This timely resource analyzes home visits as a primary intervention for at-risk families with infants and young children and details innovative programs for home service delivery. Focusing on family violence, mental illness and alcohol and substance abuse as major challenges to child development, the book presents practical strategies for home visitors to address and prevent problems while fostering an improved environment for raising children. Contributors offer a realistic framework for planning, developing, and training an effective home visitation workforce and tailoring interventions to fit individual family dynamics. And the book's international focus provides a variety of perspectives on evidence-based programs that support families raising children in distressed neighborhoods. Among the featured topics: Home visitation as a primary prevention tool for violence. Developmental parenting home visiting to prevent violence. Supporting the paraprofessional home visitor. Engagement and retention in home visiting child abuse prevention programs. Addressing psychosocial risk factors among families in home visiting programs. Home visitation programs in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Home Visitation Programs: Preventing Violence and Promoting Healthy Early Child Development is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students and professionals in child and school psychology, social work, educational policy, family advocacy and public health.

There are more than 26 million refugees in the world, and the population is expected to grow. However, there is minimal training or understanding in the mental health and social services fields that provides the awareness, knowledge, and skills to effectively work with refugees. Subsequently, this volume is intended to provide a comprehensive understanding of refugee psychosocial adjustment that incorporates cross-cultural perspectives.

The text provides an all-inclusive overview of refugee acculturation and adaptation, a model of intervention to assist refugees in the process of psychosocial adjustment, case studies illustrating practical intervention applications, and country-specific interventions from unique and diverse national perspectives. Professionals working with refugees in the United States and around the world will value this volume.

This practical breakthrough introduces a robust framework for family and couples therapy specifically designed for working with difficult, entrenched, and court-mandated situations. Using an original model (the System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances, or SOFTA) suitable to therapists across theoretical lines, the authors detail special challenges, empirically-supported strategies, and alliance-building interventions organized around common types of ongoing couple and family conflicts. Copious case examples illustrate how therapists can empower family members to discover their agency, find resources to address tough challenges, and especially repair their damaged relationships. These guidelines also show how to work effectively within multiple relationships in a family without compromising therapist focus, client individuality, or client safety. Included in the coverage: Using the therapeutic alliance to empower couples and families Couples' cross-complaints Engaging reluctant adolescents...and their parents Parenting in isolation, with or without a partner Child maltreatment: creating therapeutic alliances with survivors of relational trauma Disadvantaged, multi-stressed families: adrift in a sea of professional helpers Empowering through the alliance: a practical formulation Therapeutic Alliances with Families offers powerful new tools for social workers, mental health professionals, and practitioners working in couple and family therapy cases with reluctant clients and seeking specific, practical case examples and resources for alliance-related interventions.

Malcolm X once warned of the power of the media, "societal oppression" and its ramifications. Ignominiously, within today's society young people live up to labels handed to them, and wear them as badges of honour, suffer poverty, oppression within the education and penal system, and are constantly fighting for status in a very bigoted society, where the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. The author argues that a chauvinistic society, the lack of culpability, uninspiring media reporting, which remain relentless, and the antagonistic systems which remain aloof to socially excluded young people, have contributed to the rise of the "new aged gangs", thus creating a "them and us" culture. A culture with the ability to become a social norm. Guns, gangs and the implication for social workers is a must read for all professionals who wish to understand some of the ills of todays, in order to building a better tomorrow.

Fear is the greatest motivator that exists outside of love-and yet these two seemingly opposing forces are in fact inseparably related to each other. As a Christian psychotherapist with twenty-five years of experience, I have come to the conclusion that nearly all emotional and psychological struggles share the same root condition I call disordered fear. Fear must be understood to be both accepted and overcome. It is not our heavenly Father's will or purpose for His children to live under the oppression and bondage of disordered fear, for we are created and destined to reverentially fear God alone. And this is precisely what Break Free comprehensively addresses.

Restorative Justice for Domestic Violence Victims uses a rich and detailed set of interviews and complementary survey data to make a strong case for introducing restorative justice principles into the existing menu of services for victims of domestic violence. Guided primarily by concerns of victim safety, domestic violence theorists and practitioners have been wary of introducing restorative justice principled programs in the domestic violence arena. While remaining cognizant of safety concerns, Marilyn Fernandez weaves together the theories, concepts, and research in the restorative justice and domestic violence traditions and uses the voices of domestic violence victims to make a case for restorative justice programs. In the process, Fernandez helps readers, academicians, students, and practitioners, understand the complex nature of domestic violence and the lives of its victims.

