This book captures the evolution of consumerism in the human services. By addressing the changing roles and contributions of consumers (those working within human service organizations and systems and those working outside of those organizations and systems) the author offers an encompassing framework of consumerism. This framework is multidimensional and incorporates multiple types and forms of consumerism. The author offers a rationale for consumerism in the human services, illustrates its evolution, and considers multiple perspectives and models culminating in policy considerations, including specific strategies. This book will equip consumers, survivors, practitioners, and policy makers with substantive knowledge of how to advance human services through action and innovation.

The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has inspired advocates and policy makers across the globe, injecting children's rights terminology into various public and private arenas. Children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives is the acme of the Convention and its central contribution to the children's rights discourse. At the same time the participation right presents enormous challenges in its implementation. Laws, regulations and mechanisms addressing children's right to participate in decision-making processes affecting their lives have been established in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet these worldwide developments have only rarely been accompanied with empirical investigations. The effectiveness of various policies in achieving meaningful participation for children of different ages, cultures and circumstances have remained largely unproven empirically. Therefore, with the growing awareness of the importance of evidence-based policies, it becomes clear that without empirical investigations on the implementation of children's right to participation it is difficult to promote their effective inclusion in decision making. This book provides a much-needed, first broad portrayal of how child participation is implemented in practice today. Bringing together 19 chapters written by prominent authors from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and Israel, the book includes descriptions of innovating programs that engage children and youth in decision-making processes, as well as insightful findings regarding what children, their families, and professionals think about these programs. Beyond their contribution to the empirical evidence on ways children engage in decision-making processes, the book's chapters contribute to the theoretical development of the meaning of "participation", "citizenship", "inclusiveness", and "relational rights" in regards to children and youth. There is no matching to the book's scope both in terms of the diversity of jurisdictions that it covers as well as the breadth of subjects. The book's chapters include experiences of child participation in special education, child protection, juvenile justice, restorative justice, family disputes, research, and policy making.

This volume provides an extensive overview of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence for the Sustainable Development Goals. The authors are experts contributing with perspectives from different fields. The comprehensive collection of chapters illustrates the pressing governance problems related to using AI for the SDGs, and case studies describing how AI is advancing and can advance the achievement of the Goals. Students, scholars, and practitioners working on AI for SDGs, the ethical governance of AI, sustainability, and the fourth revolution can find this book a helpful reference.

This is the first book length study of performance activism. While Performance Studies recognizes the universality of human performance in daily life, what is specifically under investigation here is performance as an activity intentionally entered into as a means of engaging social issues and conflicts, that is, as an ensemble activity by which we re-construct/transform social reality. Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers provides a global overview of the growing interface of performance with education, therapy, conflict resolution, civic engagement, community development and social justice activism. It combines an historical study of the processes by which, over the course of the 20th Century, performance has been loosened from the institutional constraints of the theatre with a mosaic-like overview of the diverse work/play of contemporary performance activists around the world. Performance Activism will be of interest to theatre and cultural historians, performance practitioners and researchers, psychologists and sociologists, educators and youth workers, community organizers and political activists.

This book explores a wide range of mindfulness and meditative practices and traditions across Buddhism. It deepens contemporary understanding of mindfulness by examining its relationship with key Buddhist teachings, such as the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eight-Fold Path. In addition, the volume explores how traditional mindfulness can be more meaningfully incorporated into current psychological research and clinical practice with individuals and groups (e.g., through the Buddhist Psychological Model). Key topics featured in this volume include: Ethics and mindfulness in Pali Buddhism and their implications for secular mindfulness-based applications. Mindfulness of emptiness and the emptiness of mindfulness. Buddhist teachings that support the psychological principles in a mindfulness program. A practical contextualization and explanatory framework for mindfulness-based interventions. Mindfulness in an authentic, transformative, everyday Zen practice. Pristine mindfulness. Buddhist Foundations of Mindfulness is an indispensable resource for clinical psychologists, and affiliated medical and mental health professionals, including specialists in complementary and alternative medicine as well as social work as well as teachers of Buddhism and meditation.

International adoptions have decreased dramatically in the last decade, despite robust evidence of the tremendous benefits that early placement in adoptive families can confer upon children who are not able to remain with birth families. This book integrates evidence from a range of disciplines in the social and biological sciences- including psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, sociology, anthropology, and social work - to provide a ringing endorsement of international adoption as a viable child welfare option. The author interweaves narrative accounts of her own adoption journey, which involved visiting a Kazakhstani orphanage daily for nearly a year, to illustrate the complexities and implications of the research evidence. Topics include the effects of institutionalization on children's developing brains, cognitive abilities, and socio-emotional functioning; the challenges of navigating issues of identity when adopting across national, cultural, and racial lines; how strong emotional bonds form even without genetic relatedness; and how adoptive families can address the special needs of children who experienced early neglect and deprivation, providing a supportive environment in which those children can flourish. Striving to attain a balanced, evidence-based perspective on controversial issues, the book argues that international adoption must be maintained and supported as a vital means of promoting international child welfare.

