Effectively Managing A Work Life Balance Social Work Essay

Effectively Managing A Work Life Balance Social Work Essay Work-life balance is defined here as an individuals ability to meet their work and family commitments, as well as other non-work responsibilities and activities. Work life balance, in addition to the relations between work and family functions, also involves other roles in other areas of life. In this study, due to its more extensive associations, the concept of work -life balance is preferred. Work-life balance has been defined differently by different scholars. In order to broaden our perspectives, some definitions will be presented. Greenhaus (2002) defined work -life balance as satisfaction and good functioning at work and at home with a minimum of role conflict. Felstead et al. (2002) defines work-life balance as the relationship between the institutional and cultural times and spaces of work and non-work in societies where income is predominantly generated and distributed through labor markets. Aycan et al. (2007) confined the subject only with work and family and put forward the concept of life balance with a more whole perspective. Scholars defined life balance as fulfilling the demands satisfactorily in the three basic areas of life; namely, work, family and private. Work demands work hours, work intensity and proportion of working hours spent in work. Additional work hours subtract from home time, while high work intensity or work pressure may result in fatigue, anxiety or other adverse physiological consequences that affect the quality of home and family life( White et al.,2003). Family demands include such subjects as the roles of the individuals (e.g. Father, mother, etc.,) family responsibilities (e.g childcare, house chores, etc) looking after the old members, children. Besides this, there are some other demands in work life balance than family and work live relaxation, vacation, sports and personal development programmes. Work -life balance is not the allocation of time equally among work, family and personal demands. In literature, it is also emphasized that work-life balance is subjective phenomenon that changes from person to person. In this regard, work-life balance should be regarded as allocating the available resources like time, thought and labor wisely among the elements of life. While some adopt the philosophy of working to live and sees work as the objective, others consider living to work and situated work into the centre of life. DETERMINANTS OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE Many things in life are the determinants of work life balance. The subjects in the literature that are related the most with work life balance are grouped here. INDIVIDUAL: An individual is the most important determinant of work -life balance. two American cardiologists Rosenman and Friedman determined two different types of personality depending on heart disorders and individual behaviours: type A and type B. Type A expresses someone who is more active, more work oriented, more passionate and competitive, while Type B is calm, patient, balanced and right minded. It can be argued that since type A is more work oriented, there will be a negative reflection of it to work -life balance. Yet work holism, which is considered as an obsessive behavior, is another thing that destroys work-life balance. When work holism connotes over addiction to work, being at work for a very long time, overworking and busy with work at times out of work. Since life is not only about work, workaholics suffer from alienation, family problems and some health problems. Porter(1996) states that alcoholics, workaholics neglect their families, friends, relations and other social responsibilities. FAMILY: The demands that one experience in family life and that have effects on life balance can be given as the demand of workload and time, role expectations in family and support to be given to the spouse. It is also included in the literature that such variances as marriage, child rising, caring of the elderly at home have effect on work-life balance since they demand more family responsibilities. Those who have to look after a child or the elderly might sometimes have to risk their career by shortening their working hours, which becomes a source of stress for them. On the other hand, those without children or any elderly to look after at home experience less work-life imbalance. WORK AND ORGANISATION: Work environment is more effective in work-life imbalance than the family environment. The job and the institution one works in both demands on his time, efforts and mental capacity. Among the efforts to increase organizational efficiency, one of the subjects managers focus on is to raise the organizational efficiency, one of the subjects managers focus on is to raise the organizational loyalty of the staff. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT: Another determinant of work-life balance is social environment. Especially in countries that stand out with their culturally collectivist characteristics, an individual also has responsibilities towards certain social groups he belongs. CONSEQUENCES OF WORK-LIFE IMBALANCE The stress based conflict occurs when one of the roles of the individual at work or in the family causes stress on the individual and this stress affects the other roles of the individual. The behavior stress occurs when the behavior at work and out of work are dissonant and conflicting. PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS According to Lowe (2005), work life imbalance affects the overall well-being of the individual causing such problems as dissatisfaction from life, prolonged sadness, using drugs or alcohol. FAMILY IMPLICATIONS: Organization expects from individual to allocate more time for their work while at the same time the family want him to perform his responsibilities too. Those who cant sustain work-life balance are bound to experience many problems in their families such as lower family satisfaction, decreased involvement in family roles etc. ORGANIZATIONALIMPLICATIONS: Those whose demands of the family and ones social interest are not met duly naturally prefer sacrificing his working hours, and carry out their personal needs. ORGANIZATIONAL PERSPECTIVE In order to decrease the negative consequences of work- family conflict on working individuals, family friendly organizational culture and human resources applications have recently been in agenda of executive. The components of the organizational strategy are flexible working hours , child care and elderly care scheme, home working ,job sharing. Supportive programmes for the family life of employees in an organization contribute to providing work -life balance. Thanks to these programmes, the employees will be encouraged, their attendance will be supported and their efficiency will increase. Flexible working hours is one of the methods used to maintain work-life balance. For example employees with flexi-time will have to fulfill certain amount of time weekly. Other thing which can be done is to allow employees to work at home away from traditional work environment. CONCLUSION: If one has managed to allocate the required time for every aspect of life duly and not to reflect the problems in one part of life to another it means that he has been able to achieve work-family balance. Life as a whole is composed of many other aspects along with work. Those who have achieved a balance among these aspects are sure to achieve the life balance, which does away with any imbalance.