This book presents the similarities and intersections between Autism Spectrum Disorders and comorbid conditions in children. It describes the prevalence and magnitude of comorbid conditions occurring in conjunction with ASD that complicate diagnosis and can potentially lead to inappropriate treatment and negative outcomes. It addresses the strengths and limitations of age-appropriate assessment measures as well as activity and motor skill measurement methods. Specific comorbid disorders are examined through the review of core symptoms, prognostic and diagnostic issues and treatment options for children on the ASD spectrum. Featured topics include: Challenging behaviors in children with ASD. Conditions ranging from feeding and gastrointestinal disorders to epilepsy. Developmental coordination disorder (DCD). Intellectual disability (ID). Methods and procedures for measuring comorbid psychological, medical and motor disorders. Comorbid Conditions Among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians and professionals and graduate students across such fields as clinical child, school and developmental psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry and social work as well as rehabilitation medicine/therapy, behavioral therapy, pediatrics and educational psychology.

Today, by many accounts, China is the world's foremost purveyor of foreign aid and foreign investment to developing countries. This is the product of China's miracle economic growth over a period of more than three decades, together with China's drive to become a major player in world affairs and accomplish this through economic rather than military means. This three-volume work is the first comprehensive study of China's aid and investment strategy to trace how it has evolved since Beijing launched its foreign aid diplomacy at the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Volume I examines the definitions, origins, nature, and scope of foreign aid and investment by other countries. Using that background, John F. Copper then traces China's financial assistance to developing countries from the Mao period - when China gave meaningful foreign aid despite its own economic struggles - through the beginning of China's post-1978 economic boom and during subsequent decades of rapid economic growth. Copper shows that China has a more salient history in giving foreign assistance than any other country in the world; while China's objectives in giving foreign assistance have changed markedly over time, China has always been driven by efforts to realize its foreign policy objectives and expand China's external influence.

This book explores the suffering of social class and how traditional biomedical models for mental illness do not adequately account for the stresses of poverty. Turning to mental health user testimonies, this book equips ministers and counsellors to become working class advocates.

Discover a thorough overview of today's social work profession with a realistic glimpse into social problems in contemporary society with Zastrow/Hessenauer's best-selling INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL WORK AND SOCIAL WELFARE: EMPOWERING PEOPLE, 13E. This practical text provides real insights you can apply in practice. Updates highlight the latest developments and emerging issues, from Biden's social welfare policies and self-care for social workers to employment, immigration, mass shootings and the pandemic. You learn to develop new methods for problem solving and empowering clients as the authors present positive strategies within the context of the core values, ethics, skills and knowledge base of today's professional social worker. Updated case studies, exhibits and tables highlight, compare and contrast contemporary social problems and issues. Core content from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) aligns with the latest Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS).

Security concerns increasingly influence foreign aid: how Western countries give aid, to whom and why. With contributions from experts in the field, this book examines the impact of security issues on six of the world's largest aid donors, as well as on key crosscutting issues such as gender equality and climate change.

The New Deal as a Triumph of Social Work concerns the 'hand' the New Deal plays from the perspective of early American History in which government and business cooperation is assumed and economic rights are addressed collectively whereas political rights are considered individually. The New Deal reconfigures this 'ratio' of rights by folding 'social work' into the aims of government. Miller describes the vital part Frances Perkins and her personal history play in this development.

This book demonstrates that alternative approaches to criminal rehabilitation succeed in developing pro-social attitudes and in improving mental, physical and spiritual health for youth and adults in prison and community settings. The use of mindfulness is highlighted as a foundational tool of self-reflexivity, creative expression and therapy.

