Janet L. Finn – författare

Just Practice: A Social Justice Approach to Social Work provides a foundation for critical and creative social work that integrates theory, history, ethics, skills, and rights to respond to the complex terrain of 21st century social work. Just Practice puts the field of social work's expressed commitment to social justice at center stage with a framework that builds upon five key concepts: meaning, context, power, history, and possibility. How do wegive meaning to the experiences and conditions that shape our lives? What are the contexts in which those experiences and conditions occur? How do structures and relations of power shape people's lives and the practice of social work? How might a historical perspective help us to grasp the ways in which strugglesover meaning and power have played out and to better appreciate the human consequences of those struggles? Taken together, these concepts provide a guide for integrative social work that bridges direct practice and community building.The text prepares readers with the theoretical knowledge and practice skills to address the complex challenges of contemporary social work from direct practice with individuals and families, to group work, organizational and community change, and policy analysis and advocacy. Each chapter includes learning activities, reflection moments, practice examples, and the stories and voices of practitioners and service users to engage students as critical thinkers and practitioners. The authorencourages teachers and students alike to take risks, move from safe, familiar, pedagogical spaces and practices, challenge assumptions, and embrace uncertainty.

The Just Practice Framework in Action presents a collection of case studies illustrating the integration of social justice into social work practice from the most intimate spaces of individual, clinical practice to macro-level advocacy and community building. The contributors to this volume offer detailed accounts of how they have brought the Just Practice framework to inform and transform their practice as clinicians, researchers, advocates,organizers, and educators. Their stories bring the framework to life, illustrating its potential for transformative social work practice. Each case illustration in this text speaks to the nuances of meaning that shape practice; social workers' navigation of complex power relations; the historical, cultural, political, organizational, and community contexts of social work; and the possibilities and constraints social workers have faced. Contributors address housing rights and homelessness, refugee resettlement, neighborhood gentrification, Indigenous rights, and immigration. They explore campus and community action around issuesof food security, mental health care, disability rights, and water as a human right. Their accounts offer grounded insights into challenges and possibilities of social justice-oriented social work that both strengthen and inform the Just Practice framework.

The Just Practice Framework in Action presents a collection of case studies illustrating the integration of social justice into social work practice from the most intimate spaces of individual, clinical practice to macro-level advocacy and community building. The contributors to this volume offer detailed accounts of how they have brought the Just Practice framework to inform and transform their practice as clinicians, researchers, advocates, organizers, and educators. Their stories bring the framework to life, illustrating its potential for transformative social work practice. Each case illustration in this text speaks to the nuances of meaning that shape practice; social workers' navigation of complex power relations; the historical, cultural, political, organizational, and community contexts of social work; and the possibilities and constraints social workers have faced. Contributors address housing rights and homelessness, refugee resettlement, neighborhood gentrification, Indigenous rights, and immigration. They explore campus and community action around issues of food security, mental health care, disability rights, and water as a human right. Their accounts offer grounded insights into challenges and possibilities of social justice-oriented social work that both strengthen and inform the Just Practice framework.

Social workers today not only face competing claims concerning the rights and needs of children and youth, but they also confront contradictions between policy and practice. Social workers are expected to fight for the best interests of the child, even though financial support for children's welfare and education grows scarce. They are asked to save "children at risk," while, at the same time, they are urged to protect communities from "risky children"; and they are encouraged to "leave no child behind," while also implementing "zero tolerance" policies to keep educational environments free from troubled youth. A cutting-edge text that deals directly with the confusion and complexity of modern child welfare, Childhood, Youth, and Social Work in Transformation features contributions from a truly interdisciplinary group of practitioners, scholars, and activists. Examining the theoretical, political, and practical aspects of working with youth today, this volume breaks free from existing modes of thought and strategies of practice and prompts readers to critically reflect on accepted approaches and new possibilities of action.Contributors analyze how economic, political, and cultural changes over the last several decades have reshaped the experiences and representations of children and youth in the United States. They examine conceptions of troubled children and youth in contemporary policies and programs and assess why certain discourses about troubling youth are so compelling to professionals, policymakers, and the public. In conclusion, these skilled professionals explore the reinvention of social work policy and practice, including the need to forge relationships that respect the experiences, rights, and personhood of children and youth.

This tale of two cities--Butte, Montana, and Chuquicamata, Chile--traces the relationship of capitalism and community across cultural, national, and geographic boundaries. Combining social history with ethnography, Janet Finn shows how the development of copper mining set in motion parallel processes involving distinctive constructions of community, class, and gender in the two widely separated but intimately related sites. While the rich veins of copper in the Rockies and the Andes flowed for the giant Anaconda Company, the miners and their families in both places struggled to make a life as well as a living for themselves. Miner's consumption, a popular name for silicosis, provides a powerful metaphor for the danger, wasting, and loss that penetrated mining life. Finn explores themes of privation and privilege, trust and betrayal, and offers a new model for community studies that links local culture and global capitalism.

This tale of two cities—Butte, Montana, and Chuquicamata, Chile—traces the relationship of capitalism and community across cultural, national, and geographic boundaries. Combining social history with ethnography, Janet Finn shows how the development of copper mining set in motion parallel processes involving distinctive constructions of community, class, and gender in the two widely separated but intimately related sites. While the rich veins of copper in the Rockies and the Andes flowed for the giant Anaconda Company, the miners and their families in both places struggled to make a life as well as a living for themselves.Miner''s consumption, a popular name for silicosis, provides a powerful metaphor for the danger, wasting, and loss that penetrated mining life. Finn explores themes of privation and privilege, trust and betrayal, and offers a new model for community studies that links local culture and global capitalism.This tale of two cities—Butte, Montana, and Chuquicamata, Chile—traces the relationship of capitalism and community across cultural, national, and geographic boundaries. Combining social history with ethnography, Janet Finn shows how the development of co