Siu-Ming Kwok

• Doctor of Philosophy (Social Work)
• Head of Faculty at University of Calgary

Through a secondary data analysis of administrative data of the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) between 2003 and 2013, we aim to understand the interlocking challenges encountered by newcomers with disabilities in Canada that contribute to this population’s financial hardship. Our findings show that newcomers with disabilities on ODSP wer...

The aim of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of the Professional Suitability Scale (PSS) for social work. A test–re-test design was used to collect data from social work undergraduate students in Hong Kong (n = 269). The instrument administered was a self-report questionnaire survey. Results of this study showed that the PSS es...

The article represents the findings of a study pertaining to the social service and income support needs of people with disabilities in Liaoning Province, northern China, and data for this research is based on the authors’ research for the Department of Human Resources and Social Security, Liaoning Province, China. The article presents findings gai...

This article examines the challenges faced by social work field instructors in two Canadian provinces. The results are based on the responses from 239 field instructors to a questionnaire survey. Findings highlight student difficulties, administrative issues with the social work schools, and practicum setting challenges. These demands hinder the op...

The number of beneficiaries on social assistance in Ontario is not of minor importance, with almost a million (964,182) participants province wide in 2016. The number of persons on the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) has rapidly increased, from about 280,000 in 2003 to over 475,000 in late 2016, for a rather dramatic increase of about 70...

Although ample literature exists on workfare in Ontario, Canada, research on the social assistance programme for disabled people, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), is relatively scant. What we do know points to similar shortcomings. We present a critical disability study considering four policy domains to explore how disabled people ar...

This report reviews literature that helps us understand how to better support positive outcomes for youth involved with the law. The report is meant to serve as a resource and guide for evidence-based practice for programs that work with youth. The report explores the impact of the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA), the legal statute that governs y...

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) affects approximately one-fifth of women during their lifetime in China. However, limited studies have been conducted in China among women and service providers on IPV. The study reported in this article used an Ecological Model and the Capabilities Perspective integrated with the Advocacy Intervention Model as the t...

Although violence against women is illegal in China, few studies have been published concerning this issue in that country. This article is part of a program of research undertaken in one province of China. The purpose of this study was to understand, from the perspectives of women who have experienced gender-based violence (GBV), the intersections...

Objective This article presents a validation study to examine the factor structure of an instrument designed to measure professional suitability for social work practice. Method Data were collected from registered social workers in a provincial mailed survey. The response rate was 23.2%. After eliminating five cases with multivariate outliers, con...

Canada and China are two very different countries in terms of their socio-economic and political contexts; however, neither country is immune to the social problem of violence against women. This paper compares the criminal justice responses to violence against women in Canada and China in order to explore the pathway of responses to violence again...

Domestic violence in marital relationships is against the law in the People's Republic of China (hereafter "China" is used), where progressive development to address domestic violence began after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. In this article, domestic violence is referred to as violence against women by their male partner...

This article discusses the challenges of performance management on social assistance program. These challenges include measuring intangible outcome against unclear organizational objectives, de-coupling of performance management and performance enhancement, stressing on administrative accountability over out-come oriented culture. Then, strategies...

Welfare assistance is the responsibility of provincial governments in Canada; nonetheless, municipal government has traditionally had more flexibility in administrating the welfare assistance program at the local level. This article argues that such flexibility should be encouraged and legitimatized legally in order to help alleviating the national...

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study using grounded theory to investigate how 14 Asian youth cope with the criminal justice system in Canada. Coping with a spoiled self is the main theme discovered in this study. The discovery of this main theme has the following implications for social work practice: (a) asian youth at differe...

Social support is essential to help women to leave abusive intimate relationships and get back to their life; however, research on social support to abused women in China is rather scarce. The scant research in this area limits the ability of the government to develop relevant policies and social services for abused women in China. This paper repor...

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study that was conducted to investigate the experiences of 15 Asian youth in the criminal justice system in Calgary, Canada. The findings show that (1) their visible minority status; (2) their Asian values; (3) their degree of involvement with criminal activities; and (4) their relationship with t...

The trend toward multidisciplinary research funding and partnerships brings together researchers with diverse perspectives. However, guidelines for effective supervision in multidisciplinary research are lacking. The New Canadian Children and Youth Study is described as an example of multidisciplinary, multi-site research involving researchers and...

Field education in social work is an essential component, which provides students crucial learning experiences. Equally important, field education is also an educational process, which allows social work educators evaluate students' competency in real case situations. In practice, field supervisors usually are primarily responsible for carrying out...

This paper presents the findings of a grounded theory study of the experiences of Chinese youth in the criminal justice in Canada. Most studies on delinquency in Canada are primarily focused on youth from mainstream cultural groups (Moyer, 2005; Wong, 2000). However, experiences of ethnic minority youth in the criminal justice system might not be t...

This paper discusses the methodological challenges encountered in a research study on Asian gangs in Canada with reference to (a) defining Asian gangs; (b) seeking external funding; (c) securing support from ethnic communities; (d) getting approval for ethical research with human subjects; (e) recruiting research participants; (f) ensuring safety o...

The debate over the extent to which the State could interfere in the privacy of families with respect to child abuse has been ongoing for a century in Western countries. Recently, the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, which supported the rights of children over the rights of parents, seems to end the debate. Is it really the conclusion of the...

This article reports on the findings of two studies on the outcomes of a pioneer home visiting program in Hong Kong. The first study measures the indirect effects of the program in the first three years of its operation while the second study measures its effect on directly reducing child abuse potentials among service recipients in the last two ye...

English The purpose of this article is to understand the concept of child abuse in Chinese community in Canada, and to discuss the implications for child protection practice in Canada of this concept. French Les buts de cet article sont de comprendre le concept du mauvais traitement des enfants dans la communauté chinoise au Canada, et de discuter...

The purpose of this article is twofold: (1) to review the literature on delinquency of Asian youth in North America, and (2) to identify the areas for future research with respect to Asian delinquency in Canada.

Affirmative action is one of the most heated and widely debated social policies over the past three decades in the United States and Canada. However, social work professionals have not contributed much to the debate. This paper aims to (1) understand the history and the development of affirmative action in higher education, (2) examine the debate,...

This article aims to examine the differences between the assumptions of social work and the assumptions of positivism. The article focuses on the influences of positivism on child welfare social work and the resulting unintended consequences. The alternative research methodologies that are more compatible with social work values are discussed. The...