem of young people have been scarcely conducted in Hong Kong. This paper reports such a study. Conceptually, Borba's five building blocks of self-esteem — Security, Selfhood, Affiliation, Competence and Mission — were employed in this study. Based on the concepts of the five building blocks, a measuring inventory was developed. Some 218 young respondents, who had more than a year of volunteer experience, were invited to complete a questionnaire. Their responses were compared to a control group of 129 young respondents who had no volunteer experience. The findings indicate that volunteer experience of young people can promote their self-esteem. Based on the findings, some recommendations on working with young people in order to promote their volunteerism and directions of further studies are suggested.

The most conspicuous change in Hong Kong juvenile justice in recent decades is to divert the offenders from the courts by relaxing the use of the Police Superintendent Discretion Scheme. Nevertheless, the fundamentals of the traditional criminal justice system remain unchanged. Hong Kong has not yet incorporated restorative justice into the criminal justice system. The article discusses restorative justice and explores the feasibility of its adoption in Hong Kong. The authors argue that restorative justice can benefit Hong Kong and professionals can adopt it in our everyday work before formal restorative justice is supported.

香港青少年司法在近數十年最顯著的改變是加强了警司警誡令的運用，讓更多違法青少年得到分流處理，不需要一一予以刑事審理。然而，傳統的刑事司法系統的基礎卻沒有根本改變。香港刑事司法制度現時還未正式引進復和公義。文章探討復和公義和其應用在香港的可行性。作者認爲復和公義的引進能使香港社會得益。在未獲政府正式支持前，專業人士仍然能在他們日常工作中善用復和公義來發揮它的作用。

Pub-hostesses are women who work in pubs whose job is to play drinking games such as ''guessing the dice number'' and ''guessing the number of fingers'' with customers to increase the amount of alcohol sold. Research was conducted by the Hong Kong Baptist University and the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals during summer 2005 to explore the power negotiations between pub-hostesses and society, their employers, and customers. Thirty pub-hostesses were interviewed and 25 pubs observed. Foucault's theory of power relations is used to explain the dynamics observed among the parties. The findings indicate that pub-hostess can only exercise weak resistance to the limitations imposed on them by the various parties, and that to improve their situation, changes at the structural, work, and individual levels are necessary.

Can governments really do anything to strengthen families? What are the implications of different policies for both governments and families? Based on his family-policy responsibilities in Hong Kong and the U.S., the author brings his own personal historical and international lessons of experience for consideration by the proposed Hong Kong commission on family-friendly policies. Competing advocates of family policies might share common historical misunderstandings and value assumptions but they can differ in their definitions of family failure and how government can help families directly through general policies or through problem-specific advocacy groups. In addition to providing the first although abbreviated history of Hong Kong's Urban Family Life Survey of the 1960s, the author proposes three charges to be included in the current commission's terms of reference and work plan.

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