This document provides a foreword by the guest editor for a special issue of Research on Social Work Practice focusing on social work in Egypt and the Arab world. The guest editor discusses how traveling has helped broaden their perspective on social work policies and practices. The special issue contains articles on research themes in Egypt/Arab world, validated assessment tools used in the region, and social work intervention studies from Egypt, Turkey, and Australia. It aims to expose readers to new ideas and challenges without needing to travel. In summarizing key topics, the guest editor hopes to provide insights to address social problems in other settings.

1. Guest Editorial
Guest Editor’s Foreword
Hamido A. Megahead1,2
There is a saying which goes ‘‘travel broadens the mind.’’ This
is certainly true in my circumstances and conditions, and I have
imagined this is true for many social work researchers, educa-
tors, and practitioners interested in Research on Social Work
Practice who travel to another country (Kraayenoord, 1999).
The opportunity to attend conferences and visit universities,
schools, and centers in other countries enables one to reexa-
mine social welfare policies and social work practice in one’s
own country and to learn about new issues and debates (Mega-
head, 2012, 2015a, 2015b).
I have had an opportunity to broaden my mind through
numerous visits to a number of different European states, such
as the Netherlands, England, and Northern Ireland. Some of the
topics of conversations and issues of debate with which I have
engaged in and became aware of on my several trips are also
represented in this special issue of Research on Social Work
Practice. Other topics that have appeared in this issue I have
engaged in by virtue of being the guest editor of this issue.
As an international journal, it is quite possible to ‘‘travel’’ in
this special issue entitled Research on Social Work Practice in
Egypt and the Arab World to Egypt, the Arab world, Turkey,
and Australia. The first article by the guest editor, Hamido A.
Megahead, deals with Research on Social Work Practice in
Egypt and the Arab world. This specific topic has been dis-
cussed in terms of doctoral dissertation and other research
themes. It is in fact not only a formal discourse of writing but
a distinctive form of designing research in Egypt and the Arab
world. A detailed mapping of the features of social work
research in Egypt and the Arab world has been also offered.
Two other articles are concerned with psychosocial assess-
ment tools. The significance of assessment is specified in two
axioms of treatment (Hudson, 1978). The first axiom asserted
that if social work practitioners cannot measure the client’s
problems of social and/or interpersonal significance, they do
not exist. The second axiom stated that if social work practi-
tioners cannot measure the client’s problem of social and/or
interpersonal significance, then they cannot treat it. Also the
significance of assessment is specified in two additional
axioms of development. The first axiom referred that if the
social work practitioners cannot measure the client’s lack of
specific skills, positive behavior, and/or resources, it does not
exist. The second axiom mentioned that if social work practi-
tioners cannot measure the client’s specific skills, positive
behavior, and/or resources, then they cannot develop and create
it. A great deal of adapted Arabic versions of English-language
objective psychosocial assessment tools in Egypt and the Arab
world have been published
For measuring the client’s problem of social and/or inter-
personal significance, there have been identified three scales;
namely, the Arabic version of the Depressive Cognition Scale
for Egyptian adolescents (Bekhet & Zauszniewski, 2010), the
Arabic version of the Cohen Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10)
for pregnant women (Chaaya, Osman, Naassan, & Mahfoud,
2010), and the Arabic version of the Composite Abuse Scale
for use with Saudi women (Alhabib, Feder1, & Horwood,
2013). For measuring the client’s specific skills, positive beha-
vior, and/or resources, there have been identified four other
scales, namely, the Arabic version of the California Critical
Thinking Disposition Inventory for adolescents and youth
(Ibrahim, 2016), the Arabic State Self-Esteem and Satisfaction
With Life Scales regarding Emirates’ married persons (Al-
Darmaki et al., 2015), the Arabic version of the Iowa Infant
Feeding Attitude Scale for Lebanese women (Charafeddine,
Tamim, Soubra, De la Mora, Nabulsi, 2016), and the Arabic
version of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment
(Khalil, 2011). For the current special issue, two scales have
been included. Ozmete and Megahead, screening for elder
abuse among Turkish older people: validity of the Hwalek–
Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test (H-S ‘‘East’’), and
Moussa et al. psychometric properties of an Arabic version
of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. These two adopted
scales are interesting. The first scale could be useful application
and tool within the elderly person’s families (Dogan & Deger,
2004), nursing homes, and residential long-term care facilities
(Saka & Varol, 2007). The second scale is urgently needed in
the context of the massive waves of refugees since the Second
World War. Arab refugees are currently and continuously flee-
ing to the Western world. As this Foreword is being written,
Arab, Christian and Muslim refugees from Iraq (e.g., Mosul),
Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia are using very unsafe
boats to cross Mediterranean Sea to Europe and to the other
1
Faculty of Social Work, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt
2
Education Authority, Belfast Region, Belfast, United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Corresponding Author:
Hamido A. Megahead, 5 Lisburn Avenue, Belfast BT97FX, Northern Ireland,
United Kingdom.
Email: megahead2001@hotmail.com
Research on Social Work Practice
1-2
ª The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/1049731516682831
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2. Western countries (Robinson, 2016). This tool could be used in
the process of rehabilitating these refugees.
Additionally, the three other reported articles are concerned
with social work intervention. Fortune (1999) indicated that the
practice in the real world is the raison d’etre of social work,
and the purpose of social work is to pursue intervention. Social
work practitioners do not stop after studying a phenomenon,
they are always doing something about it in terms of preventing
ill-health, changing policy, influencing organizations, assisting
families, or/and teaching persons coping skills. Therefore,
social work researchers need to be the same as social work
practitioners and NOT to stop with ONLY studying the phe-
nomenon (exploratory and descriptive research), they do need
to conduct intervention research. For the current special issue,
three intervention research studies have been included: Duyan
et al. on the effects of group work with institutionalized elderly
persons, Altınova et al. on the impact of the human rights
education program for women on gender perceptions of social
work students, and Serpen et al. on using movies to change
homophobic attitudes of social work students. In these three
articles, social work researchers did not stop with only studying
residential older people (e.g., Sinunu, Yount, & El-Afify, 2009),
the gender perceptions of social work students, and the negative
attitudes of social work students toward gays and lesbians. How-
ever, they all have been attempting to do something about these
issues in terms of alleviating the personal and social problems of
older people in this residential care (Winningham & Pike,
2007), to positively change the gender perceptions of social
work students, and also to positively change negative attitudes
of social work students toward gays and lesbians people.
A thorough reading of any or all of the articles in this special
issue of RSWP will certainly set you to thinking about the
article’s contents in regarding to your own work or your own
country. The different cultures, the different ways in which
different aspects of social problems are approached, give the
social work practitioners, researchers, and educators new
insights into practical solutions for the social problems in their
own settings (Catterall, 1977; Megahead, 2015a, 2015b). Your
reading also introduces you to new ideas and challenges. You
can do so without having to have a passport, immigration visa,
injections, or even foreign currency. This is a wonderful way to
broaden the mind (Kraayenoord, 1999).
I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues who
have helped to peer-review process for the articles submitted
for possible inclusion in this special issue. I am unable to
mention their name as it was blind peer-review process.
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