Mary Jo McVeigh – författare

Social work is constantly epistemically evolving and embracing diverse bodies of knowledge to inform its ontology and practice frameworks.Over the years, the impact of feminist, post-colonial, and queer theory, for example, has broadened the social work lens and invited a welcome departure from dominant Westernised, patriarchal, and positivist paradigms. However, the separation of the spiritual realm from casework, clinical, community, and group work traditions of social work remained steadfast. The last decade or so has seen forages into the issues of social work and spirituality. This examination into spirituality and social work has shown that for many service users, spiritual practices (be they religious or non-religious) are important in their lives and their way out of difficulties. Concurrently, relationships between socio-political movements and global religions have grown increasingly complex. To create a truly holistic approach to the needs of service users it is important that social work policy and practice give voice to these complexities and understand the place of spirituality within service delivery. This book critically reflects upon and discusses the intersecting role of spirituality in the lives of people who access social work services.By gathering contributions from people with lived experience, practitioners, and academics, this book will explore a comprehensive range of issues, opening the area of spirituality to current critical, socio-political, and cultural thought. It will be of interest to all social work scholars, students, and practitioners.

Social work is constantly epistemically evolving and embracing diverse bodies of knowledge to inform its ontology and practice frameworks.Over the years, the impact of feminist, post-colonial, and queer theory, for example, has broadened the social work lens and invited a welcome departure from dominant Westernised, patriarchal, and positivist paradigms. However, the separation of the spiritual realm from casework, clinical, community, and group work traditions of social work remained steadfast. The last decade or so has seen forages into the issues of social work and spirituality. This examination into spirituality and social work has shown that for many service users, spiritual practices (be they religious or non-religious) are important in their lives and their way out of difficulties. Concurrently, relationships between socio-political movements and global religions have grown increasingly complex. To create a truly holistic approach to the needs of service users it is important that social work policy and practice give voice to these complexities and understand the place of spirituality within service delivery. This book critically reflects upon and discusses the intersecting role of spirituality in the lives of people who access social work services.By gathering contributions from people with lived experience, practitioners, and academics, this book will explore a comprehensive range of issues, opening the area of spirituality to current critical, socio-political, and cultural thought. It will be of interest to all social work scholars, students, and practitioners.

Therapeutically Engaging Young Survivors of Violence, Exploitation, Abuse, and Neglect: A Critical Social Work Approach highlights that the current trauma model in social work, psychology and counselling with children and young people operates from a biomedical lens.This book argues that taken-for-granted notions of ‘child’ or ‘young person’, ‘maltreatment’, and ‘trauma’ are embedded within intervention and dictate the way professionals engage with young survivors. Using a critical social work lens to critique these notions by bringing together forty years of practice and research by the author, opens up the area of therapeutic intervention to current critical, socio-political, and cultural thought. Exploring the issue as a human right, mainly a child rights lens, while simultaneously intersecting this exploration with critical race, feminist, and post-colonial theorising, provides a socio-political underpinning to examine therapeutic intervention in children's and young people's lives. Weaving together the expertise of both young survivors and the author to provide insight into current therapeutic interventions, this book invites practitioners to critically reflect on how they engage with young citizens who have experienced violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Each chapter also includes questions for further reflection to help further discussion around the issues raised by the book.Ideal for course usage across Australia as well as internationally, this book will be of interest to all scholars, students and practitioners working in the fields of social work, psychology, and counselling.