Support Groups: Current Perspectives on Theory and Practice provides a framework for understanding and examining supportive group interventions. It provides descriptions of different kinds of support groups and alerts practitioners and educators to the factors they should consider in planning, implementing, and evaluating support group services. The book also offers guidance in using innovative approaches to providing support services through computer groups and telephone groups.Human service professionals and social work educators, practitioners, and students will find these topics covered in Support Groups: evaluation of support groups a support group model guidelines for support group practice innovative use of support groups issues in support group practiceThe purpose of this book is to examine state-of-the-art support group practice. Support groups are conceived as the center of a continuum of supportive group interventions, overlapping with self-help groups at one end and treatment groups at the other. The chapters are placed within the context of the open systems model developed by the editors. This model provides a framework for understanding factors that affect support groups, for guiding intervention, and for evaluating their outcomes.

When social workers draw on experience, theory, or data in order to develop new strategies or enhance existing ones, they are conducting intervention research. This relatively new field involves program design, implementation, and evaluation and requires a theory-based, systematic approach. Intervention Research presents such a framework.
The five-step strategy described in this brief but thorough book ushers the reader from an idea's germination through the process of writing a treatment manual, assessing program efficacy and effectiveness, and disseminating findings. Rich with examples drawn from child welfare, school-based prevention, medicine, and juvenile justice, Intervention Research relates each step of the process to current social work practice. It also explains how to adapt interventions for new contexts, and provides extensive examples of intervention research in fields such as child welfare, school-based prevention, medicine, and juvenile justice, and offers insights about changes and challenges in the field.
This innovative pocket guide will serve as a solid reference for those already in the field, as well as help the next generation of social workers develop skills to contribute to the evolving field of intervention research.

This definitive text, now revised and expanded, has introduced thousands of students and practitioners to the theory and practice of social work with groups. Leading authorities outline major models of group work and address critical issues in planning, implementing, and evaluating interventions. The Handbook describes applications in all the major practice settings--mental health, prevention, child welfare, substance abuse, health care, aging, corrections, and more--as well as organizational and community settings. A strong focus on empowerment, social justice, and diversity is woven throughout. The empirical foundations of group work are reviewed, and innovative research methods discussed. New to This Edition: *Incorporates over a decade of advances in the field *Heightened focus on practitioner-researcher collaboration. *Two chapters on substance abuse prevention with youth. *Chapters on social justice work, evidence-based practice, offender reentry, intimate partner violence, intergroup dialogue, working with immigrants and refugees, qualitative methods, and intervention research. *Major updates on existing topics, such as cognitive-behavioral group work, psychoeducational groups, health care settings, and technology-mediated groups. *Integrative epilogue that synthesizes key themes.

This definitive text, now revised and expanded, has introduced thousands of students and practitioners to the theory and practice of social work with groups. Leading authorities outline major models of group work and address critical issues in planning, implementing, and evaluating interventions. The Handbook describes applications in all the major practice settings--mental health, prevention, child welfare, substance abuse, health care, aging, corrections, and more--as well as organizational and community settings. A strong focus on empowerment, social justice, and diversity is woven throughout. The empirical foundations of group work are reviewed, and innovative research methods discussed. New to This Edition: *Incorporates over a decade of advances in the field *Heightened focus on practitioner-researcher collaboration. *Two chapters on substance abuse prevention with youth. *Chapters on social justice work, evidence-based practice, offender reentry, intimate partner violence, intergroup dialogue, working with immigrants and refugees, qualitative methods, and intervention research. *Major updates on existing topics, such as cognitive-behavioral group work, psychoeducational groups, health care settings, and technology-mediated groups. *Integrative epilogue that synthesizes key themes.