What impact do international economic inputs have on human rights in Third World nations? William Meyer explores the effects of direct investment by U.S. multinational corporations, economic and military aid, and MNC manufacturing plants. He examines the international political economy of human rights at both the national and the international levels. Case studies are combined with quantitative studies that use aggregate cross-national data, and theories that link MNCs to human rights are subjected to empirical testing. As Meyer illustrates, at the national level, human rights violations are associated with U.S. MNCs in Chile, Honduras, India, Indonesia, and Mexico. MNCs have been especially guilty of violating labor rights, particularly through their reliance on sweatshops. MNCs have also been responsible for widespread pollution and environmental degradation. At a broader international level, increased investment by MNCs tends to go along with human rights improvements in the Third World as a whole. Meyer shows that there is a broad positive relationship between direct investment by MNCs and broader political rights and improved living standards. Aggregate data are also analyzed for human rights as compared to U.S. economic and military aid. Economic aid is found to be associated with improved civil-political rights and improved socioeconomic rights. Military aid, by contrast, is associated with declining levels of civil rights and with lower levels of social welfare. This book will serve as an important study for researchers, activists, and students of human rights.

Experts have made a state-of-the-art survey of sources that are important in counseling older persons, an increasingly important segment of the nation's population. The population over age 65 in the United States is 12.4% and soon will be 21.8%. This annotated compilation of 481 books, journal articles, dissertations, and documents is organized into nine topical chapters and various subsections dealing with the normative experiences of aging, persons with impairments, needs and services, special situations, counseling and counselors, ethics, practica and internships, and pharmacology. Author and subject indexes make the guide easy for academic and professional use in the fields of gerontology, psychology, and adult education.

This book serves as a training manual for mental health professionals and other community members who desire a practical "handbook" to guide their work with adult children from dysfunctional families in both individual and group counseling. An approach to the resolution of trauma is offered, along with prevention and intervention techniques for use with children and adolescents from dysfunctional families in school and other community-based settings. Group psychoeducation is highlighted as a tool for the delivery of curricula, covering diverse topics such as how to engage in healthy parenting behavior, how the stress of immigration/migration contributes to the creation of dysfunctional families, how to attain cultural sensitivity, as well as how to prevent or stop violent behavior. Always practical, Dr. Wallace provides a timely and comprehensive guide for community mental health promotion at a time when multiple, overlapping epidemics undermine family functioning.

This book explains and theorises the ways in which family policy instruments come to shape the routine care arrangements of young children. Drawing on interviews with close to a hundred parents from very different walks of life in urban and rural Romania, the book provides a rich account of the care arrangement transitions these parents experience during their children's first five years of life. The influence of family policies emerges as complex and uneven, affecting childcare decisions both directly and indirectly by contributing to the reproduction and legitimation of age-related hierarchies of care ideals. These cultural artefacts, reflective of both longstanding institutional legacies and recent policy innovations between 2006 and 2015, are the prism through which mothers and fathers from diverse backgrounds view and make decisions about their children's care. This unique volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of childcare, its organisation and family policy, specifically in post-socialist contexts.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theory and practice for volunteer involvement. It represents a milestone for knowledge of how and why volunteers become involved and will be essential reading for practitioners, policy makers and funders. Offering exercises and examples from practice, it introduces concepts for understanding volunteers' agency and for critically assessing ways in which those who seek to involve volunteers can respond to rapidly changing environments. The authors draw on a combination of theoretical perspectives and practical experiences to develop approaches based on individuals and community strengths and assets, underlining the need for conviviality, respect and enjoyment in volunteer involvement.

This handbook examines the wide-ranging applications of positive psychology in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities. It discusses the change in perceptions of disability and the shifting use of traditional deficit-based treatments. It presents evidence-based approaches and strategies that promote individuals' strengths and capacities and as well as provide supports and services to enhance quality of life. Chapters address medical and psychological aspects in intellectual and developmental disabilities, such as mindfulness, motivation, physical well-being, and self-regulation. The book also discusses uses of assessment practices in evaluating interventions and client outcomes. In addition, it explores ways practitioners, with positive psychology, can focus on what a person is capable of achieving, thereby leading to more effective approaches to care and treatment. Topics featured in the Handbook include: Translating the quality of life concept into practice. The Casual Agency Theory and its implications for understanding self-determination. The Mindfulness-Based Individualized Support Plan (MBISP) and its use in providing support to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The unique role that friendship plays to people's lives and social well-being. Supported Decision-Making (SDM) as an alternative to guardianship. A positive psychology approach to aging and retirement. The Handbook of Positive Psychology in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and related professionals in clinical child and school psychology, behavioral therapy, social work, applied behavioral analysis, recreational therapy, occupational therapy, education, speech and language pathology, psychiatry, clinical medicine, and nursing.