As the Arab Spring continues to work through changes, the Occupy Movement is agitating for change and many are looking for alternatives in the face of global financial and political challenges, community organising offers a realistic way forward for many communities: a tried and tested way of improving people's lives. This book is the first to explore the diverse history of community organising, telling stories of how it developed, its successes and failures, and the lessons that can be applied today. It analyses contemporary examples of practice from the USA, UK, India, South Africa, Cambodia and Australia against both wider theoretical frameworks and their ability to contribute to sustainable social change. It will be useful for a wide range of practitioners, students and researchers engaged in the struggle to develop new ways of doing community.
Drawing on contemporary research and debates from different Nordic countries, this book examines how social work and child welfare politics are produced and challenged as both global and local ideas and practices.
How social security works is an introduction to the much-misunderstood system of benefits in Britain. The book is an accessible, broadly based and sometimes controversial text which can help readers to make sense of the system in practice. It explains the guiding principles, outlines the social context, considers the development and political dimensions of benefits, and reviews how the system operates now. There are detailed discussions of the types of benefit, and the contingencies covered by the benefits system. Paul Spicker examines whether the system offers value for money, how it could be simplified and how it can be improved. The book will be useful to students on undergraduate and professional courses, but beyond that it will appeal to policy makers, practitioners and a broader general readership.
In complex contemporary societies social science has become increasingly interwoven into the whole fabric of governance. At the same time there is an increasing recognition that attempts to understand the social world which seek to mimic the linear approaches of the conventional 'hard sciences' are mostly useless given the complex systems character of society in all its aspects. This book draws on a synthesis of critical realism and complexity theory to examine how social science is applied now and how it might be applied in the future in relation to social transformation in a time of crisis. A central argument is that there is no such thing as a 'pure' science of the social and that a recognition of the inevitability of application imposes obligations on social scientists wherever they work which challenge the passivity of most in the face of inequality and injustice.
Written by leading academics in the field of local governance, this book provides a broad framework in which to analyse the impact of the financial crisis on public services and local government.
In the wake of the economic crash, public policy is in search of a new moral compass. This book explains why the Third Way's combination of market-friendly and abstract, value-led principles has failed, and shows what is needed for an adequate replacement as a political and moral project. It criticises the economic analysis on which the Third Way approach to policy was founded and suggests an alternative to its legalistic and managerial basis for the regulation of social relations.
A contribution to one of the most hotly contested issues in Europe, The migration debate provides a well-balanced, critical analysis of UK migration policies, in a European context, from entry controls through to integration and citizenship. Exploring the pressures and constraints that have shaped a rapidly shifting policy terrain, this accessible overview offers a considered assessment of policy options to provide the foundation for a less polarised, better-informed public debate. Unusual in its coverage of immigration for work, study, family and protection, and in its insistence that an understanding of integration processes must be considered alongside analysis of entry controls, The migration debate will be of equal value to policy makers as to a multi-disciplinary academic readership.
To what extent are the ideas and practice of community development across Europe similar? Community Development and Civil Society explores this question with special reference to the UK and Hungary and shows how community development connects powerfully with civil society, a concept that today has global significance. Paul Henderson and Ilona Vercseg argue that community development is both a profession and a social movement and is relevant to a wide range of issues.They interweave case studies with discussion of principles and theory.The book's critical and accessible approach will appeal especially to students and practitioners.
Social welfare workers are frequently motivated by a desire to 'work with people', to 'bring about change' or to 'make a difference'. This valuable book explores some of the difficulties and dilemmas faced by those who deliver welfare in a changing policy context. This book seeks to develop an analytical skills-based approach to understanding the role and importance of social policy in social welfare practice, and will encourage and enable readers to understand, analyse and engage with policy. It will be of great value to students of social work and other welfare professions, and their teachers.
This book will inspire policy makers, practitioners, academics and journalists to rediscover courage in tackling child sexual abuse. Sarah Nelson proposes new models for child-centred, perpetrator-focussed child protection, for community prevention, and for work with survivor-offenders.
This reader collects together for the first time a comprehensive range of key papers by leaders in the field from a wide range of sources that explain the concepts, actors and processes that constitute global social policy. The Reader will have broad appeal among undergraduate and postgraduate students in a range of social science subjects.
Social workers and other social care professionals regularly face the challenges of working with people with alcohol and other drug problems. Yet many receive little, if any, training for working with these issues. As substance use and its social impact on communities and families rises up the political agenda, this book offers a timely support for social workers and other social care staff working in this area. Supporting people with alcohol and drug problems addresses the current gap in social work and social care education. It provides a combination of research evidence, policy frameworks, and practical hints and tips for good social work practice. Based around practice examples supplied by social workers from both adults' and children's social care, it combines knowledge with action. It also provides an important introduction to the evidence base on assessment, intervention and partnership working with specialist substance use colleagues. This book is for all those working in children's and adults' social work and social care settings who are working with people who use, or have problems with, alcohol and other drugs.
This book brings together leading experts to provide an introduction to genetic epidemiology that begins with a primer in human molecular genetics through all the standard methods in population genetics and genetic epidemiology required for an adequate grounding in the field.
