Social Work – serie

This reference work collates academic discourses and practices around family, gender, and violence in social work. A huge body of discourse is available that categorizes and labels acts of violence, and correspondingly practices that pin blame/responsibility for the violence. These have led to evolution of intervention strategies to resolve or address the violence. Some explanations foreground systemic causes; others look at person-centric causes. The two views bring forth the fundamental ontological divide of structuralism and individualism. The question for social workers to debate is what to factor in while working with families experiencing violence and conflict. What amongst the person, the agency, or the structure needs to be addressed to understand the experience of families in conflict and violence? Are these positions supplementary, complementary, or to be understood reflexively? With the inclusion of new families, the parochial understanding of families has long been dislodged and given way to newer, radical, and contextual understanding of families. Similarly, different people, agencies, and states understand violence and conflict differently. Gender, too, has moved from the binaries of male and female to the gender-diverse LGBTQIA+ identities. The book positions the ontological premise on which the epistemological practise is located. Simply put, the person-centric ontology on families and violence epistemologically finds understanding in agency-based approaches in individual agency, whereas the structure-based approaches find the experience of families and violence in society, state, and the world order. The contributors locate their work around identification, definition, an intervention or empirical study, policy analysis, historical evolution of concepts, and ontological and paradigmatic debates to position their individual chapters.Family and Gendered Violence and Conflict: Pan-Continent Reach provides a paradigmatic prism for practice for social workers who are equipped to interpret context differently. The differing and competing paradigmatic lenses cannot be mediated, resolved, or addressed, but they definitely can be understood and debated to provide a 360-degree lens on the issues of families in violence in the gendered context. The reference work is a useful resource for social work practitioners, educators, academicians, researchers, and other development professionals.

This book brings together leaders in the field of community practice and social development in social work.  The chapters discuss the implications of social development in social work practice, policy, and service structures.

This book showcases current thinking on social work in the field of mental health and illness from a bio-ecological and spiritual framework reflecting the transition in mental health care from institution to community. The book presents a valuable tool for understanding theories on aetiology and social work interventions in mental health from varying socio-cultural, economic and political contexts. Topics covered include: the values and ethics of social work practice in mental health; psycho-social theories on mental health and illness, including psychological perspective and the structural/ social development perspective; social work approaches in working with individuals, families and communities; contextualized social work practice in mental health with a specific population group or community;  structural factors such as legal provision and financial challenges in mental health and illness; and new directions in social work and mental health.

This reference work addresses the ideas that shape social work. Much of the social work literature addresses questions of theory and ethics separately, so that the body of thought that is represented in social work scholarship and research creates a distinction between them. However, the differences between these categories of thought can be somewhat arbitrary. This volume goes beyond this simple separation of categories. Although it recognises that questions of theory and ethics may be addressed distinctly, the connections between them can be made evident and drawn out by analysing them alongside each other.Social work's use and development of theory can be understood in two complementary ways. First, theory from the social sciences and other disciplines can be applied for social work; second, considered, systematic examinations of practice have enabled theory to be developed out of social work. These different approaches are usually referred to as 'theory for practice' and 'practice theory'. The advancement of social work theory occurs often through the interplay between these two dimensions, through research and scholarship in the field.Similarly, social work ethics draw on principles and concepts that have their roots in philosophical inquiry and also involve applied analysis in the particular issues with which social workers engage and their practices in doing so. In this way social work contributes to wider debates through advancement of its own perspectives and knowledge gained through practice.Social Work Theory and Ethics: Ideas in Practice offers a unique approach by bringing together the complementary dimensions of theory with each other and at the same time with ethical research and scholarship. It presents an analysis of the ideas of social work in a way that enables connections between them to be identified and explored. This reference is essential reading for social work practitioners, researchers, policy-makers, academics and students, as well as an invaluable resource for universities, research institutes, government ministries and departments, major non-governmental organisations, and professional associations of social work.

This book provides a review of up-to-date theoretical and research findings in child and family social work. It is part of Springer’s Major Research Works series, with a focus on Social Work. It presents a critical analysis of emerging policy and methods of intervention for child and family wellbeing, resilience building, safeguarding and child protection, including global trends in childcare reform. Other areas of focus include, out of home care, family reintegration as well as recent debates around institutional care of children. Global policy developments and how these are transforming the way children are cared for in different parts of the world are discussed, including critical questions around social norms, interculture and cross-cultural issues, indigenist perspectives, ethics and values in social work with children and families. Chapters are drawn from experts in different parts of the world to provide a rich representation of varied perspectives on research and scholarshipin this field and demonstrate the implications for social work practice and policy developments.