Empowering Practice

This innovative and timely book examines the nature and meaning of 'empowerment' in child welfare and protection, using the family group conference (FGC) approach to decision making as an example. In response to the growing clamour for 'evidence-based practice', the book addresses the central question of how the idea of empowerment can be operationalised and evaluated. One of the aims of FGCs is to empower children and their families by enabling them more effectively to participate in the decision-making process and by affording them greater control over the outcomes of that process. Empowering practice? critically assesses the available evidence on the empowerment potential of FGCs and examines the implications of the approach for professionals, their agencies and the children and families involved. Empowering practice? is essential reading for academics and professionals working in a wide range of health, education and social care areas.

This book provides a simple exposition of the concepts and value-base underpinning community care policy and practice. Written in a jargon-free style, it goes beyond the how-to approach of much of the existing social care literature and examines the principles and values on which professionals involved in welfare provision base their work.

A fundamental, reader-friendly guide to evidence-based practice (EBP) for BSN, MSN, and DNP nursing students, Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing explains the conceptual underpinnings of EBP and demonstrates how nurses can put EBP concepts into practice. Replete with critical knowledge, skills, tools, and scholarly development to enable nurses to fully and confidently deliver the highest-quality EBP care, this book eschews a one-size-fits-all approach unique systematic guidelines for understanding and applying EBP. Building blocks of information grow progressively more complex to apply to any point along nursing’s academic trajectory. Thoughtfully organized to fit a variety of EBP-related course objectives, Evidence Based Practice in Nursing easily adapts for standalone EBP courses at any level as well as advanced practice specialty courses that integrate EBP content. This book addresses the needs of all nursing instructors, including those who teach at multiple levels simultaneously. Key content discusses requisite conceptual knowledge of EBP for building clinical decision-making skills; conceptualizing, implementing, and evaluating EBP projects; conducting translational research and quality improvement for implementation and evaluation of EBP; developing leadership and structural empowerment strategies; and analyzing how students at each degree/level work with EBP independently, inter-professionally, and intraprofessionally. Chapters align with AACN essentials. Key Features: Follows a methodical systematic trajectory building from simple to complex concepts Includes abundant examples demonstrating both negative and positive EBP applications Enables instructors to adopt one textbook for BSN, MSN, and DNP students Includes practical design templates for developing EBP information plans with critical guideposts Provides a quality improvement toolkit, key words and concepts, illustrative tables, and figures

This book integrates time-honored approaches to empowerment practice with today's more modest goals, mindful of what empowerment can and cannot do. Synthesizing several theoretical supports--the strengths perspective, system theory, theories of family well-being, and theories of coping--the author responds to the question "What works?" with today's families in need. Practice illustrations are provided throughout.

The early 1960s were a heady time for Catholic laypeople. Pope Pius XII’s assurance “You do not belong to the Church. You are the Church” emboldened the laity to challenge Church authority in ways previously considered unthinkable. Empowering the People of God offers a fresh look at the Catholic laity and its relationship with the hierarchy in the period immediately preceding the Second Vatican Council and in the turbulent era that followed. This collection of essays explores a diverse assortment of manifestations of Catholic action, ranging from genteel reform to radical activism, and an equally wide variety of locales, apostolates, and movements.

• Details 30 progressive exercises to help clear, balance, and protect your energy field, release fears, and support you in daily life • Explores how to energetically cleanse and master your emotions and thoughts, balance your subtle energy bodies, and gain inner peace and calm • Explains for each exercise what it is useful for, how to tell the technique is working, and what you are developing through the practice, such as activating your pineal gland, charging up with prana energy, or protecting your system from energy vampires Sensitivity is a gift, once you discover how to embrace your unique nature fully. Understanding and experiencing your core essence is key to learning how not to be overwhelmed by the world. This experiential guide offers a gradually progressive series of 30 structured practices to help clear, balance, and protect your energy field, release fears, and allow you to gain lasting stability and equanimity in daily life. Focusing on energetic and emotional balance, the techniques help you work with your sensitivity and build protection for your subtle energy bodies and your subconscious mind, allowing you to balance your inner world. For each exercise you will know what the practice is useful for, how to tell that the technique is working, and what you are developing through the exercises, such as activating your pineal gland, charging up with prana energy, or protecting your system from energy vampires. Allowing sensitives to stop sacrificing important parts of their unique nature in order to fit in, this guide supports empaths to become more comfortable with their heightened awareness, protect their energetic systems, and embrace full participation in society, where their gifts are sorely needed.

"Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired. They are empowered to solve hard problems in ways their customers love yet work for their business. They are inspired with ideas and techniques for quickly evaluating those ideas to discover solutions that work: they are valuable, usable, feasible and viable. This book is about the idea and reality of "achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people". Empowered is the companion to Inspired. It addresses the other half of the problem of building tech products?how to get the absolute best work from your product teams. However, the book's message applies much more broadly than just to product teams. Inspired was aimed at product managers. Empowered is aimed at all levels of technology-powered organizations: founders and CEO's, leaders of product, technology and design, and the countless product managers, product designers and engineers that comprise the teams. This book will not just inspire companies to empower their employees but will teach them how. This book will help readers achieve the benefits of truly empowered teams"--

An empowerment-based generalist social work practice text which integrates core themes of the profession. This text is part of the Connecting Core Competencies Series. Generalist Social Work Practice, 7th edition, fully integrates core social work themes of collaboration, the strengths perspective, values and ethics, social justice and human rights, evidence-based practice, cultural competence, and policy practice. This text offers a progressive practice approach grounded in social work research, reflective of social work values, sensitive to client diversity, and applicable to work with any level of client system including individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Beginning with engaging clients as partners and continuing with assessing, intervening, and evaluating from a strengths perspective, this approach offers social workers a method that fully realizes core social work values, respects client competence, and activates client resources within the context of their lives. All parts of the practice process are described in detail, connected to social work theory, illustrated with case examples, and supported with evidence from social work research. Each chapter focuses on teaching the knowledge, values, and skills reflective of the core competencies and correlated practice behaviors as described in the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). A better teaching & learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience--for you and your students. Here's how: Improve Critical Thinking - Teaches students specific strategies to identify and use client strengths in their practice. Engage Students - Offers numerous case examples to apply the empowerment method to all levels of social work, with diverse clients and situations, and across fields of practice. Explore Current Issues - Includes new practice research findings and updates to demographics to ensure currency. Apply CSWE Core Competencies - The text integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS, with critical thinking questions and practice tests to assess student understanding and development of competency. Support Instructors - An Instructor's Manual and Test Bank, Computerized Test Bank (MyTest), BlackBoard Test Item File, and PowerPoint presentations are included in the outstanding supplements package.

This is the first textbook to address the specific but polymorphous needs of women of color. With the help of guest authors, Gutierrez and Lewis provide an excellent framework through which social workers can more effectively aid women of color in their ongoing struggle against systemic oppression.

′This book, written from an international perspective and thus eminently readable by a wider audience, draws on the author′s considerable experience and is amply supplied with a good range of illustrations from real-life practice...The logical structure and accessible style makes this a useful addition to the personal library of anyone who has an interest in "bottom-up" empowerment-based approaches to health promotion′ - RCN Research Headlines ′The author draws on a wealth of personal experiences in the field, giving the book both readability and credibility. Good examples from different international contexts, illustrated in relevant case studies, let the reader relate theory to practice and bring the concepts to life. The author takes the central thrust of health promotion for the past few decades and unravels it for the reader in a clear, comprehensive way′ - Health Matters In health promotion, the concept of power can be defined as the ability to create or resist change, and this is an important foundation for individual and community health. By enabling people to empower themselves, health promoters can provide the capacity for the individual or community to change their lives and their living conditions, and therefore their health. Health Promotion Practice explores the issue of how such an approach to health promotion practice can improve a community′s success towards achieving healthier conditions through its own actions. Placing empowerment at the heart of health promotion practice, and offering advice for health promoters who accept the challenge to work in such a way, Health Promotion Practice defines key concepts of health, health promotion and community empowerment. It also: Introduces readers to a ′social′ model of health promotion practice, one that attempts to get at the underlying social determinants of disease; Helps readers understand the importance of power relations and their transformation in this practice; Introduces readers to a new `community capacity-building′ approach to plan, implement and evaluate health promotion programmes. Health Promotion Practice is an invaluable resource to students and practitioners of health promotion who want to help empower the communities that they work with.