Normally, our relationships with our brothers and sisters are the longest relationships in our lives, outlasting time with our parents, and most marriages today. The sibling relationship is emotionally powerful and critically important, giving us a sense of continuity throughout life. So what happens when a child loses contact not only with his or her parents, but with siblings too? That is what happens in thousands of cases each year inside the child welfare system. Children are surrendered by parents - or taken by the government - and placed in the foster care system. There, they are often separated and sent to different foster families, or adopted by different couples. In this work, a team of top experts details for us how this added separation futher traumatizes children. This stellar team of internationally known researchers - some of whom are themselves adoptees - shares with us hard, poignant, and personal insights, as well as ways we might act to solve this widespread problem.

Contributors address not only the importance of nurturing sibling bonds and mental health strategies to support those relationships, but also the legal rights of siblings to be together, as well as issues in international adoptions. Emerging and standing programs to encourage and facilitate adoptions that keep siblings together are featured, as are programs that at least enable them to stay in contact.

Social services are under pressure from Government and the public to demonstrate the effectiveness of what they do. If the search for useable and relevant measures of effectiveness is to succeed, practitioners, managers, and policymakers must have an understanding of the underlying social science concepts such as Evidence-based practice (EBP). This concept is now promoted as a 'scientific' approach to policy and practice. However, the concept was developed in the field of medicine, and many would ask whether we can safely apply it to the messy process of social problem solving? The promotion of evidence-based practice also has implications for the content and focus of social work education and training, and for the selection and recruitment of staff and students. Evidence-based Practice and Social Work provides a comprehensive overview of developments in this field and highlight many important debates and dilemmas. Writers give clear pointers to the need for a new partnership between research, policy and practice, able to promote effective services. They suggest a more inclusive version of EBP that is better able to respond to the uncertainties of social work practice in the real world. Contents include: An empirical study of the obstacles to evidence-based practice Brian Sheldon, Professor of Applied Social Research/Director, Rupatharshini Chilvers, Annemarie Ellis, Alice Moseley, and Stephen Tierney, CEBSS, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter.The limits of positivism revisited David Smith, Professor of Social Work, Dept of Applied Social Science, University of Lancaster.A problematic relationship? Evidence and practice in the workplace Nick Frost, Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education, University of Leeds.Promoting evidence based practice in a child care charity: The Barnardo's experience Tony Newman, Principal Officer, Research and Development, and Di McNeish, Head of Research, Barnardo's, Cardiff.The Social Care Institute for Excellence: The role of a national institute in developing knowledge and practice in social care Mike Fisher Professor and Director of Research and Reviews, Social Care Institute for Excellence, London.Evidence based social work practice: A reachable goal? Frank Ainsworth, Research Scholar and Lecturer (Adjunct), School of International, Cultural and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University and Patricia Hansen, Head, Department of Social Work, Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.Reframing an evidence-based approach to practice Stephanie Tierney, Research Assistant, CEBSS, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter.What works about what works? Fashion, fad and EBP Carolyn Taylor, Lecturer in Social Work, and Susan White, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Manchester

Religion was a vital part of women's experience in Victorian Britain. This book is the first real study of the social history and cultural significance of the sisterhoods which sprang up within Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century, where women abandoned the domestic sphere to become the prototype of the modern social worker as well as pushing back the boundaries of what women could do within the structures of the Anglican church. The sisterhood movement began with the establishment of the first convent in 1845 and grew rapidly. By 1900 more than 10,000 women had joined the only Anglican organization which offered full-time work for women of all social classes. Even more impressive than the sisterhood's rapid growth was the degree of fascination that 'protestant nunneries' had for the general public -- the movement was the focus of a vigorous and heated public debate that lasted beyond the end of the century. Based upon years of research into the archives of twenty-eight religious communities, the book offers a unique breadth of coverage which allows for the formation of a more comprehensive and accurate picture of the movement than has been possible previously. Above all, the book shows that these sisterhoods were not refuges for women who failed to find husbands; rather, they attracted women who were interested in moulding careers. So successful were they in recruiting women that by the 1860s they threatened to undermine the hegemony of the ideal of domestic life as the proper sphere for women.

