This work serves as an introduction to both the theoretical and practical aspects of using computers to improve the delivery of social services. Though many practitioners believe that computerization dehumanizes clients and should be avoided, John Murphy and John Pardeck demonstrate how, through a holistic approach to computer use, this problem, and others like it, can be averted. By providing practitioners the opportunity to sharpen their conceptual skills in computer technology, this book promotes a rational understanding of the possible uses and limitations of computers in social service agencies.

Unlike other, technically-oriented works in this field, Murphy and Pardeck's work focuses on the philosophical justification of computer use, along with the conceptual or symbolic nature of computerization. They fully illustrate how to create the organizational conditions necessary for computers to improve social-service delivery, and they do so in a manner that is easily accessible for both general classroom and professional use. Among the topics addressed are the technological world-view, Western philosophy, and knowledge; computer mediated therapy; ethical issues related to computerized service delivery; and construction of a socially responsible technology. This work will be a unique and important resource for courses in computer applications, policy analysis, and social service administration, as well as a useful reference source for human service agencies and practitioners. Public and academic libraries will also find it to be a valuable addition to their collections.

The papers gathered together in this collection show that neither the market nor the state alone offers solutions to efficiency and equity problems commonly encountered in social sectors in poor nations. Innovative ways to address these important problems are explored, favouring an integrative approach to social provision. This approach involves the efforts of many providers, and avoids the inefficiencies of public supply and the social exclusion of the market mechanism.

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This important sequel to Nordic Social Policy (Routledge 1999) compares welfare state development over the last twenty years in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden with that of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other Western European countries. Topics covered include:
* income distribution, health inequalities and gender equality
* gender policies, health and social care services and policy reaction to family changes
* social security and employment policies
* financing of welfare states.
In the context of globalisation, ageing populations, changing employment patterns and rising inequalities, Nordic Welfare States in the European Context offers an empirical analysis of welfare adaptations and a lively discussion of the historical development of European social policy. It finds a greater ambiguity regarding variation and trends than is commonly suggested. Contrary to expectation, there is little evidence of the Europeanisation of Nordic welfare states, rather the reverse. The comparable and empirical data used in this study make it a unique contribution to understanding current trends in European social policy.

This important sequel to Nordic Social Policy (Routledge 1999) compares welfare state development over the last twenty years in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden with that of Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and other Western European countries. Topics covered include:
* income distribution, health inequalities and gender equality
* gender policies, health and social care services and policy reaction to family changes
* social security and employment policies
* financing of welfare states.
In the context of globalisation, ageing populations, changing employment patterns and rising inequalities, Nordic Welfare States in the European Context offers an empirical analysis of welfare adaptations and a lively discussion of the historical development of European social policy. It finds a greater ambiguity regarding variation and trends than is commonly suggested. Contrary to expectation, there is little evidence of the Europeanisation of Nordic welfare states, rather the reverse. The comparable and empirical data used in this study make it a unique contribution to understanding current trends in European social policy.

In many areas of the welfare state, there is a growing emphasis on 'evidence-based policy and practice.' Against this background - in health care and social care - the contributions in this book provide a hard-hitting and deliberately provocative overview of: the relationship between evidence, policy, and practice; how policy is implemented; and how research can and should influence the policy process. Written by leading analysts and researchers, the book develops an alternative view of evidence-based policy and practice and the policy-making process, suggesting a more inclusive idea of 'knowledge-based practice.'

Public health in the early 21st century increasingly considers how social inequalities impact on individual health, moving away from the focus on how disease relates to the individual person. This 'new public health' identifies how social, economic and political factors affect the level and distribution of individual health, through their effects on individual behaviours, the social groups people belong to, the character of relationships to others and the characteristics of the societies in which people live. The rising social inequalities that can be seen in nearly every country in the world today present not just a moral danger, but a mortal danger as well."Social Inequality and Public Health" brings together the latest research findings from some of the most respected medical and social scientists in the world. It surveys four pathways to understanding the social determinants of health: differences in individual health behaviours; group advantage and disadvantage; psychosocial factors in individual health; and, healthy and unhealthy societies, shedding light on the costs and consequences of today's high-inequality social models. This exciting book brings together leaders in the field discussing their latest research and is a must-read for anyone interested in public health and social inequalities internationally.

