To date, knowledge of the everyday world of the juvenile correction institution has been extremely sparse. Compassionate Confinement brings to light the challenges and complexities inherent in the U.S. system of juvenile corrections. Building on over a year of field work at a boys' residential facility, Laura S. Abrams and Ben Anderson-Nathe provide a context for contemporary institutions and highlight some of the system's most troubling tensions. This ethnographic text utilizes narratives, observations, and case examples to illustrate the strain between treatment and correctional paradigms and the mixed messages regarding gender identity and masculinity that the youths are expected to navigate. Within this context, the authors use the boys' stories to show various and unexpected pathways toward behavior change. While some residents clearly seized opportunities for self-transformation, others manipulated their way toward release, and faced substantial challenges when they returned home. Compassionate Confinement concludes with recommendations for rehabilitating this notoriously troubled system in light of the experiences of its most vulnerable stakeholders.

Social work as a profession and academic discipline has long centered women and issues of concern to women, such as reproductive rights, labor rights, equal rights, violence and poverty. In fact, the social work profession was started by and maintained in large part by women and has been home to several generations of feminists starting with recognized first wave feminists. This wide-ranging volume both maps the contemporary landscape of feminist social work research, and offers a deep engagement with critical and third wave feminisms in social work research. Showcasing the breadth and depth of exemplary social work feminist research, the editors argue that social work's unique focus on praxis, daily proximities to privilege and oppression, concern with social change and engagement with participatory forms of inquiry place social workers in a unique position to both learn from and contribute to broader social science and humanities discourse associated with feminist research. The authors attend here to their specific claims of feminisms, articulate deep engagement with theory, address the problematic use of binaries, and engage with issues associated with methods that are consistently of interest to feminist researchers, such as power and authority, ethics, reflexivity, praxis and difference. Comprehensive and containing an international selection of contributions, Feminisms in Social Work Research is an important reference for all social work researchers with an interest in critical perspectives.

Social work as a profession and academic discipline has long centered women and issues of concern to women, such as reproductive rights, labor rights, equal rights, violence and poverty. In fact, the social work profession was started by and maintained in large part by women and has been home to several generations of feminists starting with recognized first wave feminists. This wide-ranging volume both maps the contemporary landscape of feminist social work research, and offers a deep engagement with critical and third wave feminisms in social work research. Showcasing the breadth and depth of exemplary social work feminist research, the editors argue that social work's unique focus on praxis, daily proximities to privilege and oppression, concern with social change and engagement with participatory forms of inquiry place social workers in a unique position to both learn from and contribute to broader social science and humanities discourse associated with feminist research. The authors attend here to their specific claims of feminisms, articulate deep engagement with theory, address the problematic use of binaries, and engage with issues associated with methods that are consistently of interest to feminist researchers, such as power and authority, ethics, reflexivity, praxis and difference. Comprehensive and containing an international selection of contributions, Feminisms in Social Work Research is an important reference for all social work researchers with an interest in critical perspectives.

Youth workers and other helping professionals regularly find themselves in situations where, despite their experience and education, they simply do not know what to do or how to respond to the circumstances facing them. This book takes up the moment of not-knowing as experienced by youth workers, providing accessible phenomenological descriptions of the experience as lived by several youth workers. In addition to exploring the five dominant themes of the experience, the book situates not-knowing in the larger context of the helping professions and the professionalization of youth work in the United States. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of not-knowing for individual youth workers, for improved practice through integrated clinical and professional supervision, and for the field as a whole.

This book will be helpful to practitioners and supervisors in youth work and other helping professions. Youth workers will be able to find themselves reflected in and readily engage with the narratives. Direct service workers and supervisors will benefit from the focuses on practical implications of not-knowing and opportunities for action to help resolve its negative outcomes. Finally, interpretive researchers and students will benefit from the step-by-step description of how to conduct phenomenological investigations.

This book was published as a special issue of Child & Youth Services.

Youth workers and other helping professionals regularly find themselves in situations where, despite their experience and education, they simply do not know what to do or how to respond to the circumstances facing them. This book takes up the moment of not-knowing as experienced by youth workers, providing accessible phenomenological descriptions of the experience as lived by several youth workers. In addition to exploring the five dominant themes of the experience, the book situates not-knowing in the larger context of the helping professions and the professionalization of youth work in the United States. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of not-knowing for individual youth workers, for improved practice through integrated clinical and professional supervision, and for the field as a whole.

This book will be helpful to practitioners and supervisors in youth work and other helping professions. Youth workers will be able to find themselves reflected in and readily engage with the narratives. Direct service workers and supervisors will benefit from the focuses on practical implications of not-knowing and opportunities for action to help resolve its negative outcomes. Finally, interpretive researchers and students will benefit from the step-by-step description of how to conduct phenomenological investigations.

This book was published as a special issue of Child & Youth Services.

To date, knowledge of the everyday world of the juvenile correction institution has been extremely sparse. Compassionate Confinement brings to light the challenges and complexities inherent in the U.S. system of juvenile corrections. Building on over a year of field work at a boys' residential facility, Laura S. Abrams and Ben Anderson-Nathe provide a context for contemporary institutions and highlight some of the system's most troubling tensions. This ethnographic text utilizes narratives, observations, and case examples to illustrate the strain between treatment and correctional paradigms and the mixed messages regarding gender identity and masculinity that the youths are expected to navigate. Within this context, the authors use the boys' stories to show various and unexpected pathways toward behavior change. While some residents clearly seized opportunities for self-transformation, others manipulated their way toward release, and faced substantial challenges when they returned home. Compassionate Confinement concludes with recommendations for rehabilitating this notoriously troubled system in light of the experiences of its most vulnerable stakeholders.