Social Work

This book provides a challenging approach to understanding community practice.It offers a much-needed theoretical perspective, setting out an analysis of power and empowerment and exploring new ways of understanding active citizenship.

This original collection explores how critical gerontology can make sense of old age inequalities to inform social work research, policy and practice. Engaging with key debates on age-related human rights, the conceptual focus addresses the current challenges and opportunities facing those who work with older people.

This book shows how reflexive debate enhances childhood research. Expert contributors explore researchers’ identities, roles, boundaries and ethical governance, and use empirical international examples from a range of child-related issues to challenge conventions and raise standards.

This original and insightful reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement and will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.

This new edition for advanced students and practitioners is substantially updated to reflect the changes in the field since the publication of the first edition and contains multiple additional chapters discussing new and emerging topics for those in the fields of social work, education and health care.

This myth-busting and question-focused textbook tackles the important social and policy issues posed by ageing. A unique pedagogical approach recognises the gap between the lives of students and older people, and equips students with the conceptual, analytical and critical tools to understand what it means to grow old and live in an ageing society.

Drawing on the voices and experiences of refugees, activists and professional practitioners, this collection illustrates the complexities of migration with real world case studies, and the possibilities of innovative therapeutic interventions.

This fully-updated, accessible textbook considers the theory and practice of critical social work in addressing inequality and social injustice. It is essential reading for students, educators and practitioners of child and family social work.

This accessible introductory textbook unpacks how students and practitioners can use theory to think about social work practice. Introducing the work of some notable thinkers as a starting point, the book encourages readers to think theoretically themselves.

Cultures of care uses an innovative biographical case study approach to compare caring situations and caring strategies in Britain and East and West Germany. The findings underline the significance of caring within social policy agendas and the need to change the parameters of comparative social policy.

This ground-breaking book explores the relationship between the media, child abuse and shifting adult–child power relations which, in Western countries, has spawned an ever-expanding range of laws, policies and procedures introduced to address the ‘explosion’ of interest in the issue of child abuse.

From scarcer resources to greater stresses, this book charts how policies and cuts have compromised workers’ ability to undertake their professional roles. Combining research and practice experience, it assesses the extent of de-professionalisation in recent years, and how workers have responded.