Social Policy and Social Work: Books & eBooks

Information about books, journals, databases and other useful social policy and social work resources.

Short Loan & 4-Hour Collections

Short Loan Collection

The Short Loan Collection (SLC) contains multiple copies of books in demand, or on reading lists and can be borrowed for 7 days.

4-Hour Collection

The 4-Hour Loan collection contains items that are in very high demand at certain times of the year. You can borrow and take these books anywhere in the Library, but they cannot be taken out of the Library building.

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Books for Social Policy and Social Work

Academic Complete

A multidisciplinary collection of over 180,000 scholarly titles from hundreds of leading academic publishers. eBooks are made available on ProQuest's eBook Central platform. Offers unlimited, multi-user access. To view content for specific disciplines, simply select from the "Browse Subject" option page

Skills for Social Work Practice

Skills lie at the heart of all actions of a social worker, and inform all aspects of practice - from drawing on vital theoretical and ethical frameworks to applying the law and research findings to particular situations. This text book brings together in one place all the skill sets which students need to acquire in order to qualify as social workers. It reflects current practice frameworks and addresses a wide range of skills including communication and relationship building, professional writing, ethical practice, assessment and reflection.

Practice Learning in Social Work

Learning through practice lies at the heart of social work education, providing the opportunity for students to develop and employ the skills, experience and knowledge they need to become effective social workers. This title provides an integrated approach to practice learning by putting placements within a broader learning framework. With a strong emphasis on service users and carers as central stake holders, Practice Learning in Social Work illustrates the practical nature of the profession with realistic case scenarios based on real life learning experiences, reflective learning exercises and practice led research references throughout.

Developing resilience for social work practice

The term 'resilience' refers to a person's capacity to handle difficulties, demands and pressure without experiencing negative effects. Traditionally, social work has focused on the nature and impact of resilience in children and adults who have experienced traumatic events, but it is increasingly recognised that social workers need to develop personal resilience to manage the emotional demands of the job effectively and sustainably. Developing Resilience for Social Work Practice provides social workers with a tool-box of strategies to help them enhance their resilience and protect their wellbeing. These strategies are designed to help social work students and practitioners develop important qualities that underpin resilience, such as self-awareness, time management, relaxation skills and empathy to enable them to gain support from their personal and professional networks.

Counselling Skills for Social Workers

Counselling skills are very powerful. Really listening and providing compassionate empathy without judging is a core part of social work practice with service users. This book provides a theoretically informed understanding of the core skills required to provide counselling interventions that work. It provides detailed discussion of three core skills which are identified as: talking and responding, listening and observing and thinking. Over 11 chapters these core skills are described in terms of what they mean, how they can be learned and developed, how they can be used and misused and, most importantly, how specific skills can be employed in a coherent and evidence-informed counselling approach.

Understanding and Using Research in Social Work

How do social work students learn to use research to underpin their practice decisions? How do they learn that research is not an activity unconnected to their professional role and responsibilities, but rather acts as a foundation for their knowledge? By using the examples drawn from evidence-based practice (e.g. what is known to work and what we know about social work processes), the authors deliver a text that will help support students to appraise and then integrate research into both their daily practice decisions and their assignments and assessments. It will do this by defining key concepts like ′knowledge′ and ′evidence′ and then look at how these concepts include component parts - from law and legislation to practice knowledge and reflective and critical practice. Case examples are used to illustrate how a clear understanding of these component parts can build to a substantial evidence base from which to draw upon. Identifying relevant research and appraising its quality are core aspects of the book. Later chapters show students how robust knowledge of evidence-based practice can develop into a clear and confident approach to their workloads and their daily practice dilemmas.

Research Design in Social Work

Social work research often focuses on qualitative designs and many students believe that the quantitative research pathway is either too complicated or is beyond their grasp. This book outlines how social work students can undertake a research project from either a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methodological approach. The authors introduce key concepts in an accessible and structured manner and go on to demonstrate each of the approaches from inception of research idea, to realisation of methodological approach, to research process, to data analysis and conclusion. More than just another research text, this book remains grounded in social work practice and has clear links to the Professional Capabilities Framework for Social Work.

Qualitative Research Skills for Social Work

Malcolm Carey provides social work students, academics and practitioners with a practical guide that escorts them through the research process relating to the completion of a small-scale qualitative project or dissertation.

Rethinking Social Work in a Global World

This text offers a comprehensive overview of the key aspects of globalisation, their impact on social work and the resulting challenges in practice. The authors draw on post-colonialism to consider the global issues facing social work, such as mass migration, and the ways in which social workers can respond to such difficulties.

