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"The introductory chapter sets the stage for understanding the role, responsibilities, and all other relevant information necessary for the success of school social workers within the public school setting. The chapter begins with a review of the key concepts related to the practice of school social work. It also discusses enduring practice tensions, policy domains that influence practice, seven domains of knowledge, values, and skills relevant to the success of new school social workers. Described school social work roles and factors that shape these roles is examined. Finally, the chapter discusses the importance and use of student and school assessments"-- Provided by publisher.
"Grand challenges" represent a focused method of attacking the most deeply significant problems of a discipline, organization, or society itself. Since the concept was first introduced over a century ago, more than 600 governments, foundations, and professions subsequently adopted this language and approach, often to excellent effect. In 2012, the social work profession launched its own national initiative, with aim of using science, innovation, and new forms of collaboration to accelerate progress toward critically needed social solutions. There was also strong corollary interest in changing the profession itself, introducing new forms of practice and problem-solving. The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare served as the first home of the Grand Challenges initiative in social work; in 2017, as the initiative grew more complex, it became an independent organization"-- Provided by publisher.
"We the People: Social Protest Movements and the Shaping of American Democracy uses a historical and contemporary focus to demonstrate the integral role that social protest movements play in challenging social and structural inequality along the intersecting axis of identity politics, socioeconomic status and ability, and why social protest movements should matter to social workers. The book examines how social protest movements influence progressive social policy and elucidates the social conditions that give rise to protest, how protest creates social movements, and the functions and goals of social protest movements. By exploring various theoretical perspectives, it brings a historical and contemporary lens to the examination of social protest movements and elucidates the critical role that social protest movements play in American democracy. With a discussion of emerging trends and the future of social protest movements, We the People explains and offers strategies for both students and social workers to develop the skills to think critically and take part in social protest movements as policy practitioners"-- Provided by publisher.
"Understanding statistical concepts is essential for social work professionals. However, the statistics textbooks available for social work students do not demonstrate the practicality and immediate application of statistics across the range of roles and contexts in which social workers serve. This concise and approachable introduction limits its coverage to the concepts most relevant to social workers. Statistics in Social Work guides students through concepts and procedures from descriptive statistics and correlation to hypothesis testing and inferential statistics. Besides presenting key concepts, it focuses on real-world examples that students will encounter in a social work practice. Using concrete examples from a variety of potential social work concentrations and populations of interest, the book creates clear connections between theory and practice--and demonstrates the important contributions statistics can make to evidence-based and rigorous social work practice"-- Provided by publisher.
This book tells stories of just how powerful social work can be. At its heart are stories drawn from frontline practice, ranging from first interviews through to complex decision-making. Along the way, we meet the social worker who assessed a cat (though for all the right reasons). We witness the cost of failing to protect the rights of adults, exemplified in the tragic death of Connor Sparrowhawk. We also see the transformations that can happen when social workers really get it right - as in the case of Peter, whose love of balloons led them to feature in his care plan. These stories from practice are combined with guidance and reflective exercises to offer valuable practice wisdom and learning for new and experienced social workers alike. By turns funny, wise and moving, this book articulates the personal and professional qualities needed to practice rights-based social work. It reveals the potential of the profession to make a difference to the lives of individuals and to communities. - summary provided by OCLC
"This collection of case studies that model LGBTQ+ affirmative social work practice offers real-life scenarios from a range of social work scholars, educators, and practitioners, representing diverse sexualities, genders, and intersectional identities. Together, they demonstrate contemporary, multi-level, queer-affirming social work practice with LGBTQ+ people and communities. These fourteen case studies follow social workers across the country on their quest for quality service provision for vulnerable populations. Chapters explore issues such as finding trans-affirming care for teens, methamphetamine abuse among elderly gay men, previously exploited teens reentering foster care, navigating nonmonogamous relationships, and more. Each chapter offers concrete, comparative case formulation that depicts culturally responsive work with LGBTQ+ people by LGBTQ+ social workers. These diverse vignettes showcase a range of life experiences and explore how factors like religion, age, and immigration status affect social work practice. The case studies in this volume integrate best-practice standards and interventions, social work ethics and competencies, and clinical and critical theories. Queer Social Work is a progressive pedagogical tool that provides a forum for marginalized communities and individuals as well as the committed practitioners who serve them."-- Provided by publisher.
