Contenu du sommaire : Vers de nouvelles pratiques participatives ?

In the last few years, social work practice has been the object of many criticisms and reassessments. In this paper the authors stress the importance of an approach centred on developing the power of action of persons and groups (referred to as DPA). Although there are general principles set out in the literature that take this line, it would seem that their application meets with a number of challenges, in particular the question of whether it is actually workable in practice. The training of social workers has to change if practice is to take this direction. One way forward is to encourage social workers to draw on the knowledge they gain from their experience. Here the authors present an analytical method that can help practitioners to structure this knowledge.

The emergence of a society that will encourage social integration gœs along with the notion of participation as a referential in social work. The ‘ideal of participation' that had as its object the safeguarding and collective management of social problems within wage-earning society has given place to a model based on activation. The aim here is to put the emphasis on the personal qualities and the power of action of the individual and of certain target groups.Thus the participatory approach, seen today as a duty and an obligation, is part of the procedural, technocratic and managerial vision for the tackling of social inequalities. Rather than seeing the participation of vulnerable people in terms of their rights, this vision sees it as a principle of social obligation.

The notion of capability, introduced into social and economic sciences by Amartya Sen, questions the power of action in terms of the real freedom of individuals and of collective responsibility. The authors pass in review some of the bases of a capability-based approach in order to sketch out a reflection on its pertinence in the struggle against inequality between women and men. In particular, they emphasise that the development of certain plans of action in the perspective of positive freedom is not against the principle of negative freedom.These plans of action allow for the improvement of capabilities that are within the reach of women and of men, and appear to offer one possible solution in the ‘conflict of cooperation' which characterises the social relationships of the sexes within society.

On the heels of models centred on the idea of empowerment and the development of the power of action of persons and groups, views about the sharing of parents in decisions concerning their children dominate the field of social work. How can such an approach be embodied in the particular context of intervention with young people with multiple difficulties characterised by the complexity of their social problems and relationships with their partners? This article gives an account of the experiences in the field of cross-sector partnership practice of youth intervention teams in Quebec. The analysis of this experience from the point of view of the power of action of the parents illustrates how important it is to develop a reflective attitude in order to counter the unintentional consequences of our systems of references on the lives of these young people and their families.

This article falls within the scope of the life of Lebanese society, known to be conservative and patriarchal, which underwent fifteen years of war (1975-1990). It aims to elucidate the lived experience of Lebanese women of every religious confession, some of them belonging to the middle class and others to the poor. Particular attention is given to the different strategies of collective action which gave rise to forms of leadership and the discovery of their endogenous power (power to rather than power over) nowadays referred to as ‘the development of the power of action' or DPA.

This paper aims to offer some reflections on the structuring of time (time at work, time with the family, etc.) by social workers using methods centred on the development of the power of action (DPA) of persons. This practice aims to start from expectations in the field and follows its own rhythms. They have to be developed in a supple organisational framework which allows a large degree of inde-pendence to the professionals involved, including the definition of their working hours. The author relies on the findings of a thesis in sociology that he is working on presently, and sets out to explore the way practitioners use their time and structure their various social engagements both practically and mentally.

In our African countries a growing number of people of all kinds apply for the help of social workers. What is done for them leaves their situation unchanged. Thus social work intervention is not seen as a work that leads to development.
In fact, every kind of human work ought to advance development, in the growth of institutions, the media, change, expansion, progress, and freedom from slavery to lower needs, selfishness and materialism.
One of the principal causes of this situation is that those who ask for social work intervention are not sufficiently involved in working out their own problems. To succeed in enabling them to take part in solving their problems, social workers need to master theories of participation and know how to use the tools for different kinds of practice in the field.

There is nothing new in methods which consist in working with groups of users rather than one-to-one with individual clients. Depending on the historical context and local conditions, they have met with varying degrees of success. Nowadays, public authority would like to see work with groups developed. Schools of social work are expressly invited to look for fields of action where social workers in formation may be confronted by and actually engaged in this type of intervention. But if the experience is to be really formative, it has to be linked with conceptual and methodological contributions. This cannot happen if the experience of the students is confined to the local context. This is why the real issue is about bringing together the school and the field of work in order to offer a mutually constructive space for professional knowledge to develop.