Social Justice Theory and Practice for Social Work

This book offers a much-needed critical overview of the concept of social justice and its application in professional social work practice. Social justice has a rich conceptual genealogy in critical theory and political philosophy. For students, teachers and social workers concerned with empowerment, social change and human rights, this book provides a guide to the key ideas and thinkers, crucial historical developments and contemporary debates about social justice. It synthesises interdisciplinary knowledge and offers a new framework for practice, including a clear and practical exposition of four domains of skills and knowledge important for social justice informed social work.

Irish Social Policy

When the first edition of Irish Social Policy was published in 2009, Ireland's enduring economic crisis was only beginning to emerge. In the time since, nearly all areas of Irish social policy have been significantly affected, as policy makers have sought to combat the numerous, multifaceted social challenges posed by Ireland's economic downfall. Needs and risks associated with recession and economic precarity have escalated, while social services have simultaneously been forced to cope with significant cutbacks and restructuring. Changes in the landscape of policy making processes and policy drivers are also occurring, as are shifts in the politics and ideas underpinning Ireland's social policy. This new edition offers a comprehensively updated overview of social policy issues in Ireland

Handbook on Gender and Social Policy

After two decades of feminist challenges to mainstream theorising, gender has become a central element of social policy and the welfare state. A new literature has widened the focus of social policy from state and economy to a three-sided discourse encompassing the state, the market and the family. The Handbook on Gender and Social Policy provides a comprehensive introduction to this field with up-to-date accounts of debates and innovative original research by leading international authors.

The Student's Companion to Social Policy

This fully updated and expanded edition of the Student's Companion to Social Policy charts the latest developments, research, challenges, and controversies in the field in a concise, authoritative format. Provides students with the analytical base from which to investigate and evaluate key concepts, perspectives, policies, and outcomes at national and international levels.

Social Policy in the European Union

Social policy has become an increasingly prominent component of the European Union's policy-making responsibilities. Today, for example, a highly developed body of law regulates equal treatment in social security and co-ordinates national security schemes; national health services have opened up to patients and service providers from other states; and rules govern the translation of educational and vocational certificates across member states. This important book provides a full account of the evolution of social policy in the EU and of its current reach.

Welfare Words: Critical Social Work and Social Policy

Welfare Words analyses the keywords and phrases commonly used by policy-makers, news-outlets and wider society, when referring to social policy, welfare reform and social work in the present-day culture of neoliberal capitalism. Examining how power relations operate through language and culture, it encourages readers to question how welfare words fit within a wider economic and cultural context riven with gross social inequalities; to disrupt taken-for-granted meanings within mainstream social work and social policy, and to think more deeply, critically and politically about the incessant usage of specific words and phrases.

Welfare and the Welfare State

The welfare state is still very much central in people's everyday lives. The welfare state is at the same time contested and debated, and has often been argued to be in a crisis not only in the wake of the financial crisis. Today welfare and welfare states are influenced by national as well as regional and global decisions. This book provides an overview of the central concepts through the lenses of the state, market and civil society.

Care and Social Change in the Irish Welfare Economy

This work focuses on the implications for Irish social policy of social change including the need to respond to changes resulting from immigration and shifts within the Irish welfare economy that have created new needs for social care.

Local Social Innovation to Combat Poverty and Exclusion

Based on more than 30 case studies in eight different countries, this book explores the governance dynamics of local social innovations in the field of poverty reduction. The diverse team of contributors reflects on the trajectory of social innovation in European governance. They illustrate how different governance dynamics and welfare mixes enable or hinder poverty reduction strategies and analyse how such dynamics involve a diversity of actors, instruments and resources at different spatial scales.

Introduction to Social Policy Analysis

In this distinctive introduction Stephen Sinclair illuminates the subject of Social Policy by showing readers how Social Policy analysts think about welfare issues and policies. From what influences the decision to have children to how everyday terms such as 'youth crime' or 'poverty' reveal the structural processes shaping society, the book illustrates the insights which Social Policy analysis offers to understanding the social world and its problems.

The Investment State

Social investment is a strategy that addresses neoliberal austerity by putting private capital to public purpose. An investment state serves as a sequel to the welfare state by maximizing capability, expanding employee benefits, implementing evidence-based policy, democratizing polity and commerce, and advancing social and institutional inclusion.

Governance and the European Social Dimension

This title provides an analysis of the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the European social dimension since 2010 - understood as the EU's competence in employment and social policy. The book focuses on developments in five policy areas (employment, poverty and social exclusion, pensions, wages and healthcare), all of which form part of the EU's economic reform strategy, Europe 2020.

The Routledge International Handbook to Welfare State Systems

Developing countries may not have full-fledged welfare states like those we find in Europe, but certainly they have welfare state systems. For comparative social policy research the term "welfare state systems" has many advantages, as there are numerous different types/models of welfare state systems around the world. This path-breaking book, edited by Christian Aspalter, brings together leading experts to discuss social policy in 25 countries/regions around the world.