Across Europe the importance of reconciling paid work and family life is increasingly recognised by a range of diverse government regulations and organisational initiatives. At the same time, employing organisations and the nature of work are undergoing massive and rapid changes, in the context of global competition, efficiency drives, as well as social and economic transformations in emerging economies. "Work, families and organisations in transition" illustrates how workplace practices and policies impact on employees' experiences of "work-life balance" in contemporary shifting contexts. Based upon cross-national case studies of public and private sector workplaces carried out in Bulgaria, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, this innovative book demonstrates the challenges that parents face as they seek to negotiate work and family boundaries. The case studies demonstrate that employed parents' needs and experiences depend on many layers of context - global, European, national, workplace and family. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of organisational psychology, sociology, management and business studies, human resource management, social policy, as well as employers, managers, trade unions and policy makers.

Through Social Work Practice in Home Health Care, social workers will discover a unique "how-to" approach to social work practice in home health care agencies. You will find a historical perspective on home health care and clinical interventions to help you improve home health care for your patients. A wide range of clients, such as the developmentally disabled, post-hospitalization patients, the physically disabled and chronically impaired of all ages, the mentally ill, the terminally ill, newborn infants and their mothers, abused older adults, and abused children are in need of appropriate services that lead to positive and helpful results. Through Social Work Practice in Home Health Care, you will discover how to tailor your practice to meet the needs of individual clients and improve their quality of life.Current and comprehensive, Social Work Practice in Home Health Care provides you with successful methods and suggestions to find resources that clients need in order to face certain life challenges, such as abuse, neglect, poverty, malnutrition, uninhabitable housing, dysfunctional family situations, sensory deprivation, isolation, caregiver stresses, and alcohol and drug abuse. This unique book offers you techniques that can be used with any client base, including: learning from the successes and failures of others through case studies of twelve home health care agencies understanding problem areas of home health care and how clinical interventions can be used to help you make a difference in challenging situations analyzing staffing trends and clinical patient care policies regarding social work services to better assist individuals and their families in identifying, resolving, or minimizing the problems that often accompany an illness screening your clients who are in need of social work interventions, such as individuals suffering from depression over an amputation or debilitating heart attack implementing educational programs that provide systemic knowledge about medicare to improve your services to the elderlySocial Work Practice in Home Health Care provides you with insightful information on everything from staffing, recruiting, and training home health care workers to obstacles that you may encounter, such as the lack of knowledge about social workers among physicians and the public, to help you provide better services to your clients. You will discover how to improve your skills in psychosocial assessment, counseling and decision making, discharge planning, community resources, and supervision to help you adjust your practice and offer positive and effective suggestions to each individual client.

'Street capital' introduces the worlds of young black men dealing cannabis at a drug scene called The River in Oslo, Norway. The lives of these men are structured by a huge and complex cannabis economy and they are involved in fights, robberies and substance abuse. They lack jobs and education, and many of them do not have family or close friends, yet they do have 'street capital': the knowledge, skills and competence necessary to manage life on the streets. Centred on this concept of 'street capital', this unique book presents a new theoretical framework - inspired by and expanding on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist - for understanding street cultures. It is based on extensive fieldwork and repeated in-depth interviews with dealers aged between 15 and 30, which explore themes including marginalisation, discrimination, cannabis dealing and drug use, violence, masculinity, hip-hop culture, experiences with the welfare system, and issues of immigration and racism. The book also analyses the discursive practice of marginalised people on the street and identifies the narratives by which these young men live.

