Welfare is commonly conceptualized in socio-economic terms of equity, highlighting distributive issues within growing economies. While GDP, income growth and rising material standards of living are normally not questioned as priorities in welfare theories and policy making, there is growing evidence that Western welfare standards are not generalizable to the rest of the planet if environmental concerns, such as resource depletion or climate change, are considered. Sustainability and the Political Economy of Welfare raises the issue of what is required to make welfare societies ecologically sustainable. Consisting of three parts, this book regards the current financial, economic and political crisis in welfare state institutions and addresses methodological, theoretical and wider conceptual issues in integrating sustainability. Furthermore, this text is concerned with the main institutional obstacles to the achievement of sustainable welfare and wellbeing, and how these may feasibly be overcome. How can researchers assist policymakers in promoting synergy between economic, social and environmental policies conducive to globally sustainable welfare systems? Co-authored by a variety of cross-disciplinary contributors, a diversity of research perspectives and methods is reflected in a unique mixture of conceptual chapters, historical analysis of different societal sectors, and case studies of several EU countries, China and the US. This book is well suited for those who are interested in and study welfare, ecological economics and political economy.

Westchester County, New York, is thought of as suburban and affluent, but welfare reform hit hard here, too. The radical 1996 legislation created a temporary assistance program for poor families with harsher provisions than the program it replaced. It mandates "workfare," meaning that recipients must work as a condition of benefit receipt. But the work parents obtain in the so-called flexible labor market--jobs like home health care aide--are inflexible for them. One sick child can mean the loss of a job.
In contrast to accounts of inner-city poor families, these suburban parents' stories reveal a broad array of precipitating circumstances leading to their downward economic slide and to welfare. They also provide insight into the bureaucratic machinations, rigid rules and mandates, disciplining techniques, and catch-22s that create an insecure environment for many families today. Many of these stories show that the need for welfare over time extends well beyond the federal government's five-year lifetime limit on welfare. Policies emphasizing work first also restrict access to education and further hinder parents' ability to gain a toehold in the economy.
In this tale of people and policies, the author shows how the interests of governments are often at variance with those of vulnerable families, and how some government actions place more pressure on lives replete with stress.

* Documents the radical changes in methodology of one Northern NGO (Homeless International) over twenty years of providing support to organizations of the urban poor across the globe.* Present extensive excerpts from conventional small-scale grants to collaborative design of new financial products in so that other agencies may build on the lessons learned.As poverty becomes increasingly concentrated in urban areas of the developing world, the need to access new sources of finance for slum upgrading, resettlement, and infrastructure provision becomes correspondingly acute. This is particularly so for organizations of the urban poor as they enter into collaborative arrangements with the state, and with the private sector.Starting from conventional small-scale grant giving to nascent NGOs in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Homeless International has broadened its methodology to include collaborative design of new financial products including an international guarantee fund that provides loan capital for bridge financing large-scale developments which are prioritised, designed, and managed by organizations of the urban poor. This book is packed with illustrations of lessons learned by Homeless International so that others can build on these in order to create a wider collaborative capacity to bridge finance gaps."

Much work has been done on cognitive processes and creativity, but there is another half to the picture of creativity -- the affect half. This book addresses that other half by synthesizing the information that exists about affect and creativity and presenting a new model of the role of affect in the creative process. Current information comes from disparate literatures, research traditions, and theoretical approaches. There is a need in the field for a comprehensive framework for understanding and investigating the role of affect in creativity. The model presented here spells out connections between specific affective and cognitive processes important in creativity, and personality traits associated with creativity. Identifying common findings and themes in a variety of research studies and descriptions of the creative process, this book integrates child and adult research and the classic psychoanalytic approach to creativity with contemporary social and cognitive psychology. In so doing, it addresses two major questions: * Is affect an important part of the creative process? * If it is, then how is affect involved in creative thinking? In addition, Russ presents her own research program in the area of affect and creativity, and introduces The Affect in Play Scale -- a method of measuring affective expression in children's play -- which can be useful in child psychotherapy and creativity research. Current issues in the creativity area are also discussed, such as artistic versus scientific creativity, adjustment and the creative process, the role of computers in learning about creativity, gender differences in the creative process, and enhancing creativity in home, school, and work settings. Finally, Russ points to future research issues and directions, and discusses alternative research paradigms such as mood-induction methods versus children's play procedures.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Explores the concept of 'house' in the context of Levi-Strauss' idea of the house as a link between kinship-based societies and class societies, developing this further into an examination of a conjuncture of architecture, people and symbolism.