Social Work, Cats and Rocket Science

This book tells stories of just how powerful social work can be. At its heart are stories drawn from frontline practice, ranging from first interviews through to complex decision-making. Along the way, we meet the social worker who assessed a cat (though for all the right reasons). We witness the cost of failing to protect the rights of adults, exemplified in the tragic death of Connor Sparrowhawk. We also see the transformations that can happen when social workers really get it right - as in the case of Peter, whose love of balloons led them to feature in his care plan. By turns funny, wise and moving, this book articulates the personal and professional qualities needed to practise rights-based social work.

Anti-Oppressive Practice: Social Care and the Law

In the new edition of this bestselling text, the authors challenge the notion that anti-oppressive practice has lost its potency or become commodified into a professional response to inequalities. Retaining a commitment to the principles and values of anti-oppressive practice, discussion about contemporary practice is guided by a critical understanding of personal values and the context of practice. Some key questions are explored: How is anti-oppressive practice relevant in contemporary practice? How can the law be used as an empowering tool? How can the law be used to develop and inform anti-oppressive practice?

Sustainable Practices: Social Theory and Climate Change

Climate change is widely agreed to be one the greatest challenges facing society today. Mitigating and adapting to it is certain to require new ways of living. Thus far efforts to promote less resource-intensive habits and routines have centred on typically limited understandings of individual agency, choice and change. This book shows how much more the social sciences have to offer. It explores questions which arise from this distinctive and fresh approach: how do practices and material elements circulate and intersect? how do complex infrastructures and systems form and break apart? how does the reproduction of social practice sustain related patterns of inequality and injustice? This collection shows how social theories of practice can help us understand what societal transitions towards sustainability might involve, and how they might be achieved.

The Varieties of Pension Governance

The ongoing privatization of pensions - the shift from state to private responsibility for old age retirement income - raises fundamental issues of social and participatory rights. The recent financial market crisis makes the problematic nature of funded private pensions that fall short of expected returns dramatically clear. What have been the experiences in developed multipillar systems? What can be learned for those pensions systems currently under reform? This edited book compares the varieties of pension governance in ten European countries. Contrasting the experience of developed multipillar systems such as Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland with the recent shift toward private occupational and personal pensions in Belgium, France,Finland, Germany, Italy, and Sweden. The country chapters investigate how and why old age income responsibilities are being shifted to employers, unions, and individuals. They describe the changing public and private pension mix, and describe the particular features of the private occupational and personal pensions.

Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State

This book examines the long-term development of the Irish welfare state since the late nineteenth century. It contests the consensus view that Ireland, like other Anglophone countries, has historically operated a liberal welfare regime which forces households to rely mainly on the market to maintain their standard of living. Drawing on case studies and key statistical data, this book argues that the Irish welfare state developed differently from most other Western European countries until recent decades. Norris's original line of argument makes the case that Ireland's welfare state was shaped by the power of small farmers and moral teaching and intended to support a rural, agrarian and familist social order rather than an urban working class and industrialised economy.

Continuity and Change in the Welfare State

This book offers an analysis of social security in Ireland from 1981 to 2016 - a period of immense economic and social change during which social provisions such as pensions and family benefits were downsized or diluted in many countries. It considers whether this important area of welfare state provision in Ireland changed, and the extent and pattern of change.

Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management, Policy

In this new edition of his popular textbook, Helmut K. Anheier has fully updated, revised and expanded his comprehensive introduction to this field. Anheier covers the full range of nonprofit organizations - service providers, membership organizations, foundations, community groups - in different fields, such as arts and culture, social services and education. He introduces central terms such as philanthropy, charity, community, social entrepreneurship, social investment, public good and civil society, whilst explaining how the field spills over from public management, through nonprofit management and public administration.

Responding to Domestic Violence

This book offers a critical overview of established and emerging manifestations of domestic violence across Europe. It describes how countries within and outside the EU are responding to the problem in policy, practice and research. Eminent academics and professionals from a range of European countries share their findings from new groundbreaking victim surveys, and weigh up the legal, social and healthcare challenges. The issues addressed include: - the cultural challenges of combating abuse forms most prevalent in migrant communities such as female genital mutilation and forced marriage; - emerging problems such as child-to-parent violence, teenage relationship violence and digital intimate partner abuse; and - barriers to help-seeking faced by marginalised victims such as LGBTQ and older people.