"A book on a controversial topic such as U.S. state sanctioned violence questions many of our basic assumptions we hold true. The importance of violence is well attested to by Oxford University Press devoting a Book Series on Interpersonal Violence. However, state sanctioned violence in the U.S. is not, for example. The saying "The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable" comes to mind in writing this book because it holds personal meaning for me that goes beyond being a social worker and a person of color (Latinx). The basic premise and interconnectedness of the themes in this book were reinforced and expanded in the course of writing. Bonilla-Silva (2019, p. 14) states "We are living, once again, in strange racial times," and yes, indeed, we are. My hope is that readers appreciate the numerous threads between themes, some of which have not gotten close attention by the general public and scholars. Harris and Hodge (2017), for example, adeptly interconnect environmental, food, and school-to-pipeline among urban youth of color, illustrating how oppressions converge. Future scholarship will connect even more dots to create the mosaic that constitutes state sanctioned violence. I was relieved to see the extent of scholarship on the topics addressed in this book. Bringing to together this literature, public reports, and the experiences from those currently dealing with state sponsored violence, allowed for a consistent narrative to unfold. Writing a book is always a process of discovery. There is a body of scholarship to buttress the central arguments of this book, but no such literature addressing the structural interconnectedness of the types of state sanctioned violence for social work. The socio-political interactional consequences of place, time, people, and events, sets a social-political context that is understood by social workers and makes our mission distinctive because of this grounding. Viewing state sanctioned violence, including its laws and policies, within this prism allows us to develop a vision or charge that can unite us, as well as a deeper commitment to working with oppressed groups in seeking social justice. Social work is not exempt from having a role in state sanctioned violence. We only to delve into the profession's history and evolution to appreciate how we have reinforced a state sanctioned violence agenda, wittingly or unwittingly. Practice is never apolitical; they either support a state sanctioned violence narrative or resist it with counter-narratives. Social work must be vigilant of how we support state violence. Practice is never apolitical; they either support a state sanctioned violence narrative or resist it with counter-narratives"-- Provided by publisher.
Approximately 2.4 million Black youth participate in after-school programs, which offer a range of support, including academic tutoring, college preparation, political identity development, cultural and emotional support, and even a space to develop strategies and tools for organizing and activism. In Reclaiming Community, Bianca Baldridge tells the story of one such community-based program, Educational Excellence (EE), shining a light on both the invaluable role youth workers play in these spaces, and the precarious context in which such programs now exist. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, Baldridge persuasively argues that the story of EE is representative of a much larger and understudied phenomenon. With the spread of neoliberal ideology and its reliance on racism—marked by individualism, market competition, and privatization—these bastions of community support are losing the autonomy that has allowed them to embolden the minds of the youth they serve. Baldridge captures the stories of loss and resistance within this context of immense external political pressure, arguing powerfully for the damage caused when the same structural violence that Black youth experience in school, starts to occur in the places they go to escape it. - summary provided by EBSCO
"Evidence-based policymaking has, in recent decades, become a focus of program innovation in social care, engaging foundations, universities, as well as state and federal governments. Rigorous research, epitomized by Randomized Controlled Trials, have become the benchmark for demonstrating efficacy and efficiency in social programming. Building Better Social Programs situates evidence-based policymaking with respect to the welfare state, describes key organizations driving the evidence-based movement, and proposes innovations designed to extend benefits to the working-class. Interviews with leaders in the movement animate the discussion. Building Better Social Programs will be essential reading for faculty, program managers, foundation program officers, and research students"-- Provided by publisher.
"The introduction provides an orientation to the themes of this book including its educational purposes, the nature of the social worker/client relationship, the role of evidence-based practice in determining practice interventions, and the ways in which case illustrations will be used throughout the book to help readers process the book's themes"-- Provided by publisher.
