Social Work And Social Change

Social Change and Social Work discusses and examines how social work is challenged by social, political and economic tendencies going on in current societies. The authors ask how social work as a discipline and practice is encountering global and local transformations. Divided into three parts, topics covered include the changing social work mandate throughout history; social work paradigms and theoretical considerations; phenomenological social work; practice research; and gender and generational research. Taken together, the chapters in this anthology provide an authoritative and up-to-date overview of current discussions within the European social work research community.

This social work book is the first of its kind, describing practical steps that social workers can take to shape and influence both policy and politics. It prepares social workers and social work students to impact political action and subsequent policy, with a detailed real-world framework for turning ideas into concrete goals and strategies for effecting change. Tracing the roots of social work in response to systemic social inequality, it clearly relates the tenets of social work to the challenges and opportunities of modern social change. The book identifies the core domains of political social work, including engaging individuals and communities in voting, influencing policy agendas, and seeking and holding elected office. Chapters elaborate on the necessary skills for political social work, featuring discussion, examples, and critical thinking exercises in such vital areas as: Power, empowerment, and conflict: engaging effectively with power in political settings. Getting on the agenda: assessing the political context and developing political strategy. Planning the political intervention: advocacy and electoral campaigns. Empowering voters Persuasive political communication. Budgeting and allocating resources. Evaluating political social work efforts. Making ethical decisions in political social work. Political Social Work is a potent reference for social work professionals, practitioners, and students seeking core political knowledge and skills to practically advance their work. For specialists and generalists alike, it solidifies political action as vital for the evolution of the field.

Social Theory, Social Change and Social Work has two inter-related themes. First to account for and analyse current changes in social work and secondly, to assess how far recent developments in social theory can contribute to their interpretation. Representing the work of a range of academics all involved in research and teaching in relation to social work, it considers issues of central significance to everyone interested in the theory, policy, and practice of social work.

The issues of poverty, inequality, racial injustice, and climate change have never been more pressing or paralyzing. Current approaches to social change, which rely on linear thinking and traditional power dynamics to 'solve' social problems, are not helping. In fact, they may only beentrenching the status quo.Systemic social challenges produce bewildering results when we try to solve them due to their complexity, scale, and depth. While strategies to tackle complexity and scale have received significant attention and investment, challenges that arise from deeply-held beliefs, values, and assumptions thatno longer serve us well have been largely overlooked. This book draws on stories of committed social changemakers to uncover a set of principles and practices for social change that dramatically depart from the industrial approach. Rather than delivering solutions or being lured by grander visionsof 'systems change', these principles and practices focus on the process of change itself. Simple yet profound, these stories distil a timely set of lessons for leaders, scholars, and policymakers on how connection, context, and power sit at the heart of the change process, ensuring broader agencyfor people and communities while building social systems that are responsive in a rapidly-changing world.

Originally published in 1964, this book studies social work in relation to the evolving role of social workers in the social services and to their training at the time. Dr Younghusband considers past discoveries and setbacks insofar as they bear upon the present position, and she studies the present for the light it casts on the future. Her emphasis is upon the new situation created as knowledge advances and the social services become increasingly aware of personal problems and social disabilities. The contribution of social work to mental health is indeed a continuing theme throughout this book. There are chapters on the juvenile courts; and a section on international aspects in which the philosophy of social work and its contribution to social change are discussed. At the time of publication the author was Adviser on Social Work Training at the National Institute for Social Work Training, and President of the International Association of Schools for Social Work. She had also been for some twenty-five years chairman of a London Juvenile Court and was chairman of the Working Party on Social Workers in the Local Authority Health and Welfare Services (Ministry of Health). She had been from time to time a Social Affairs Consultant to the United Nations and was a lecturer at the London School of Economics. To social workers, whether active at the time, or in training, she would have needed no introduction and they will have welcomed a book incorporating her immense experience and all the originality and clarity of thought they had learned to expect from her.