The past decade brought forth a wave of excitement and promise for researchers and practitioners interested in community practice as an approach based on social justice principles and an embrace of community participatory actions. But, effective community practice is predicated on the availability and use of assessment methods that not only capture and report on conditions, but also simultaneously set the stage for social change efforts. This research, therefore, serves the dual purpose of generating knowledge and also being an integral part of social intervention. Research done in this way, however, requires new tools. Photovoice is one such tool - a form of visual ethnography that invites participants to represent their community or point of view through photographs, accompanied by narratives, to be shared with each other and with a broader community. Urban Youth and Photovoice focuses on the use of this method within urban settings and among adolescents and young adults - a group that is almost naturally drawn to the use of photography (especially digital and particularly in today's era of texting, facebook, and instagram) to showcase photovoice as an important qualitative research method for social workers and others in the social sciences, and providing readers with detailed theoretical and practical account of how to plan, implement, and evaluate the results of a photovoice project focused on urban youth.

Millions of people and their families are affected by mental illness; it causes untold pain and severely impairs their ability to function in the world. In recent years, we have begun to understand and develop a range of effective treatments for mental illness. Even with this shift from moralistic views to those emphasizing the biological and genetic origins of mental illness, punitive treatment and outright rejection remain strong. Public attitudes toward mental illness are still more negative than they were half a century ago, and the majority of those afflicted either do not receive or cannot afford adequate care. As a result of all of these troubling facts, applying the term "stigma" to mental illness is particularly appropriate because stigma conveys the mark of shame borne by those in any highly devalued group.
Mental illness tops the list of stigmatized conditions in current society, generating the kinds of stereotypes, fear, and rejection that are reminiscent of longstanding attitudes toward leprosy. Mental disorders threaten stability and order, and media coverage exacerbates this situation by equating mental illness with violence. As a result, stigma is rampant, spurring family silence, discriminatory laws, and social isolation. The pain of mental illness is searing enough, but adding the layer of stigma affects personal well being, economic productivity, and public health, fueling a vicious cycle of lowered expectations, deep shame, and hopelessness.
In this groundbreaking book, Stephen Hinshaw examines the longstanding tendency to stigmatize those with mental illness. He also provides practical strategies for overcoming this serious problem, including enlightenedsocial policies that encourage, rather than discourage, contact with those afflicted, media coverage emphasizing their underlying humanity, family education, and responsive treatment.
Stigma is a deeply inspiring and passionate work that is realistic and filled with hope. It combines personal accounts with information from social and evolutionary psychology, sociology, and public policy to provide messages that are essential for anyone afflicted or familiar with mental illness.

This handbook describes evidence-based methods of assessing psychological, educational, behavioral, and developmental problems in children and adolescents. It provides state-of-the-art analyses of leading assessment tools and methods. Chapters provide an overview of childhood assessment issues, diagnostic classification systems, interviewing and report writing, traditional assessment tools and methods, such as Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). In addition, chapters address daily living, academic, and social skills, commonly encountered psychological conditions, and developmental disorders, reviewing definitions and etiology, history of assessment and diagnosis, possible comorbid conditions, and current measures and procedures. The handbook also covers specific childhood disorders that often present assessment challenges in children, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, pain, and feeding and eating disorders. Topics featured in this handbook include: Adaptive and developmental behavior scales. Diagnostic classification systems and how to apply them to childhood problems and disorders. Intelligence testing and its use in childhood psychological assessment. Assessment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in persons with developmental disabilities. Self-Injurious behavior in children. Prevalence and assessment of common sleep problems in children. The Handbook of Childhood Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities Assessment is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, clinicians, and related therapists and professionals in clinical child and school psychology, pediatrics, social work, developmental psychology, behavioral therapy/rehabilitation, child and adolescent psychiatry, and special education.

As domestic violence continues to be a focus of social and psychological concern, two basic contradictory viewpoints endure: one rooted in male power dynamics, the other maintaining that both genders use and are victimized by violence. Although both sides have their merits, neither has adequately answered the crucial question: What causes conflict to escalate into violence?

