Policy and practice

From a campaigning concept in the 1970s, direct payments - the substitution of cash for services - have become a key part of UK government social care provision. This book charts the change, critically evaluating progress, take-up, inclusion and access to direct payments by different user groups.

This book is an invaluable resource, employing a 'bottom-up' approach to learning. It presents vivid examples of social work practice with children and families and real life illustrations of the challenges facing practitioners. With analysis of each section, it provides essential guidance for students and sets standards for training and practice.

Throughout the developed world governments have invested substantial sums in local and regional economic development. This is the first book to provide a cross-national comparison and evaluation of regional development strategies, institutions and agencies.

This book explores what it means to act in a democratic way and provides practical guidance which will help public service professionals ensure users are at the centre of public services delivery, drawing from examples of different public services around the world.

This book contains everything there is to know about the purpose and history of personal health budgets, the evidence for their effectiveness and the challenges they pose to traditional healthcare systems.

The first book to bring together both advocates and critics of the personalisation agenda in English social care services to debate key issues.

This illuminating study sets out why policy makers need to take culture seriously, how culture and values shape the political system and presents essential, practical recommendations for what governments should do differently.

This book challenges the traditional view that the consultants are brought in as experts and instead examines ways of using consultancy to empower staff, patients, service users and members of the public.

Written by an experienced practitioner, this book offers a unique model to assist professionals and researchers working to prosecute and prevent trafficking and modern slavery.

This book re-assesses the benefits and failures of competition, how public and private prisons compare, the impact of competition on the public sector’s performance, and how well Government has managed this ‘quasi-market’.

This highly accessible guide equips community work and related professionals and students to make the best use of theory in their work. Linking contemporary theory and practice, the book guides the reader through such diverse areas as young people, adult learning, health, social media and leadership in community work.

This book provides a rigorous and challenging review of recent research in the realms of communication and cultural diversity. Focusing on health communication interventions concerning service users who may lack fluency in English, it shows that meeting the needs of all health service users depends on both structures and processes of communication.