This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to discuss issues which the social work and social welfare sectors face every day and to ensure a closer link between evidence-based practice, policy objectives and social development goals. Furthermore, this book reveals how these may affect the conditions of people and demonstrate how the social work and social development community can contribute to sustainable development.

Help change the world by bringing ideas of social justice into your group work practice! Social workers who use hip-hop music to reach out to troubled adolescents. Practitioners who compare First Nations talking circles with social work practice with groups. A retired professor who transforms the way her fellow senior living center residents participate in their world. Fathers of children with spina bifida who help one another through an online discussion group. These and other examples you’ll discover in Social Work with Groups: Social Justice Through Personal, Community, and Societal Change will help you to assist groups to gain a sense of empowerment and create change in their own lives and communities. In Social Work with Groups: Social Justice Through Personal, Community, and Societal Change you’ll also find: definitions of social justice within the context of social work a proposal to help focus on social justice in teaching guidelines for group facilitators making decisions about self-disclosure studies of innovative group work discussion of the challenges to achieving social justice in group work valuable ways to ground social group work in rich cultural traditions This new book rides the crest of the growing wave of justice in social work with groups. Culled from the proceedings of the 22nd International Symposium of the Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups, it gives you the innovations and current thinking of professionals who, while coming from different cultural and professional backgrounds, are focused on helping all people enjoy the same rights and opportunities. If you want to use group work to challenge social inequality, Social Work with Groups will be a welcome addition to your library. Social action that gets results has to start somewhere—let it begin with you!

The social work profession calls on its members to strive for social justice. It asks aspiring and practicing social workers to advocate for political change and take part in political action on behalf of marginalized people and groups. Yet this macro goal is often left on the back burner as the day-to-day struggles of working directly with clients take precedence. And while most social workers have firsthand knowledge of how public policy neglects or outright harms society’s most vulnerable, too few have training in the political processes that created these policies. This book is a concise, accessible guide to help social workers understand how politics and policy making really work—and what they can do to help their clients and their communities. Helping readers develop sustainable strategies at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, this book is a hands-on manual to contemporary American politics, showing social workers and social work students how to engage in effective activism. Stephen Pimpare, a political scientist with extensive experience as a social work practitioner and instructor, offers informed, practical grounding in the mechanics of policy making and the tools that activists and outsiders can use to take on an entrenched system. He distills key research and insights from political science and related disciplines into a practical resource for social work students, instructors, and practitioners looking to deepen their policy knowledge and capacity to achieve change.

Creating Change in Social Work Practice: Four Essential Tools is strategically designed to help readers hone their ability to understand and create change within their social work practice. The text employs the Knowledge, Ability, and Skill model to assist readers in conceptualizing, envisioning, and creating change. Readers learn to identify the various stages in the process of creating change, as well as how to handle the challenges of change and plan appropriate treatment for change. Each chapter explores the history and efficacy of a featured tool, underscores its unique components and characteristics, provides readers with activities to develop their ability to use the tool, and offers assessments to ensure they know how to effectively exercise all of the pieces of the tool. The specific tools introduced throughout the text include: the conceptualization of change using the Transtheoretical Model to understand behavioral change; creating change using the Solution-Focused Approach; combating challenges to change through Motivational Interviewing; and finally, treatment planning for change. The closing chapter consists of advanced case studies and activities designed to build upon the ability gained from each chapter and foster mastery of the tools. Creating Change in Social Work Practice is an ideal supplementary text for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in the discipline. Practitioners in the field can also utilize this text to enhance and strengthen their personal practice. Philip Mongan is an associate professor of social work and the graduate coordinator of the Master of Social Work Program at Radford University.

This unique and timely book, edited by Michael J. Austin, introduces and connects social justice to the core values of social work across the curriculum. It presents the history and philosophy that supports social justice and ties it to ethical concepts that will help readers understand social justice as a core social work value. The book further conveys the importance of amplifying client voice; explores organization-based advocacy; and describes how an understanding of social justice can inform practice and outlines implications for education and practice.