"Partner Violence: A New Paradigm for Understanding Conflict Escalation"adds a third, escalation-focused paradigm to the debate, addressing the limitations of the two dominant perspectives in a comprehensive scholarly approach. This concise yet comprehensive volume examines key gender- and non-gender-related violence issues and sets out a compelling behavioral argument that using violence to control others is a rational choice. Its theoretical and empirical foundations support an in-depth study of escalating aggression in violent relationships, both throughout periods of chronic conflict and in single violent episodes. This analysis promotes a broader and deeper understanding of partner violence, suitable to developing more finely targeted, effective, and lasting interventions.

Among the key topics featured are: Gender differences in aggressive tendencies. Dominance, control, and violence. Partner violence as planned behavior. The process leading to partner violence. Partner conflict dynamics throughout relationship periods and within conflicts. Gender differences in escalatory intentions.

"Partner Violence" is an important volume for researchers, graduate students, and clinicians/professionals across various disciplines, including personality and social psychology, criminology, public health, clinical psychology, sociology, and social work. "

Since its first issue in 1988, much interesting and inspiring material has been published in "Groupwork." Most of this still says much of use to today's groupworkers, and there is a steady stream of requests for reprints. We are therefore making back volumes of "Groupwork" available in volume form. Authors in this volume include leading academic figures in the field as well as practitioners working in the field. Any groupworker will find this material of enduring interest.

Does social work theory and practice give adequate attention to the specific needs of children? Fatout contends that it does not. All too often social work focuses on the family as a whole, the individual family members, or marital pairs. Relatively little attention is given to the child and, in a world of more and more single-parent families, latchkey children, and violent methods of problem-solving among children, this shortcoming needs to be addressed. Fatout does so by providing a detailed review of the specific content, methods, and skills needed to apply group approaches to the problems of children.

Does social work theory and practice give adequate attention to the specific needs of children? Professor Fatout contends that it does not. All too often social work focuses on the family as a whole, the individual family members, or marital pairs. Relatively little attention is given to the child and, in a world of more and more single-parent families, latchkey children, and violent methods of problem-solving among children, this shortcomming needs to be addressed.

Fatout seeks to fill a void in the current literature regarding the use of specific content, methods, and skills in working with children in groups. Groups are a viable method for working with children, but little attention has been paid to this approach. There are many theories about working with groups, but practitioners must determine the priority to be given to specific aspects of the theories to make them as workable as possible with this age group. There are special content and focus issues which must be understood and applied successfully; this book provides the background and needed analysis to accomplish this. As such, it will be a valuable tool for social work students, researchers, and practitioners working with children and family issues.

How do we define mental health and ill-health? Who decides what evidence indicates mental ill-health and which evidence is used to inform policy and practice?
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, mental health services in England and Wales are at a critical point in terms of their development. This book considers a number of key themes and tensions in relation to theory, policy, practice and research, emphasizing the complex relationships between these four areas and exploring the impact of service user, carer and professional perspectives.
Contemporary Mental Health Policy and Practice examines the tensions between different professional models, varying "social" perspectives and political imperatives and explores how these tensions are manifested in practice. Topics covered include:
the emphasis on risk as opposed to citizenship and entitlement;
social exclusion and inclusion;
professional and user perspectives;
the "territories" of health and social care and their respective roles and relationships.
An important theme running throughout is the critical appraisal of perspectives concerning gender, ethnicity and sexuality, drawing out wider issues of power and inequality.
"Contemporary Mental Health Policy and Practice" makes ideas and theoretical policy material accessible and applicable, and is a key text for students and practitioners in mental health, social work and social care.

Developed from nearly 20 years' practice and consulting experience, this ground-breaking text challenges practitioners to understand, and work, with their clients as relational beings rather than independent units, whatever the presenting problem might be. The book focuses on an often neglected key condition, that sustainable and accountable personal relationships are a precondition for health and well-being, and argues that there are always opportunities to deepen the quality, and range, of the client's connections with their current and future significant-others. The central concern of the book is to describe practical actions that can be taken by any professional committed to strengthening the relational base of their clients - an agenda that is supported by coherently woven insights from critical theory and social epidemiology. Written in a compelling style and brought to life with more than twenty case vignettes, this original, practical and rich resource offers practitioners usable resources that can be incorporated within many practice roles. Especially relevant to senior students and those in casework, this innovative, timely, multidisciplinary material is ideal for all those who wish to make a practical difference to the lives of their clients.

