Morals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services: Effective and Fair Decision-Making in Health, Social Care and Criminal Justice

by Marie Connolly, Tony Ward

Overview

Work within the human services is increasingly influenced by rights-based thinking, and this book offers advice for the practitioner on how to translate abstract rights theory into their everyday practice.

The book outlines the theory that underpins human rights and outlines the ethical debates and dilemmas that frequently surround them. It also provides a practical model that outlines how to embed human rights theory within practice and the professional decision-making process. Drawing extensively on real-life case examples, the book includes chapters on rights-based work with different client groups including offenders, people with intellectual disabilities, immigrants and refugees, and children and families.

This important book will be a useful source of guidance and advice for professionals working across the human services, including those in social care, health and justice settings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843104865
Publisher:	Kingsley, Jessica Publishers
Publication date:	10/15/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Marie Connolly, PhD, DipSocWk, has been Associate Professor and Director at the Te Awatea Violence Research Centre at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. She is currently Chief Social Worker within the New Zealand government. She has published extensively in her area of scholarship, and has written six related books, including Culture and Child Protection: Reflexive Responses (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). She has a social work background in statutory child welfare. Tony Ward, PhD, DipClinPsyc, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has worked as a clinical psychologist and an academic in a number of settings, and has a small private practice. He has written over 200 publications, including ten books, primarily in the area of forensic psychology.

Table of Contents

Part One: Exploring the Territory. 1. Understanding Human Rights. 2. Human Rights and Culture. 3. Values, Rights and the State. Part Two: Navigating Rights and Practice. 4. Navigating Rights across the Life Course. 5. Losing Rights: Offenders on the Margins. 6. Claiming Rights: Disability and Human Rights. 7. Contesting Rights: Cultural Values and Children's Rights. 8. Respecting Rights: Service-User Rights in Child Welfare. Part Three: Integrating Rights-Based Ideas. 9. Rights-Based Values in Practice Frameworks. 10. Embedding Rights-Based Ideas. 11. Concluding Thoughts. References. Index

Editorial Reviews

The book would be useful for students and practitioners looking to explore practice issues from an international perspective and different societal responses and structures to similar problems, such as the use of corporal punishment. The structure and lay out of the chapters is such that it allows the reader to dip in and out depending on their particular interests. It would be a useful addition to any library.

The Higher Education Academy Social Policy and Social Work Subject Centre

An interesting, persuasive book about the way we ought to think about the ways we treat others. Let me recommend Morals, Rights and Practice in the Human Services to anybody with an interest in inter-personal relations, both in and out of the context of the human services, as well as to anybody attracted to a novel way of approaching these relations.

Metapsychology Online

The strength of the book for practitioners and academics involved with the criminal justice system is in how it highlights the risks of populist punitive penal responses becoming vehicles for oppression and the denial of human rights.

The Howard Journal

Overall the book provides acknowledgement and thorough analyses of the complexities of human rights issues. In particular there is fair and balanced analysis of situations of competing rights, without giving prescriptive answers to ethical dilemmas... this book will be of interest to social work educators, and probably more advanced students, and practitioners particularly in the areas of child protection and criminal justice.

Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work

This book provides a synthesis of human rights theory and human services practice and offers a rights-based model to aid professional decision-making and practice... This important interdisciplinary resource is an essential tool for professionals working across the human services, including those in social care, health and justice settings.

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