Welfare: A Government Program in the US

In the United States, the word â€Å"welfare† is familiar to everyone. People usually consider welfare as government programs that distribute public assistance to the poor and low income people. However, some people, who are able to work, take advantage of or depend too much on welfare, and they consider welfare as their main source of income. To stop their dependence on welfare, the government should put those who are on welfare into the labor area and keep them there. Besides, the government should change their way of thinking about welfare and make recipients realize the goal of work and self-sufficiency. In order to accomplish this change, the government should replace the existing welfare by education and training programs. Some welfare recipients depend too much and take advantage of welfare. The sponsors of immigrants must be responsible for taking care of their family. However, they refuse to take their responsibility, and they consider that welfare must help them. For example, one sponsor in Orange County, California placed her parents on welfare even though she owned a $450,000 home and easily could afford to provide for their well-being. However, she notified the welfare agency that her elderly parents either would have to start paying rent or move out (Smith 31). Besides, welfare pays substantially more than recipients could earn from entry-level job (Tanner et al. 22). That is the reason why welfare recipients do not likely to look for job. As a result, if people can earn the same income by either working or not working, most people will choose not to work. In contrast, other people such as elders, retarded or disabled individuals, and single parent deserve to receive government assistance; however, they do not get as much as they need because the government provides welfare to both deserving and undeserving people. This will create an unbalancing gap between people. Those who really need welfare can not get enough; meanwhile, others receive more than what they need. Therefore, the government should provide welfare to deserving people who really need assistance and jobs to those who are able to work. In the article â€Å"Welfare Pays Better, So Why Work? † of USA Today Magazine, the authors state â€Å"Nearly everyone agrees that a major goal should be to encourage recipients to leave the welfare rolls and enter the workforce† (Tanner et al. 22). In order to encourage recipients to enter the workforce, the government should limit welfare because welfare is a source of income which recipients do not have to work to earn, so why do they have to work? Besides, welfare recipients must realize that welfare only helps them in short period of time. After that they have to be on their own because there is no one else can help them forever. If there is less welfare, working becomes the only source of income which they can depend on. Indeed, limiting welfare is parallel with seeking job. Once welfare is limited, labor force is the only place where they can get help. In order to encourage recipients to work, the government should create employment programs which assist recipients to look for job, to train and to gain skills. Although the employment programs might cost the nation more money in short term, they will be worth it in the long term. First, the government should persuade private employers to create more job opportunities for welfare recipients, and also welfare recipients should be required to participate in education and training programs. Besides, more employment services and job search assistance should be establish to help welfare recipients to have an easier time finding jobs. In addition, welfare money should be used to subsidize for education and training programs because these programs can provide skills and train them in order to meet the new demands of the labor market and meet the employer's specific needs. Furthermore, unemployment offices would no longer distinguish between those who were recently laid off and those who have been on welfare. Each person would be evaluated on the basis of what services she or he needs in order to obtain employment. Hence, everyone all has same opportunity to enter the workforce. Instead of improving the welfare programs, the government should look at them as an opportunity to create a more comprehensive employment programs that would replace the old welfare and public assistance programs. For this to occur, the government should create education and training programs to provide skills and train people in order to ensure all those who want to work are able to do so. Besides, more employment services should be established to assist people to look for job easier, and private employment creates more jobs to encourage people to work. Also, equal opportunity should be applied to everyone. As a result, all these programs should be shared a single goal: to enable people to work.