New Labour's modernisation agenda has produced an avalanche of change that has posed formidable challenges for everyone involved in social work, whether as service users, practitioners or managers. "Modernising Social Work" provides a radical appraisal of the far-reaching changes in their theoretical, historical and policy contexts.
This collection brings together opinion, commentary, research evidence, professional guidance, debate and critique in order to understand the phenomenon of anti-social behaviour.
This reader brings together for the first time a collection of Peter Townsend's most distinctive work, allowing readers to review the changes that have taken place over the past six decades, and reflect on issues that have returned to the fore today.
Which underlying problems pose the greatest threat to British society in the 21st century? A hundred years after its philanthropist founder identified poverty, alcohol, drugs and gambling among the social evils of his time, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation initiated a major consultation among leading thinkers, activists and commentators, as well as the wider public. The findings have now been brought together in this fascinating book. Individual contributors range across the political spectrum but the book also reports the results from a web survey and consultation with groups whose voices are less often heard. The results suggest that while some evils - like poverty - endure as undisputed causes of social harm, more recent sources of social misery, such as an alleged rise in selfish consumerism and a perceived decline in personal responsibility and family commitment, attract controversy.
This book brings together the latest research findings from some of the most respected medical and social scientists in the world, surveying four pathways to understanding the social determinants of health.
This is a seminal time for Equal Opportunities and Diversity (EO&D) in the UK: the three existing Equality Commissions have been amalgamated into the Commission for Equality and Human Rights and a new Single Equality Act was published in 2010. The concepts of EO&D now incorporate gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion and belief and age inequalities. For the future, the problems of separate and relative deprivation, and conflicting experiences and interests, must be tackled, both between and within different categories of disadvantage. These different, complex and sometimes contradictory strands in legislation, policy and practice need to be analysed and understood in order to facilitate genuine social change. This book challenges the official discourse that shapes the debates on EO&D at national, regional and European level. The book will be a key text for students and researchers of EO&D in criminology, social policy, sociology, women's studies, gender studies, public administration, business studies, economics and management and industrial relations, at both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It will also be of interest to EO&D professionals and policy makers in public and private sector organisations.
This book, the third in Martin Powell's New Labour trilogy, analyses the legacy of Tony Blair's government for social policy, focusing on the extent to which it has changed the UK welfare state.
This major textbook provides students with a critical understanding of poverty and social exclusion in relation to wealth, rather than as separate from it.
This book examines the meanings of gender that underpin policies in the Scandinavian welfare states, historically and today, and raises the question whether the hallmark of the Scandinavian welfare model is a special combination of gender equality and gender differentiation.
Through eleven country studies, this book challenges the common view that social protection is exclusively a national concern with EU social policy fragmented and merely symbolic.
Dying is a social experience, changing irrevocably the family and social networks around each individual who dies. Older people are a growing proportion of the population and need help to think and plan to make positive choices about this important phase of their life. Social work should help to strengthen individuals to achieve a respectful death and families to move forward in their lives. This valuable book focuses on practice interventions, advocating open communication and skilled interpersonal practice to help dying and bereaved people, their families and carers. The authors review sociological and psychological ideas about dying and bereavement, incorporating spiritual care, multi-professional practice and ethical issues likely to face social workers in end-of-life and palliative care. Important features include: a demonstration of the importance of the social work role in palliative care a firm knowledge base for social work practice with dying and bereaved people in both end-of-life and palliative care a strong focus on social processes as well as psychological and emotional responses to death and bereavement extended case examples help to develop practice skills fully 'pause and reflect' sections help students and practitioners think through their own reactions to practice with people who are dying and bereaved exploration of group and community interventions in end-of-life care an international focus, with useful further reading and website information. This book will be essential reading for students, health care workers and social workers and their managers who are working in adult services, end of life and palliative care. Read Malcolm Payne's blog at http://blogs.stchristophers.org.uk/ CUSTOMERS IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA: Copies of this title are available from Lyceum Publishing, www.lyceumbooks.com
This book brings together leading experts to provide an introduction to genetic epidemiology that begins with a primer in human molecular genetics through all the standard methods in population genetics and genetic epidemiology required for an adequate grounding in the field.
This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making.
This book charts Gypsies Romany and Travellers community activism, and the community and voluntary organisations which support them. It describes the communities' struggle for rights against a backdrop of intersectional discrimination across Europe.
This book brings together leading figures in democratic reform and civic engagement to show why and how better state-citizen cooperation is needed to improve democracy and achieve positive social change across a range of policy areas and in varied national contexts.
With welfare to work programmes under intense scrutiny, this book ranges widely across Europe to review existing policies and explore future ones. It shows how many schemes do not adequately address social rights and lived experiences, and consider alternatives based on theories of non-domination.
Combining social, psychological and child development aspects, this book provides a holistic view of how children develop agency.
Prenumerera på vårt nyhetsbrev för att få fantastiska erbjudanden och inspiration för din nästa läsning.
Genom att registrera dig accepterar du vår personuppgiftspolicy.
