Textbooks

An essential introduction for all those interested in how policies can address environmental problems, bringing together economic, sociological and social policy perspectives.

This is the first book to explore the public policy process through 19 contributions from diverse scholars from all over the world, using empirical material to demonstrate how many of the key theories and concepts may be applied to its analysis.

This fully revised, updated and extended edition of a bestselling social policy textbook is extensively reworked and adapted to meet the needs of its international readership. Laying out the architecture of social policy as a field of study, it provides a sense of the scope, range and purpose of the subject.

This critical and reflexive book looks closely at the pivotal but demanding role that leadership and management play in promoting social work and social care.

This exciting new book outlines the state of practice now in flux within structures created by New Labour but moving in a different direction under the Coalition Government. It explores opportunities for a fresh orientation that places young people at the centre and works collaboratively to nurture strengths, competences and capital.

This book focuses on the drive towards increasingly integrated ways of working in children’s services across the UK. The new edition of this bestselling textbook critically examines the potential and reality of closer ‘working together’, asking whether such new ways of working will be able to respond more effectively to the needs of children.

The second edition of this bestselling book provides a concise 'warts and all' introduction to partnership and integration, summarising updated references to current policy and research, setting out useful frameworks and approaches, and helping policy makers and practitioners to work more effectively together.

Social work and poverty: A critical approach provides a timely review of the key issues facing social workers and service users in working together to combat poverty, covering key areas including access to food, obesity and drug use.

In this much-needed text, current housing finance issues (and their history) are linked with broader social policy and political themes. It covers the finance of building and refurbishment, managing and maintaining property for all the different tenures and discusses whether current arrangements are sustainable.

Understanding crime and social policy encourages readers to reflect upon the close connections, and sometimes tensions, between crime reduction and social policy agendas.

This wide-ranging book is one of the first texts to deal with adult social care as a distinct entity and is an up to date source on contemporary government policies, debates and research.

This is the first book to extend the narrative lens to explore the contribution of narrative to social work values and ethics, social policy and our understanding of the self in social, cultural and political context.