Children are the most criminally victimized segment of the population, and a substantial number face multiple, serious "poly-victimizations" during a single year. And despite the fact that the priority emphasis in academic research and government policy has traditionally gone to studying juvenile delinquents, children actually appear before authorities more frequently as victims than as offenders. But at the same time, the media and many advocates have failed to note the good news: rates of sexual abuse, child homicide, and many other forms of victimization declined dramatically after the mid-1990s, and some terribly feared forms of child victimization, like stereotypical stranger abduction, are remarkably uncommon. The considerable ignorance about the realities of child victimization can be chalked up to a field that is fragmented, understudied, and subjected to political demagoguery. In this persuasive book, David Finkelhor presents a comprehensive new vision to encompass the prevention, treatment, and study of juvenile victims, unifying conventional subdivisions like child molestation, child abuse, bullying, and exposure to community violence. Developmental victimology, his term for this integrated perspective, looks at child victimization across childhood's span and yields fascinating insights about how to categorize juvenile victimizations, how to think about risk and impact, and how victimization patterns change over the course of development. The book also provides a valuable new model of society's response to child victimization - what Finkelhor calls the Juvenile Victim Justice System - and a fresh way of thinking about barriers that victims and their families encounter whenseeking help. These models will be very useful to anyone seeking to improve the way we try to help child victims. Crimes against children still happen far too often, but by proposing a new framework for thinking about the issue, Childhood Victimization opens a promising door to reducing its frequency and improving the response. Professionals, policymakers, and child advocates will find this paradigm-shifting book to be a valuable addition to their shelves.

John T. Whitehead analyzes the extent and causes of job burnout in probation officers and correctional officers. Challenging models of burnout that focus on individual-level causes, Whitehead demonstrates that the findings support an organization model of the sources of job burnout -- a finding that has significant implications for managerial policy aimed at reducing burnout. Further, Whitehead shows that while burnout appears to be a serious problem for a sizeable minority of workers, it is not a problem for the majority. Ideal as supplemental reading for courses in criminal justice, criminology, and social work, Burnout in Probation and Corrections sheds new light on the incidence, causes, and possible remedies for job burnout in these professions. Whitehead's study is unique in its analysis of multiple samples from several states and regions and from two different time periods. The study also includes a qualitative analysis of worker comments on the factors contributing to burnout, a comparison of correctional officer versus probation officer burnout, and a comparison of male and female probation officer burnout. Based on his research, he indicates that client contact is not the cause of burnout in probation and correctional officers, a conclusion that contrasts sharply with some of the previous theoretical work in the field. Instead, Whitehead demonstrates, organizational issues such as role conflict are critical sources of burnout. Therefore, managerial policy should center upon organizational improvements to reduce job stress and job dissatisfaction.

Social work in the UK has recently undergone its biggest change for 30 years. As new regulatory bodies are working to consolidate social work's professional status, a new training programme, now at degree level, expects increased in-practice learning. Yet until now, students have struggled to find resources to underpin their learning. This major new text addresses the new agenda and explores what social work is in the 21st Century. Structured around the framework of the National Occupational Standards for social work - and using terminology and concepts contained within them - this book examines how social work can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities and argues that to really make a difference it is necessary to think outside the box.Features and benefits include: Provides all social work students with an introductory social work textbook for the 21st century; main chapters follow the six National Occupational Standards for social work; each chapter uses a problem-based learning approach, beginning with a 'real-life' case scenario from social work practice and drawing on messages from theory and research; includes a range of student friendly features including glossaries, summaries, questions, exercises, further reading and links to other resources; and, written by leading authors in their field and evaluated in detail by distinguished editorial panel. Demonstrating social work's potential to be transformative, this new book provides the perfect introductory text for a new generation of social workers.