Assessment Base Reading Instruciton Case Study Essay

Table of Contents Introduction Description of the Student Background Information PART 1: Administration of Assessments DIBELS: A Universal Assessment Battery Description and Purpose of the Assessment Setting for the Assessment Description of the Assessment Administration Process Results of the Assessment Analysis of the Assessment Results Running Records Description and Purpose of the Assessment The running record allows you to record the child’s reading behavior as he or she reads from the book. The purpose of a running record is a tool used to determine word recognition reading fluency reading strategies, self- corrections, and comprehension. It is an individually conducted formative assessment which is ongoing and curriculum based. It provides a graphic  representation of a student’s oral reading, identifying patterns of effective and ineffective strategy use. This method was developed by Marie Clay, the originator of Reading Recovery. Running records helps document reading progress over time. Help teachers decide what students need to learn and matches students to appropriate books. We want to capture all the behaviors to help interpret what the child was probably doing. Everything the child says and does tells us something: when the reading is correct, what his hands and eyes were doing, the comments he made and when he repeated a line of text. Setting f or the Assessment Library setting, after school. This was the only time available. Description of the Assessment Administration Process Select a book that is the child’s reading level. Explain to the child that he or she will read out loud as you observe and record his or her reading behavior. Sit next to the child so that you can see the text and the child’s finger and eye movements as he or she reads the text. Use running record form. As the child reads, mark each word on the running record form by using the symbols on the chart that follows. Place a check mark above each word that is read correctly. If the child reads incorrectly, record above the word what the child reads. If the child is reading too fast for you to record the running record, ask him or her to pause until you catch up. Intervene as little as possible while the child is reading. If the child is stuck and unable to continue, wait 5 to10 seconds and tell him or her the word. If the child seems confused, indicate the point of confusion and say, â€Å"Try again.† Results of the Assessment Student read 156 words at 98% accuracy. She had 3 errors and 2 self corrects. She missed boredom, I told her the word. She changed plan for idea, setting, characters, and beginning. She had trouble with middle and end. She did know the main idea but could not list supporting details. I would move this student to a higher level text. This text was easy for the student. Analysis of the Assessment Results Student read 156 words at 98% accuracy. She had 3 errors and 2 self corrects. She missed boredom, I told her the word. She changed plan for idea, setting, characters, and beginning. She had trouble with middle and end. She did know the main idea but could not list supporting details. This student needs practice in retelling story in sequence. She had issues with middle and end. I think she was going for a fluency score and read too fast. She had problems orally retelling middle and end. This level is an appropriate level for this student. I will use the results to plan for this student. Teaching purposes for running records. To find a book level appropriate for a child. Check a child after a series of lessons. Evaluate whether a lift in text level is appropriate. Observe particular difficulties in particular children in order to modify instructional emphasis. Evaluate in order to place a child in an appropriate instructional group, class or school. Add to a record which is monitoring an individual’s progress over time. Reading Inventory Description and Purpose of the Assessment Setting for the Assessment Description of the Assessment Administration Process Results of the Assessment Analysis of the Assessment Results Additional Diagnostic Assessment: Learner Choice Description and Purpose of the Assessment Setting for the Assessment Description of the Assessment Administration Process Results of the Assessment Analysis of the Assessment Results Overall Analysis of Assessment Results PART 2: Recommendations for Interventions and Instruction Identifying Student Needs Recommendations for Interventions and Instruction Recommendations for Further Assessment References Appendices Appendix A: DIBELS Scoring Documents Appendix B: Running Records Scoring Documents Appendix C: Reading Inventory Documents Appendix D: Additional Assessment Documents

National Non Profit Organizations, Programs Or...

All campaigns, programs or intervention initiatives are dependent on the strength and support of stakeholders. In the absence of such cooperative bonds, the achievement of objectives cannot come to fruition. With that said, â€Å"one of the most exciting aspects of AAA is the leadership role prominent national non-profits are taking in reaching their communities with life-saving HIV prevention messages† (CDC, 2013, p. 3). Act Against AIDS achieves such results through their support of the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative (AAALI), which is a network inclusive of 19 partners to include Hispanic/Latino, African American, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organizations (CDC, 2013). Equally important, in efforts to maximize the reach of the AAA campaign, the CDC recruits, and work in close collaboration with a vast array of public health partners, as well as media outlets who disseminate campaign material and messages. These partnerships are instrumental in su bsidizing the work and achievements of the national non-profit organizations who are often the first line of defenses. An important point, the continuing public health threat of HIV/AIDS is multi-dimensional; thus, not resolvable by an individual organization. Hence, the reason collaborative bonds are crucial. Ending HIV/AIDS requires the efforts of the federal, state and local governments, state health departments, community organizations, primary care providers, linkage to testing, treatment, andShow MoreRelatedProgram Impact : Act Against Aids Essay1715 Words   |  7 PagesProgram Impact Act Against AIDS plays a fundamental role in the war on HIV when considering, the program â€Å"has reached 2.6 billion media impressions through Web videos, donated media space, radio, TV, and advertising across the country† (NPIN, 2015, para. 2). 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