Policy & Practice

This report takes a critical look at the costs and benefits for individuals and families of turning to self-employment as a route out of economic disadvantage.

Community participation is now demanded of virtually all public sector services and programmes. This handbook provides practitioners, community activists, regeneration managers, teachers and academics with the tools needed to ensure that it is effective.

This report charts a supportive project which linked four diverse regeneration programmes in different parts of the UK.

The Bangladeshi population is the fastest growing ethnic group within the UK. Despite this, Bangladeshis in Britain are an under-researched group. This is especially true of the women in this community. Women in transition examines, in-depth and for the first time, Bangladeshi women's domestic and community lives.

This report explores the problems and opportunities presented for child protection workers responding to child abuse that occurred in the context of violence towards the child(ren)'s mother. It provides good practice examples for overcoming the traditional difficulties in this area.

This new and updated edition will be welcomed at a time of significant change within social services. It offers a legislative framework for each area in practice, in addition to practical guidelines for implementing this legislation. Case studies and material used by existing schemes are included.

In 1998, following a sobering report by the Coalfields Task Force, New Labour unveiled a £350 million package of measures to remedy coalfield deprivation and social exclusion. This book examines the impact of this investment in Warsop Vale, a village which has starkly emphasised the negative consequences of coalfield decline.

Using new EU-wide data, this report shows very different patterns of poverty across Europe, depending on the benchmark used. The findings have important implications for the spatial distribution of poverty within and between countries (including the UK) and for the development of anti-poverty policy across the EU.

Drawing on interviews with older people, local authority care managers and direct payments support service workers, this topical report looks at how older people use direct payments and how they make them work.

A document of the results of road-testing two frameworks for assessing community participation: Active partners: Benchmarking community involvement in regeneration (Yorkshire Forward, 2000) and Auditing community participation: An assessment handbook (The Policy Press, 2000).

The literature on depression in old age has tended to be dominated by the medical model with its focus on symptoms and treatment. This report breaks new ground by adopting a psycho-social approach - one that explores depression in the context of the everyday lives of older people.

Alongside the current media preoccupation with high risk offenders, there has been a shift towards a greater focus on risk and public protection in UK criminal justice policy. This report draws together a distinguished panel to consider both the theory and application of the risk concept in work with young people and young adults that offend.