Housing, Care and Inheritance draws on the author's long-standing research into housing issues surrounding the ageing society, a phenomenon which is now a concern in many mature economies. If an adult child provides care for their elderly parent, should that person be rewarded? If so, should they inherit their parent's house or a larger share of the assets? The 'generational contract' is often influenced by cultural norms, family traditions, social policy and housing market, so it is negotiated differently in different societies and at different times. Such generational contract is however breaking down as a result of socio-economic and demographic changes. Drawn from the two-part study funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council, Misa Izuhara explores the myth and the changing patterns of the particular exchange of long-term care and housing assets between older parents and their adult children in Britain and Japan. Highly international and comparative in perspectives, this study addresses important sociological as well as policy questions regarding intergenerational relations involving housing wealth, long-term care, and inheritance.

Since 2000, the Gulf Coast states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - have experienced a series of hurricanes, multiple floods and severe storms, and one oil spill. These disasters have not only been numerous but also devastating. Response to and recovery from these unprecedented disasters has been fraught with missteps in management. In efforts to avoid similar failures in the future, government agencies and policy practitioners have looked to recast emergency management, and community resilience has emerged as a way for to better prevent, manage, and recover from these disasters. How is disaster resilience perceived by local government officials and translated into their disaster response and recovery efforts? Ashley D. Ross systematically explores and measures disaster resilience across the Gulf Coast to gain a better understanding of how resilience in concept is translated into disaster management practices, particularly on the local government level. In doing so, she presents disaster resilience theory to the Gulf Coast using existing data to create county-level baseline indicators of Gulf Coast disaster resilience and an original survey of county emergency managers and elected municipal officials in 60 counties and 120 municipalities across the Gulf States. The findings of the original survey measure the disaster resilience perceptions held by local government officials, which are examined to identify commonalities and differences across the set of cases. Additional analyses compare these perceptions to objective baseline indicators of disaster resilience to assess how perceptions align with resilience realities. Local Disaster Resilience not only fills a critical gap in the literature by applying existing theories and models to a region that has experienced the worst disasters the United States has faced in the past decade, but it can also be used as a tool to advance our knowledge of disasters in an interdisciplinary manner.

Encouraging the development of a personal model of supervision built upon the integration of theory, research, and regard for the uniqueness of clinical settings, this new text will prepare readers for approved supervisor credential while advancing their ability to blend systemic theory with clinical practice in the context of personal and professional development.

In this classic text, pioneering organizational consultant Edwin C. Nevis presents an approach to organizational consulting which is grounded in Gestalt theory. Nevis brings his well-known insight, conceptual clarity and decades of experience to bear on the entire spectrum of concerns facing organizational consultants in a wide variety of settings. Beginning with the development of the Gestalt approach and the "Cycle of Experience" model, Nevis traces the implications of Gestalt theory for such areas as organizational assessment, modes of influence in organizations, dealing with resistance, developing relationships, working at the boundary and the matter of the consultant's presence. The conceptual framework provided in this groundbreaking work gives organizational consultants a powerful tool for understanding and influencing the behavior of organizations, and at the same time invites them to actively partake in the ongoing development of their unique individual styles.

As the global economy seeks to recover from the financial crisis and warnings about the consequences of climate change abound, it is clear that we need a fundamentally new approach to tackle these issues. This innovative book offers a unique perspective, stressing the necessity of both ecological and social change as it discusses how to create a "red-green" or "eco-socialist" society. Examining the current crises of welfare capitalism as well as the challenges and conflicts of an eco-socialist society, the book proposes a new social order that would combine the ideals of egalitarianism and of environmental sustainability. It analyses the key social and ecological issues related to the welfare state, including green Keynesianism, ecological Marxism, the limits of growth and no-growth, capitalist barriers to a renewable energy transition, proposals for a universal basic income and the role of technology. Finally, the book outlines possible paths of transformation towards creating an eco-socialist society, drawing out lessons that can be applied internationally. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in economics, environmental studies and political science.

Social work research is concerned with complex social issues closely connected to communities of people who are marginalized and oppressed. This volume develops critical and creative research methodologies that place questions of social justice at their centre and take innovative approaches to collecting, analysing, interpreting and presenting research data. The first section of the book examines textual data produced from an array of methodologies focused on the spoken and/or written word. These approaches allow those who are often silenced to speak by providing space and time to capture memory and meanings that may not come to light in a time driven structured research method like an interview or a questionnaire. The second section of the book discusses visual methods, including an examination of historical artefacts like, photographs and objects, and participant engagement with art, specifically clay sculpture and drawings. Both sets of methods examine the concept of 'time', that is, how we understand time, as in our past memories, how we develop relationships and knowledge over time. These creative and critical methods provide new insights into ways of undertaking social research in social work which captures the complexity of social experiences, problems and meanings that are, more often than not, embedded in time and place.