Protecting Children in the Age of Outrage

This book proposes what, to many professionals in the child welfare field, will appear a radically different explanation for our society's decisions to protect children from harm and for the significant drop in substantiated child abuse numbers. At the center of this conceptual and analytic approach is the contention that social outrage emanating from horrific and often sensationalized cases of child maltreatment plays a major role in CPS decision making and in child outcomes. Through such manifestations as child safety legislation, institutional reform litigation of state child protective services agencies, massive retooling of the CPS workforce, the rise of community surveillance groups and moral entrepreneurs, and the exploitation of fatality statistics by media and politicians we find evidence of outrage at work and its power to change social attitudes, worker decisions and organizational culture. In this book, Jungian psychology intersects with the punctuated equilibrium theory to provide a compelling explanation for the decisions made by public CPS agencies to protect children.

Social Work with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants

Mass-migration, conflict and poverty are now persistent features of our globalised world. This reference book for social workers and service providers offers constructive ideas for practice within an inter-disciplinary framework. The book discusses the specific challenges faced when working in the community, and where people have suffered torture, in the context of social work practiced from an ethical value-base.

Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland

Now in its second edition, Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland provides an original and challenging account of racism in twenty-first century Irish society and locates this in its historical, political, sociological and policy contexts. It includes specific case studies of the experiences of racism in twenty-first century Ireland alongside a number of historical case studies that examine how modern Ireland came to marginalize ethnic minorities. Various chapters examine responses by the Irish state to Jewish refugees before, during and after the Holocaust, asylum seekers and Travellers. Other chapters examine policy responses to and academic debates on racism in Ireland.

An Introduction to the Policy Process

Designed to address new developments in both policy theory and policy making, the Fifth Edition of this text includes examinations of: the Brexit referendum result and its effects on the UK, European Union and world politics, as well as the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President of the United States, and the ways in which these events have caused voters and policy makers to rethink their assumptions.

Black in America: The Paradox of the Color Line

At the start of the twentieth century, the pre-eminent black sociologist, W.E.B. DuBois, identified the color line as America's great problem. While the color line is increasingly variegated beyond black and white, and more openly discussed than ever before as more racial and ethnic groups call America home, his words still ring true. Today, post-racial and colorblind ideals dominate the American narrative, obscuring the reality of racism and discrimination, hiding if only temporarily the inconvenience of deep racial disparity. This book provides a sociology of the Black American experience. To be Black in America is to exist amongst myriad contradictions: racial progress and regression, abject poverty amidst profound wealth, discriminatory policing yet equal protection under the law.

Mental Health in Later Life

Focusing on mental health rather than mental illness, this book adopts a lifecourse approach to understanding mental health and wellbeing in later life. Well-respected author and scholar Alisoun Milne explores the influences of lifecourse experiences, structural inequalities, socio-political context, history, gender and age related factors and engages with new ways of thinking about preventing mental ill health and promoting mental health in later life.

Childhood, Youth and Violence in Global Contexts

Bringing together academic and practitioner points of view, this edited collection shows how violence enters into ordinary, routine practices of childhood and children's experiences. The contributing authors seek to understand how violence is enacted against children in infancy, adolescence, in school, in care, at home and on the street.

Protecting Children in the Age of Outrage

Global Childhoods

The book offers a wide-ranging critical analysis of approaches to children and childhood across the social sciences. Through stimulating case studies which include the experiences of child soldiers, orphans, forced child migrants, and children and biomedicine, Cregan and Cuthbert critically test the notion of the 'global child' against the lived experiences of children around the globe. In its historical coverage of the rise of the concepts of the child and the global child, its critical engagement with the theorisation of childhood, and its detailed case studies, the book is essential reading for the study of children and childhood.

Reference Works for Social Policy and Social Work

International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences

This second edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, first published in 2001,discusses history, current trends and future directions. Topics are cross-referenced with related topics and each article highlights further reading

Oxford Bibliographies Online: Sociology

A great starting point for research in sociology, this scholar-curated reference tool combines the best features of an annotated bibliography with a high-level encyclopedia. Articles provide authoritative guides to the key literature and current scholarship of core sociology topics. Includes annotated listings of the best articles and books in each area.

International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

Covers scholarship and fields that have emerged and matured since the publication of the original international edition. Highlights the expanding influence of economics in social science research and features new articles and biographies contributed by scholars from around the world on a wide array of global topics in the social sciences.

International Encyclopedia of Social Policy

This title offers an in-depth treatment of all aspects of the discipline and practice of social policy globally. Supported by a distinguished international advisory board, the editors have compiled almost 900,000 words across 734 entries written by 284 leading specialists to provide authoritative coverage of concepts, policy actors, welfare institutions and services along a series of national, regional and transnational dimensions.

Sage Knowledge

SAGE Knowledge hosts thousands of carefully selected titles by world-class authors and editors on hot topics across the social sciences. The platform also includes hundreds of reference titles, providing students with the perfect place to start their research.