Safety regulation is society's way of keeping the genie of technology in the bottle, whilst still exploiting its power for creating wealth and change. It is a difficult compromise to make. Regulators often have a thankless task. If all seems to go well they are painted as too repressive and anti-technological; if disaster strikes, the searchlight of media attention increasingly focuses on them, looking for lax enforcement, blind eyes being turned and cosy relations with the regulated. This title explores the dilemmas of the regulator through case studies presented by the regulators themselves and through research-based analyses from different disciplines of the workings of the regulators and the regulatory system. More importantly it surveys the tools available to resolve the dilemmas and asks what we know about their successes and shortcomings and what can be learned over the boundaries of industries and technologies about the principles of successful safety regulation. Chapters are written by authors from seven countries, with an international perspective. They examine the role of certification, safety cases, strictly enforced detailed rules, professional regulation and self-regulation. The text covers new risks such as those from medical devices and biotechnology, as well as the well-known fields of nuclear power, chemical plants, mining, oil and gas production, railways and the traditionally difficult area of small companies.

All over the world, families and communities are key providers of care and support. This is particularly true in relation to serious illnesses such as HIV and AIDS. Yet families and communities can also stigmatise their members, leaving people to die in the most appalling conditions. This book examines the diversity of family and community responses to HIV and AIDS. By examining contexts such as nuclear, extended and refugee family households, and gay community networks and structures, it offers insight into the factors which lead to positive responses and those which trigger negative ones.

Addressing contemporary issues faced by individuals with HIV/AIDS, AIDS and Mental Health Practice: Clinical and Policy Issues provides psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors with research and case studies that offers models for effective clinical practice at this stage of the epidemic. Each chapter is written by experts in the field and demonstrates ways to provide better services to different populations, many of whom are ignored in AIDS and mental health literature. As a result, this book will provide professionals in the field and students in training with the most current practice information about mental health practice and HIV/AIDS. AIDS and Mental Health Practice will help you understand the diverse needs of people with HIV/AIDS and organize services to assist these populations. AIDS and Mental Health Practice discusses issues that affect several different groups in order to help you understand the unique situations of your clients. You will learn how to design treatments that will be most beneficial to Latinos, intravenous drug users, orphaned children, African Americans, HIV-negative gay men, HIV nonprogressors, HIV-positive transsexuals, end-stage AIDS clients, couples of mixed HIV status, and individuals suffering from HIV-associated Cognitive Motor Disorder. This book provides you with approaches that will improve services for these populations, including: talking to patients about the positive and negative aspects of taking protease inhibitors and discussing their feelings of hope, skepticism, and fear of being disappointed by the treatment preparing clients to go back to work by exploring the meaning of work and referring them to vocational services if necessary providing support groups for people living with AIDS (PLWAs), their loved ones, their families, and individuals in bereavement as a result of an AIDS-related death organizing a HIV-negative gay men's support group that uses exercises and homework to focus on the members'ambivalent connection to the AIDS community, how they remain HIV negative, and ways to deal with separation and grief issues assessing and/or correcting underlying racism in AIDS service organizationsThe prevention and intervention strategies in Mental Health and AIDS Practice will help you address and treat mental health issues associated with HIV/AIDS and offer clients more effective and relevant services.

The Scandinavian welfare-state model is changing. This book presents these changes and an interpretation of why they have taken place. All scholars interested in welfare-state analysis need this book with its new and refreshing analysis of this specific model. This book provides a compelling and rigorous analysis, which by bringing scholars from different disciplines together, casts new light and insight into the Scandinavian model. It will stimulate discussion about the welfare state, and at the same time it will be of great value for all students in the field of welfare-state analysis.

The first fully-fledged ethnography on health-related issues to come out of contemporary Vietnam, this study of women's lives in a rural commune in Vietnam's Red River delta examines the impact of Vietnam's ambitious family planning policy on the health and lives of rural women.

