This is a social work history with a difference. Written with and by a retired social worker and three former residents of a children’s home in Edinburgh, Scotland, it tells the story of one agency’s response to unmarried mothers and their children during and after the Second World War, and alongside this, the story of what was, at the time, a new and experimental approach to group care for children.Based on the experience of the Guild of Service for Women, then a prominent Scottis...

Building on the successful 1st edition, this reader brings together some of the most significant ideas that have informed social work practice over the last fifty years. At the same time as presenting these foundational extracts, the book includes commentaries that allow the reader to understand the selected extracts on their own terms as well as to be aware of their relations to each other and to the wider social work context.There is no settled view or easy consensus about what s...

This fully revised new edition of Becoming a Social Worker is made up of entirely new stories. Providing a ‘glocal’ frame of reference, the book describes the personal and professional narratives of a diverse range of people working in social work in the UK, what brought them into the field and what has kept them in it ever since.The lively accounts reveal what it is like to be a social worker in a range of practice settings today and, at the same time, demonstrate that commitment ...

We live in a world that is increasingly characterised as full of risk, danger and threat. Every day a new social issue emerges to assail our sensibilities and consciences. Drawing on the popular Economic Social and Research Council (ESRC) seminar series, this book examines these social issues and anxieties, and the solutions to them, through the concept of moral panic.With a commentary by Charles Critcher and contributions from both well-known and up-and-coming researchers and prac...

Many of the individual and social problems that are characterised as moral panics are, in reality, illustrations of a breakdown in the legitimacy of the state. This Byte picks up a number of case-study examples - internet pornography; internet radicalisation; ‘chavs’; the Tottenham riots; patient safety - and explores each through the lens of moral panic ideas, with an appraisal of the work of Stuart Hall, one of the key thinkers in moral panics.

Scotland has changed, politically and culturally, in recent years, with persistent demands for independence culminating in a referendum in 2014. On this fluid political landscape, social welfare can be co-opted towards a wider ‘nation-building’ project. As a result, social work in Scotland is increasingly divergent from the rest of the UK. This book offers a comprehensive, critical and timely account of the profession in these changing times, charting its historical development, current pr...

This Byte offers readers insight into some of the central debates and questions about gender and the family, examined through the lens of moral panic. It begins with an overview of the part played by moral panics, together with an appraisal of the work of Stanley Cohen, one of the chief architects of moral panic ideas. Drawing on research and practice examples from different parts of the world, it explores interconnections between gender, class, ‘race’ and age, and interrogates the role of...

Combining an accessible presentation of the underlying theory of transfer of learning which explains how to put theory into practice, this is a text which is relevant to 'teaching for transfer' in any professional or vocational context. The first part of the book looks at: * what transfer of learning means * how it operates * the implications for teaching * issues such as assessment, competence, outcomes. In the second part contributors present case studies from social work which show how ...

One of feminism's key contributions to improving social work practice has been to expose the gender-blindness which has characterized social work policy and literature.Working with Men extends and diversifies this contribution by presenting a controversial collection of essays written by feminists about men. In what has been a previously unexplored area of social work, the contributors to Working with Men, feminist academics, researchers and practitioners, explore ...

Social Work: Voices from the Inside offers unique insight into social work from the perspectives of those ‘on the inside’, that is, service users, carers and practitioners.Drawing on a narrative tradition, fifty-nine people from across the UK tell their stories about how and why social work came into their lives, and what happened next. Key topics are discussed, including:children and family social workcriminal justice social workmental health socia...

How does a social work student make the connection between sociological knowledge and day-to-day social work?Sociology for Social Workers and Probation Officers provides an introduction to sociological ideas and research and places them firmly into the context of actual social work practice. It encourages readers to develop critical awareness and reach their own judgements about the usefulness and implications of holding certain conceptual positions and shows how social wo...

Mental health social work is at an impasse. On the one hand, the emphasis in recent policy documents on the social roots of much mental distress ,and in the recovery approaches popular with service users seems to indicate an important role for a holistic social work practice. On the other hand, social workers have often been excluded from these initiatives and the dominant approach within mental health continues to be a medical one, albeit supplemented by short-term psychological intervent...