Privatising Capital examines the historical development of Poland's public sector and its welfare state. Their infrastructure, services and employees add up to a form of public capital, upon which the vast majority of society is dependent. The book describes the ongoing attempts to financialise and commodify this public capital and examines how this occurs in the areas of health, education and pensions. It also analyses the impact of public capital on the ideas and opinions of the population and how it affects contemporary ideologies and politics in Poland.

In this highly practical volume, the contributing authors explore some of the dimensions associated with aging in place. There are increasing numbers of older Americans who are faced with fundamental changes in their economic circumstances, health, and marital status which have an impact on their ability to age in place. Without the necessary supports many may have no other choice but to be prematurely or inappropriately placed in costly health care facilities or be forced to move into unfamiliar, less safe, less satisfactory housing environments. Aging in Place explores some of the dimensions associated with aging in place and informs readers about unmet needs and available living options for elderly persons. Experts discuss a number of crucial factors regarding the availability of social supports and the impact it has on the independence of the elderly, specifically their living arrangements. They address the issue of control and how access to social contact and real choices about services and facilities increases independence among the elderly; congregate housing as an alternative to nursing care for those elderly too frail for less supportive housing; discharge policies concerning frailty in senior living arrangements; and the lack of a full range of services in many alleged full service communities.

This book, first published in 1988, provides an overview of the diverse work that was being done in applied and theoretical environmental and resource economics. Some essays reflect upon the background of the work of John Krutilla, one of the founders of Resources for the Future and a leading scholar of environmental economics, and the development of the field to date. Other essays examine and convey findings on particular resource problems and theoretical issues and resource policies and the practice of applied welfare economics. This title will be of interest to students of economics and environmental studies.

This book traces and analyzes the legislation and implementation of pension reforms in four Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries: Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. By comparing the political economy of their policymaking processes, it seeks to pinpoint regularities between institutional settings, actor constellations, decision-making strategies and reform. Guardiancich employs a historical institutionalist framework to analyze the policies, actors and institutions that characterized the period between the collapse of socialism and the global financial crisis of 2008-2011. He argues that viable pension reforms should not be seen simply as an event, but rather as a continuing process that must be fiscally, socially and politically sustainable. In particular, the primary goal of a pension scheme is to reduce poverty, provide adequate retirement income and insure against the risks of old age within given fiscal constraints, and this will happen only if the scheme enjoys continuing political support at all levels. To this end the author individuates those institutional characteristics of countries that increase the consistency of reforms and lower the likelihood of policy reversals in time. Pension Reforms in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of political science, political economy, social policy and economics.

This book focuses on relatively unexplored areas in pension and health care arrangements, including financing, in East Asia. The book aims to fill the literature gap on social protection in East Asia by covering issues such as pension and health care arrangements in the depopulating high income countries of Japan and Korea; the challenges of the pay-out phase in Defined Contribution (DC) arrangements in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore; and the extension of coverage of social protection schemes in China, India, and Indonesia. It also reviews social protection from a much wider perspective and extends coverage of social protection in terms of both the proportion of the population with access to the social protection scheme and the types of risks faced by the households and by society as a whole. The book also gives attention to reforms of civil service pensions.

The first book to focus on clinical work with lesbians and gays in family relationships

This groundbreaking resource provides you with a wealth of fascinating research and case examples, as well as recommAndations and suggestions for working with gay couples and families.

Joan Laird and Robert-Jay Green have gathered a distinguished panel of practitioners to create this comprehensive collection. The contributors address the experiences of lesbians and gay men as couples and as parents?and examine their relationships with the families in which they were raised.

This is a third edition of a successful textbook that provides a contemporary account of how social services in the UK are paid for. The new edition brings the textbook up-to-date with its fast-moving subject area, explaining the finance of human services - health care, education, housing, social security a nd social care-through a review of the economic literature. It also gives an account of how the cash to pay for the services actually reaches schools, hospitals and social service departments, right from the start of the process, examining how government raises taxes, through to allocation of the funds. Both comprehensive and expertly written, this textbook will continue to feature as key reading for a variety of Social and Policy related courses.