Social Welfare Policy Analysis and Choices gives you a thorough introduction to social welfare policy analysis. The knowledge you'll gain from its pages will enable you to understand and evaluate individual policy issues and choices by exploring the possible choices, the effects and implications of each alternative choice, and the factors that influence each choice. Social Welfare Policy Analysis and Choices provides frameworks for making basic social policy choices and applying them to specific instances. You'll find its depth of insight into the larger framework in which social policy decisions are made--beliefs, values, and interests--and its historical perspective on current "new" issues unique and invaluable. The book's approach is to develop a framework for looking at the underlying issues, ideologies, social and economic forces, culture, and institutionalized inequalities that are constant within this changing mass. Specifically, SocialWelfare Policy Analysis and Choices provides frameworks for looking at beliefs about: human nature the nature of society ways of thinking values and the moral and ethical implications of those values roots of those values in religion, culture, historical traditions, myths, and rationalized self-interests The insight offered in Social Welfare Policy Analysis and Choices will allow you to determine your own positioning; understand for strategic purposes what direction opponents, potential allies, and others are coming from; and develop a priorities perspective to guide compromises when the optimum policy is not attainable.

The Economics of Education: A Comprehensive Overview, Second Edition, offers a comprehensive and current overview of the field of that is broadly accessible economists, researchers and students. This new edition revises the original 50 authoritative articles and adds Developed (US and European) and Developing Country perspectives, reflecting the differences in institutional structures that help to shape teacher labor markets and the effect of competition on student outcomes.

Praxis for the Poor puts the relationship of politics to scholarship front and center through an examination of the work of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward. Piven and Cloward proved that social science could inform social-policy politics in ways that helped energize a movement. Praxis for the Poor offers a critical reflection on their work and builds upon it, demonstrating how a more politically-engaged scholarship can contribute to the struggle for social justice.

Necessary reading for political scientists, sociologists, social workers, social welfare activists, policy-makers, and anyone concerned with the plight of the poor and oppressed, Praxis for the Poor shows how social science can play a role in building a better future for social welfare.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First book to use eight waves of Understanding Society longituidal data study to provide most comprehensive analysis to date of poverty and wealth distribution across the UK. 100 graphs and tables which present this information in a concise and readable form. Written by two academics whose work is regularly used by both the devolved Scottish government and at UK level e.g. their work was used in bring about universal provision of free school meals at primary level.

Addressing the multiple meanings of service integration, Human Services Integration analyzes how motivations and expectations for social service integration differ significantly among different players in the service system. In a period of major budget cutbacks and welfare reform, however, it is important that service providers collaborate to reduce or eliminate boundaries between categorically defined and provided services. This book tells you about the efforts being made to provide existing services more efficiently while avoiding duplication and waste. As you will quickly see, developing consensus for service integration efforts at the administrative, community, and staff levels will result in the ability to set achievable goals and objectives and secure cooperation at all levels.Human Services Integration covers practice principles for managing organizational and community change and offers strategies for organizing human service agencies and overcoming fragmented service integration in communities with complex problems and needs. To also help you identify specific service intergration activities that are relevant in the context of unique communities, it discusses: specifications for conducting a self-assessment of progress at the local level toward social service integration goals Georgia's Family Connection, a statewide human services initiative interweaving formal and informal systems of care in a community-centered approach to service integration a children s initiative collaborative social science theory pertinent to service integration gathering support from elected officials such as boards of supervisors, city leaders, and local elected boardsHuman Services Integration will help you understand why service integration cannot be defined by a particular service model or outcome. Its insight will also help you understand why involving service users and community members in the design and delivery of services is fundamental to developing an integrated service system that is culturally competent, empowering, and responsive to its neighborhood and community context.

This volume seeks to trace certain tendencies and developments in social policy in Western Europe and the United States. In the first, which is general, Professor Girod recalls the objectives of social policy as well as offering a number of scenarios or strategies for the future of social policy. The social policy philosophy of Schumpeter, Hayek and Roepke, and their current vitality, are traced by Professor de Luabier. Professor Delcourt, in his chapter on Social Policy - crisis or mutation?, presents a critical analysis of various trends in social policy and in particular the elitist philosophy of Hirschmann. The second part of the volume deals with particular national experiences: Switzerland by Professor Tschudi; Sweden by Dr. Hartmann; the United States by Professor Beneton; and Italy by Professor Donati. The book broadly covers the diverse range of subject matter encompassed within the term 'social policy' and should be of great value both to social policy practitioners as well as to those academics concerned with the fields of economics, sociology and political science.

Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era.