Social work

This textbook covers the key concepts, themes and issues relating to human growth and development in adults. It examines key topics and issues within professional practice with adults and their families and covers a wide range of practice areas, fuses essential theory with practical application and provides a wide range of learning features.

Drawing upon extensive research amongst gang members, dealers and drug users, this timely book provides a comprehensive insight into the ‘County Lines’ phenomenon.

Shedding new light on this urgent topic on government agendas, this is an invaluable contribution to the literature on gangs, youth violence and organised crime.

Drawing on access to prominent policy makers, Purcell examines the origins and impact of children’s services reform under recent Labour and Conservative-led governments, including Labour’s Every Child Matters programme and the Munro Review. He also reassesses the impact of high-profile child abuse cases, including Victoria Climbié and Baby P.

This inter-disciplinary study considers the past, present and future of mental health services and community care. From the origins of provision as we know it in the 1960s, it sets out the political, economic and bureaucratic factors behind recent crises and considers what the founding principles of community care tell us about the way forward.

One of the few resources available to provide an overview of human need as a key concept in the social sciences, this accessible and engaging second edition models existing practical and theoretical approaches to human need while also proposing a radical alternative.

As the population ages, this book reveals how divides that are apparent through childhood and working life change and are added to in later life.

Lessons from child protection errors and mistakes in 11 countries in Europe and North America are drawn together in a stimulating study from leading researchers in the field. By comparing and contrasting impacts, responses and responsibilities, it deepens understanding of how child protection systems fail and points to ideas for risk reduction.

This unique study of social work provides a bold and challenging view of the subject from an anthropological perspective. Combining research and personal reflection, it explores cultural and symbolic representations of social work, evolving identities of social work practitioners and the ways in which they and society now view one another.

A fully updated edition of this bestselling textbook offers a radical approach to community development taking theories of Gramsci and Freire into the current context. The focus is on putting theory into action for those training, working or managing any social justice practice.

In this clear and systematic book covering the both general practice concepts and theoretical insights, best-selling author Malcolm Payne shows you how to work with the main social work theories and practice techniques and pinpoint their strengths and limitations.

This book offers an analysis of the limitations of child attachment theory as the basis for decision-making in child welfare practice, examining controversies and offering a new pedagogy that is responsive to the changing dynamics of contemporary families.

The issue of Child Sexual Exploitation is firmly in the public spotlight, but how well is it understood? This much-needed book makes the case for a more thoughtful approach to CSE prevention and a greater use of different theoretical perspectives in the development and delivery of strategies and interventions.