"Today, more than 200,000 men and women over age fifty are languishing in prisons around the United States. It is projected that by 2030, one-third of all incarcerated individuals will be older adults. An already overcrowded and underserved prison system is straining to manage the needs of incarcerated older adults with growing frailty and health concerns. Separated from their families and communities despite a low risk of recidivism, incarcerated older adults represent a major social-justice issue that reveals the intersectional factors at play in their imprisonment. How do the people aging in prison understand their life experiences? In Aging Behind Prison Walls, Tina Maschi and Keith Morgen offer a data-driven and compassionate analysis of the lives of incarcerated older people. They explore the transferable resiliencies and coping strategies used by incarcerated aging adults to make meaning of their lives before, during, and after imprisonment. The book draws on extensive quantitative and qualitative research as well as national datasets. It features rich narrative case studies that present stories of trauma, coping, and well-being. Based on the data, Maschi and Morgen present a solution-focused caring-justice framework in order to understand and transform the individual- and community-level structural factors that have led to and perpetuate the aging-in-prison crisis. They offer concrete proposals-at the community and national policy levels-to address the pressing issues of incarcerated elders"-- Provided by publisher.
"Gun violence is a national threat and no more so than in the nation's urban communities, particularly taking its toll on people of color. Urban violence focused self-help organizations are vehicles for the dead to speak to us, and let us not forget that they once lived among us. These voices get captured and amplified through these organizations - their family become our family. The headlines their deaths created are not allowed to get relegated to history and continue to live giving meaning to a profound social justice cause. This book honors those who have died and continuing to give voice to their lives and preventing others from joining this chorus. The theme that we must forgive ourselves before we can forgive the offender is strong and pervasive among those who are survivors and engaged in self-help initiatives"-- Provided by publisher.
"Social workers engage with sex and sexuality in all kinds of practice settings and with a variety of client populations. However, conversations about healthy sexuality and sexual well-being are all but absent from social work literature, education, and practice. Many social work professionals have internalized sociocultural taboos about talking about sexuality and tend to avoid the topic in their practice. This book provides an overview of key sexuality-related topics for social workers from a sex-positive perspective, which encourages agency in sexual decision making and embraces consensual sexual activity as healthy and to be enjoyed without stigma or shame. It discusses a wide range of topics including physiology, sexual and gender identity, sex in older adulthood, BDSM and kink; nonmonogamous and polyamorous relationships, and ethical considerations, including erotic transference. The book is designed to embolden social workers to engage discussions of sexuality with clients and to provide an opportunity for self-reflection and professional growth. Accessible to students as well as social workers and mental-health professionals at all levels, Sex-Positive Social Work emphasizes the relationship between sexual well-being and overall well-being, giving social workers the tools to approach sex and sexuality actively and positively with clients. - Provided by publisher.
This textbook was created to provide an introduction to research methods for BSW and MSW students, with particular emphasis on research and practice relevant to students at the University of Texas at Arlington. It provides an introduction to social work students to help evaluate research for evidence-based practice and design social work research projects. It can be used with its companion, A Guidebook for Social Work Literature Reviews and Research Questions by Rebecca L. Mauldin and Matthew DeCarlo, or as a stand-alone textbook.
Supervision and Professional Development in Social Work Practice aims to familiarize its readers with the current state of supervision in social work, provide them a common platform for reflection and action and thereby promote excellence in their respective learning, research and professional practice areas. It incorporates contributions by scholars, practitioners and students from various backgrounds, professional disciplines and countries. The ideas, concepts and practice frameworks discussed in this book are useful in any human service context. However, they need to be adapted with cultural sensitivity and appropriate levels of consultation and guidance to effectively challenge prevalent practice frameworks and support the embracing of new ideas to enhance professional and authentic engagement. The book utilizes several research studies, views, experiences and reflections, and includes numerous Voices from the Field, which provide diverse perspectives and viewpoints as well as practical help. This book will prove indispensable for academicians, practitioners, supervisors and supervisees as well as postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students of social work, counselling, psychology and education. - summary provided by EBSCO