The first year of practice can be a particularly daunting and challenging time for newly-qualified social workers (NQSWs). This fully revised and updated book directly addresses the crucial transition period between finishing off the social work degree and managing the first years of practice. It offers down to earth, practical guidance on applying for your first post and managing your work load in the first few years. From useful sections on the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE), supervision, dealing with conflict, court skills, report writing, and team work to what professionalism actually looks like in practice, this book will throw a life belt to not only NQSWs entering the workplace but for students on qualifying programmes who wish to develop their skills beyond graduation.

Support workers are key deliverers of care in the UK, often hugely valued by those people they provide care for. Their roles and responsibilities are increasing in the midst of ever-changing health and social care systems. A Handbook for Support Workers in Health and Social Care recognises the contribution of support workers and provides an introduction to the core knowledge, legislation and models of practice required to work across health and social care settings. Covering core person-centred skills that a support worker needs to develop, this textbook looks at knowing and managing yourself, before moving on to understanding your role in the organisation and teamwork. It outlines the relevant legislation and policies, from the Care Act (2014) to confidentiality. Communication, both written and in person, is a central theme, and key values such as compassion and dignity are explored in relation to this. There is a thought-provoking discussion of working with people, covering topics including respecting choices, thinking about risk and safeguarding. The book ends by looking at what it means to be a competent practitioner and the importance of continual professional development. The first textbook introducing the core theory and practice knowledge necessary to work as a support worker in health and social care, it includes case studies, tasks and exercises to help the reader apply their learning. The authors share more than 20 years of experience in the design and delivery of support worker courses in higher education. They deliver continuing professional development, bespoke training and consultation to the health and social care workforce.

This book addresses a range of key issues concerning social work education, research and practice in India and Australia from a cross-cultural perspective. The respective chapters focus on specific areas of social work regarding e.g. the status and recognition of the profession, regulatory mechanisms, roles and functions of social workers in different settings, and issues and challenges faced by the social work community. The book shares valuable perspectives to help understand the culturally sensitive practice of social work in various socio-cultural, economic and political contexts in both countries. Given the scope of its coverage, the book is of interest to scholars, students and professionals working in the areas of social work, social development and social policy practice.

This book explores the social-emotional learning (SEL) movement in the United States and the current situation in schools that both supports and impedes the infusion of programs and strategies that actually work for children and adolescents. The volume describes overarching issues to include what the term evidence-based should mean as well as the confusing and sometimes ill-advised proliferation of programs that become components of the many barriers to the success of the SEL movement. The book examines why it may be necessary to take a step back when considering nonacademic interventions in schools. This book explores the need to - and the process of - vetting interventions before trying to implement them in the classroom. In addition, the volume examines the various frameworks and standards involving SEL to shape a thoughtful approach that makes a difference in each student's academic success. It offers a scientific approach to selecting brief, easy to implement SEL strategies for school psychologists, teachers, and related mental health and educational professionals. The book describes each strategy in detail and addresses how to use these strategies, when to use them, and for whom they are likely to work. The volume concludes recommended implementation and dissemination strategies. This book is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/practitioners, and graduate students in child and school psychology, educational psychology, social work as well as all interrelated sub disciplines.

Life on the Malecon is a narrative ethnography of the lives of street children and youth living in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and the non-governmental organizations that provide social services for them. Writing from the perspective of an anthropologist working as a street educator with a child welfare organization, Jon M. Wolseth follows the intersecting lives of children, the institutions they come into contact with, and the relationships they have with each other, their families, and organization workers. Often socioeconomic conditions push these children to move from their homes to the streets, but sometimes they themselves may choose the allure of the perceived freedoms and opportunities that street life has to offer. What they find, instead, is violence, disease, and exploitation-the daily reality through which they learn to maneuver and survive. Wolseth describes the stresses, rewards, and failures of the organizations and educators who devote their resources to working with this population. The portrait of Santo Domingo's street children and youth population that emerges is of a diverse community with variations that may be partly related to skin color, gender, and class. The conditions for these youth are changing as the economy of the Dominican Republic changes. Although the children at the core of this book live and sleep on avenues and plazas and in abandoned city buildings, they are not necessarily glue- and solvent-sniffing beggars or petty thieves on the margins of society. Instead, they hold a key position in the service sector of an economy centered on tourism. Life on the Malecon offers a window into the complex relationships children and youth construct in the course of mapping out their social environment. Using a child-centered approach, Wolseth focuses on the social lives of the children by relating the stories that they themselves tell as well as the activities he observes.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the relationship between community resilience and family resilience, identifying contributing factors on the micro-, meso-, and macro-level. Scholars and practitioners focus on how community-level policies and programs facilitate the distribution of resources, assets, and opportunities that provide valuable assistance to families who are struggling or in crisis due to economic hardship, mental illness, and the effects of natural and human made disasters. Additionally, representatives of local government and community agencies on the "front lines" of developing policies and programs to assist families provide valuable context for understanding the ways communities provide environments that encourage and nurture family resilience. Among the topics covered: How cities promote resilience from a public health perspective Family resilience following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Resilience in women from trauma and addiction Trauma-sensitive schooling for elementary-age students Developing family resilience through community based missions Resilience and the Community will be of interest to policy-makers, researchers, and practitioners seeking to facilitate the development of evidence-based resilience practices, programs, and/or policies for those working with families at risk.