The public inquiry that followed the death of Maria Colwell had profound implications for the developing profession and practice of social work in the UK. This book describes the politics, professional concerns and public interest - both local and national - that surrounded the inquiry and its aftermath, and shows how the concerns of this landmark child abuse case have still failed to find a satisfactory resolution today. Social work, then and now, remains 'on trial'.

This book locates the rise of illicit drug use within the historical development of late industrial society and challenges the prevailing view. Highlighting key areas of continuity and the on-going value of classic criminological theory, it is argued that recent trends do not constitute the radical departure that is often supposed.

The Compassionate Memsahibs refutes the traditional view--perpetuated in the works of writers like Rudyard Kipling--of the memsahibs as a homogeneous group of aloof, pampered women who had little interest in India. Here Mary Ann Lind presents information about the lives of fifteen memsahibs--all of which is previously unpublished--who voluntarily participated in reform and welfare activities in India during the first half of this century. Their activities and experiences placed them outside the more expected lifestyle of the memsahib and offer contemporary social historians a new window through which to view the Raj.

This book deals with street children who live in the developing world, and homeless youth who are from the developed world. They are referred to as children in street situations (CSS) to show that the problem is both in the children and in the situation they face. The book examines several aspects of the children and their street situations, including the families of origin and the homes they leave, the children's social life, and mental health. Other aspects are the problems of published demographics, the construction of public opinion about these children and the, often violent, reactions from authorities. The book then discusses current research on children in street situations, as well as programs and policies. The book ends with recommendations about programs, policies and research.

What is a 'we' a collective and how can we use such communal self-knowledge to help people? This book is about collectivity, participation, and subjectivity and about the social theories that may help us understand these matters. It also seeks to learn from the innovative practices and ideas of a community of social/youth workers in Copenhagen between 1987 and 2003, who developed a pedagogy through creating collectives and mobilizing young people as participants. The theoretical and practical traditions are combined in a unique methodology viewing research as a contentious modeling of prototypical practices. Through this dialogue, it develops an original trans-disciplinary critical theory and practice of collective subjectivity for which the ongoing construction and overcoming of common sense, or ideology, is central. It also points to ways of relating discourse with agency, and fertilizing insights from interactionism and ideology theories in a cultural-historical framework.

This book, the second title in the Rethinking Community Development series, starts from concern about increasing inequality worldwide and the re-emergence of community development in public policy debates. It argues for the centrality of class analysis and its associated divisions of power to any discussion of the potential benefits of community development. It proposes that, without such an analysis, community development can simply mask the underlying causes of structural inequality. It may even exacerbate divisions between groups competing for dwindling public resources in the context of neoliberal globalisation. Reflecting on their own contexts, a wide range of contributors from across the global north and south explore how an understanding of social class can offer ways forward in the face of increasing social polarisation. The book considers class as a dynamic and contested concept and examines its application in policies and practices past and present. These include local/global and rural/urban alliances, community organising, ecology, gender and education.

This handbook offers a comprehensive review of the research on emotional development. It examines research on individual emotions, including happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust, as well as self-conscious and pro-social emotions. Chapters describe theoretical and biological foundations and address the roles of cognition and context on emotional development. In addition, chapters discuss issues concerning atypical emotional development, such as anxiety, depression, developmental disorders, maltreatment, and deprivation. The handbook concludes with important directions for the future research of emotional development. Topics featured in this handbook include: The physiology and neuroscience of emotions. Perception and expression of emotional faces. Prosocial and moral emotions. The interplay of emotion and cognition. The effects of maltreatment on children's emotional development. Potential emotional problems that result from early deprivation. The Handbook of Emotional Development is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology, social work, public health, child and adolescent psychiatry, pediatrics, and related disciplines.

This new textbook provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the main context in which social work is practiced - Local Authority Social Services. It is based on the realities of work in a modern social services authority and is written by an author team which combines teaching and writing expertise with the experience of working in the social services.

The book covers all the local authority personal social services and the frameworks within which they operate. It addresses the major changes that have taken place in the social services in recent years and looks forward to prospects for personal social services in the future.