This book combines the two most important typologies of capitalist diversity. This is possible because all countries with liberal market economies also have liberal welfare states; all countries that coordinate their economy either have a conservative or a social democratic welfare state. Building on this, this book shows how Hall and Soskice's 'Varieties of Capitalism' typology can be combined with Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typology. Drawing on a large dataset of empirical indicators, this book argues that similar historical cultural policy styles forged production systems and welfare arrangements that now follow similar logics within families of countries. It is possible to distinguish 'liberal', 'social democratically coordinated' and 'conservatively coordinated capitalism', because production systems and welfare states form a coherent whole, so that neither of the two aspects can be studied in isolation. Ultimately, this book shows how such a unified typology can explain trajectories of liberalization.

Second homes - the cottage, the summer house, the bach - are an important part of the tourism and leisure lifestyles of many people in the developed world. Second homes are therefore an integral component of tourism experiences in rural and peripheral areas. Yet, despite their significance not only for tourism but also for rural communities and the rural economy, relatively little research has been undertaken on the topic until recent times. This volume represents the first major international analysis and review of second homes for over 25 years. It will provide a significant resource for those interested in changing patterns of tourism and leisure behaviour as well as the use of the countryside and peripheral areas. The book describes the economic, social and environmental impacts of second homes as well as their planning implications and places such discussions within the context of contemporary human mobility. The volume represents essential reading for those interested in rural regional development processes and the development of new rural leisure landscapes.

One of the principal goals of antipoverty efforts should be to improve the absolute living standards of the least well-off. Progress for the Poor aims to enhance our understanding of how to do that, drawing on the experiences of twenty affluent countries since the 1970s.
The book addresses a set of questions at the heart of political economy and public policy: How much does economic growth help the poor? When and why does growth fail to trickle down? How can social policy help? Can a country have a sizeable low-wage sector yet few poor households? Are universal programs better than targeted ones? What role can public services play in antipoverty efforts? What is the best tax mix? Is more social spending better for the poor? If we commit to improvement in the absolute living standards of the least well-off, must we sacrifice other desirable outcomes?

The changing role of managed care can be a daunting challenge to both experienced clinicians and students entering into the practice for the first time. Managed care seems to have come out of nowhere and has affected the psychotherapy community so strongly that private-practice clinicians are finding that they must reinvent their practices in order to work well with managed care systems. The Textbook of Behavioral Managed Care presents, in a well organized and comprehensive manner, the basic definitions of managed care; its effects on clinicians; and most importantly, how clinicians can respond to the pressures of managed care and still maintain the quality of their practices. For experienced clinicians, the information in this volume will prove invaluable in adapting to the ever increasing role of managed care; for the student entering into practice, the book is an essential tool for understanding the forces that managed care has brought into play. The better managed care companies have two goals: to stretch behavioral health resources and, ultimately, to improve quality. In light of these two important tasks, this book demonstrates that truly effective implementation of managed care requires sophistication of experienced, knowledgeable, specialized therapists. The Textbook of Behavioral Managed Care will provide clinicians with a greater level of understanding that enables them to implement managed care in the most effective manner possible.

First published in 1992, this book explores the efforts to counteract the high maternal and infant death rates present between the end of the nineteenth century and the Second World War. It looks at the problem in five different continents and shows the varying approaches used by the governments, institutions and individuals in those countries. Contributors display how policy and practice have been shaped by the structure of maternity services, nationalism, the conflict of colonization and cultural factors. In doing so, they illustrate how welfare policy and funding were moulded throughout the world in the times considered.

Government investments in social sector has always played an important role in tackling social issues and facilitated in the alleviation of poverty. Hence, budgetary expenditure to be mobilized for such investments needs to be efficiently allocated and utilized to maximize the greatest good. This book focuses on the social sector in India and provides an overview of the sector. The book looks at 15 major Indian states between the year 2000-2011 to see how these states had invested in social sector and whether they had met the criteria of efficient social sector investment. Using stochastic frontier models, the book provides an efficiency norm and making use of this normative estimate, it compares performance across 15 Indian states and suggests important policy implications to improve the future performance of the social sector. The book adopts various quantitative techniques in the analysis and establishes that inefficient and inappropriate allocation of inputs was made in both health and education sectors. The book suggests that such problems and future challenges could be overcome by an appropriate mix of emphasis in different activities. This book will provide insight for those who want to learn more about how to build the capacity of the social sector in more efficient manner by exploring the social sector of India.