_____________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 5, Number 1, 2015 Editorial Note African Journal of Social Work, 5(1), June 2015 ii _____________________________________________________________________ EDITORIAL NOTE I am glad to bring to you Volume 5 Number 1 of the African Journal of Social Work (AJSW). In my previous editorial, I indicated that the AJSW was seeking indexing at regional and international level. Our first application was with the African Journals Online (AJOL). The application is still pending but we are hopeful we will meet their requirements. In this issue, the first article came from Ajelerea Ajewumi and Lydia Yemisi in Nigeria. Their study examined the adoption and utilization of programme communication variables in community development projects. They argued that low participation in community development has been attributed to the ineffective dissemination of specific community development information to community members. Descriptive survey research design was adopted and multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 300 respondents. Self- structured questionnaire and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) was used to collect data for the study. Data from demographic were analysed using percentages while Pearson Product Correlation Moment were used to analyse the hypotheses. The findings revealed that there was a positive significant relationship between adoption of communication and usage of programme communication. The result also established that there was a positive significant relationship between adoption of programme communication and citizen participation in community development projects. The study concluded that social and community mobilisation is a potent factor in ensuring citizen participation in the life cycle of community development programmes. The study recommended that change agents should pay attention to these communication variables at every stage of a project’s life cycle in mobilizing and disseminating development information. http://www.ajol.info/ _____________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 5, Number 1, 2015 Editorial Note African Journal of Social Work, 5(1), June 2015 iii _____________________________________________________________________ African societies have been known for their strong family support systems that view children as society’s future and as an important fabric if humanity is to be perpetuating itself, argue Francis Maushe and myself in the third paper. The family system in Zimbabwe has undergone some changes owing to devastating effects of HIV and AIDS and the economic meltdown that beset the country from 2000 through to 2015. In a normal Zimbabwean set up, children were supposed to be catered for by adult members of their immediate family first and foremost. The extended family and to some extend the community were expected to be alternate carers. Now there is a new family set up: the child headed household (CHH). This research employed qualitative methods to establish the daily experiences of 10 CHH. The research established that CHH faced immense difficulty in providing for their daily needs including food, education and clothing. They also lack psychosocial support such as guidance, love, belonging and protection. They note that while they were still loosely integrated in the extended family system, they were mostly on their own when it came to fending for the family. One participant noted “...our father’s relatives could have taken us in, but I guess they are also heavily constrained. We take each day as it comes. We are on our own but we have not allowed our situation to extinguish the desire of success in us. We do not blame them. We have to move on our own”. Ruth Ololade Akinwumi and Jacob Kehinde Mojoyinola researched on social work and music therapy. They argued that music therapy helps in a wide range of pain conditions, primarily by its ability to improve mood, encourage relaxation and increase threshold. Therefore the study examined how effective music therapy was in the psychosocial management of patients with Spinal Cord Injury. The study was carried out among 120 registered members of the Spinal Cord Injury Association of Nigeria Rehabilitation Center located in Amuwo-Odofin in Lagos. The participants were purposively selected. Pre-test/post-test quasi experimental research design was adopted for the study. The participants received music therapy sessions in groups twice in a week for eight consecutive weeks. Goals included reducing pain, increasing mood and spiritual well- _____________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 5, Number 1, 2015 Editorial Note African Journal of Social Work, 5(1), June 2015 iv _____________________________________________________________________ being, as well as improving their overall quality of life. Pain, physical well-being, social well-being, emotional well-being, mental well-being and spiritual well-being were assessed at the end of the 8th week. Five hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance, using One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Findings from the study established that music therapy significantly reduced the pain experienced by spinal cord injury patients. It was also established that music therapy significantly enhanced physical, social, and spiritual well-beings of the spinal cord injury patients. However, music therapy did not significantly enhance the psychological well- being of the spinal cord injury patients; though the result was positive. The study recommended that medical social workers should incorporate music therapy into array of social services rendered to patients and relatives. Also, administrators of hospitals, hospices and rehabilitation homes should establish Music Units for the benefits of patients and relatives. Majekodunmi Ajala provided the fourth paper on organisational justice. Majekodunmi contents that economic institutionalisation of work with its attended problematic side effects like ineffectiveness, straitjacketing of workers and reduced innovation makes management look for the corollary points of sense of duty (organisational justice) as operation parameters in the workplace for greater benefits of trust and commitment of staffers. It is against this background that this study investigated the influence of organisational justice on organisational commitment in manufacturing firms in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The descriptive survey research design of ex-post facto type was used for the study. Two hundred and fifty (250) employees were randomly selected from five manufacturing firms from Industrial Estates in Ibadan, Oyo States. The respondents span across the four major job levels from senior management, middle management, supervisory and junior staff. The main instrument used for the study was a questionnaire tagged “Organisational Justice and Organisational Commitment _____________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 5, Number 1, 2015 Editorial Note African Journal of Social Work, 5(1), June 2015 v _____________________________________________________________________ Questionnaire - OJOCQ” with five sub-sections. Frequency counts and percentages were used to analyse the demographic characteristics of the respondents while Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyse the research questions and hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings from the study showed that the joint contribution of the independent variables to the dependent variable was significant (F = 163.165). It was found that there was significant and positive relationship between distributive justice and organisational commitment. (r = .697) Furthermore, there was significant positive relationship between procedural justice and organisational commitment (r = .739) and that there was significant positive relationship between interactional justice and organisational commitment (r = .715). It was recommended that industrial social workers should advocate on behalf of employees and ensure that management of organisations give room for fair and just procedures (procedural justice and distributive justice) coupled with proper interaction (interactional justice) so that employees will be able to give better response to the organisation in terms of commitment, positive behaviour and increased productivity. This issue has a brief communication from Liberia. March 2015 marked Liberia’s Social Work Month which was celebrated under the global theme: “Promoting the Dignity and Worth of All Peoples. In celebrating this month, Sam Togba Slewion wrote this brief communication to give recognition to an effort which has manifested into giving a unified voice to older people in Liberia. Lastly, I want to inform you that AJSW has initiated the process of finding a substantive editor. It is expected that the Editor will start this role in 2016 and will serve for two years. _____________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 5, Number 1, 2015 Editorial Note African Journal of Social Work, 5(1), June 2015 vi _____________________________________________________________________ Enjoy reading papers in this issue as well as our previous issues available on the website. Looking ahead to receiving more papers from all corners of Africa and of course, the Africa diaspora. Jacob Mugumbate Acting Editor Email: editor@ida.co.zw