Policy and Social Work Practice / Edition 1

by Tony Evans, Frank Keating

Overview

This textbook will help students, practitioners and academics think critically about the relationship between policy and practice. Reflective questions help critical thinking and links to websites of substantive information across the UK and internationally help keep readers up-to-date with policy developments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848606982
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	12/09/2015
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Tony Evans is a registered social worker and has practiced as a mental health social worker. He is Professor of Social Work in the University of London and Head of the Department of social work at Royal Holloway University of London. His research explores the intersection of policy, professional practice and ethics. His published work has focused on the analysis of professional discretion in the context of managerialised public services, moral economies of practice, professional expertise and judgement. He has recently edited [with Fabian Kessl] a special issue of the European Journal of Social Work on travelling knowledge in Social Work.

Dr Frank Keating is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Care in the Department of Social Work at Royal Holloway University of London where he is Director of Research and Graduate studies. His main research interests are ethnicity, gender and mental health, particularly focusing on African and Caribbean communities. He is a strong advocate for racial equality in mental health services through his writing, teaching and public speaking.

Table of Contents

Social Work and Policy Introduction
Discretion in the history and development of social work
Social Work Education and Training as a policy issue
Prevention and protection: the development of safeguarding in children's services
Children like ours? Policy and practice responses to children looked after
Personalisation
Mental capacity and social policy
Social welfare policy in racialised contexts
International social work: understanding social work within social policy systems
Domestic Violence: UK and Australian developments
Local policy in a global context: regimes of risk in mental health policy and practice - the community treatment orders
Concluding thoughts: the interface between social policy and social work

Editorial Reviews

Policy and Social Work Practice (Eds. Tony Evans and Frank Keating) is a well-timed contribution to the social work literature. Arriving at a time when the depletion of social work services within the politics of austerity is underscored by a construction of a profession in disarray, this important book reminds us of the historical, social and policy contexts from which social work draws its mandate. As Tony Evans, in his introduction points out ‘social policy is in the DNA of social work’ and if, as he also argues, social policy is the organised response to societal problems, then a book that critically re-examines the links between politics, policy and practice in a period of increasing poverty, inequality and vulnerability could not be more valuable. Tracing developments in social work education, children’s services, children in state care and, adult social care, issues of rights and citizenship emerge as central to several of the book’s chapters while Keating’s chapter on attitudes to racial equality and immigration, reasserts the role of social work in achieving social justice. The book begins with a historical discussion of social work as located within the UK but later explores policy and practice in the international arena. This leads on two final chapters which provide cross-country insights in the areas of domestic violence and, mental health. In a nutshell, this is the book’s strength – its ability to chart the history of social work practice within a changing social policy landscape while providing a valuable resource for contemporary social work across a range of theoretical, geographical and practice borders.

Professor Adele Jones

This book explores in a really thoughtful and accessible way the vital but curiously neglected subject of the relationship between social policy and social work. It contains contributions from highly respected national and international scholars and is a really strong contribution to this area of study.

Brigid Featherstone

This book has an excellent theme of the relationship between policy and social work and, as such, fills a much-needed space in the process of knowledge acquisition for social work and social policy students.

Courtney James