A unique contribution to research on feminist care ethics. Drawing on a wealth of practical experience across eight different disciplinary fields, the international contributors demonstrate the significance of care ethics as a transformative way of thinking and highlight the necessity of thinking about the ethics of care within policies and practice.

Many policy and practice initiatives that aim to prevent social exclusion focus on children and young people. This book seeks to consider new approaches to understanding the complexities of prevention, and how these new understandings can inform policy and practice. The authors use evidence from the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund to illustrate and explore the experiences of children and families who are most marginalised. They consider the historical context of approaches to child welfare, and present a new framework for understanding and developing preventative polices and practice within the context of social exclusion. Preventative initiatives such as the Children's Fund have supported large-scale complex evaluations that have generated rich and important data about strategies for addressing social exclusion and what they can achieve. The findings of this book have direct relevance for all those engaged in developing preventative policy and practice and will therefore be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and students of child welfare and social policy more broadly, in providing a timely discussion of key debates in designing, delivering and commissioning preventative services.

Drawing on contributions from user activists and academic researchers, this topical reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement. It considers different contexts in which such involvement is taking place and includes diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the issues involved. This original and insightful critique will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.

Care-giving has become a high-profile issue in policy and practice, yet much of the literature conceives it as burdensome or even oppressive. Drawing extensively on real-life examples of care-giving relationships, Caring and Social Justice reveals an uplifting alternative approach to caring that highlights its contribution to social cohesion and social justice. It offers a clear overview of the literature including debates about an 'ethic of care' and offers a thought-provoking survey ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate study.

What are the implications of caring about the things we research? How does that affect how we research, who we research with and what we do with our results? Proposing what Joan C. Tronto has called a 'paradigm shift' in research thinking, this book invites researchers across disciplines and fields of study to do research that thinks and acts with care. The authors draw on their own and others' experiences of researching, the troubles they encounter and the opportunities generated when research is approached as a caring practice. Care ethics provides a guide, from starting out, designing and conducting projects to thinking about research legacies. It offers a way in which research can help repair harms and promote justice.

What are the implications of caring about the things we research? How does that affect how we research, who we research with and what we do with our results? Proposing what Joan C. Tronto has called a 'paradigm shift' in research thinking, this book invites researchers across disciplines and fields of study to do research that thinks and acts with care. The authors draw on their own and others' experiences of researching, the troubles they encounter and the opportunities generated when research is approached as a caring practice. Care ethics provides a guide, from starting out, designing and conducting projects to thinking about research legacies. It offers a way in which research can help repair harms and promote justice.

Self-organised user groups of social and health care services are playing an increasingly significant part within systems of local governance. Based on detailed empirical work looking at the user and 'official' perspective, this report includes studies of user groups and officials in two policy areas - mental health and disability. The authors examine both the strategies user groups adopt to seek their objectives, and explore conceptual issues relating to notions of consumerism and citizenship. Unequal partners thus contributes to our understanding of the role of user self-organisation in empowering people as consumers, and in enabling excluded people to become 'active' citizens. The authors discuss the way in which self-organisation may be supported without being controlled by officials in statutory agencies, highlighting the need to understand and distinguish between user self-organisation and user involvement. The report concludes that if policy makers are genuinely committed to greater user involvement in design, planning and delivery of services, then user self-organisation needs to be both encouraged and supported materially, without being 'captured' or incorporated into management. The research points to the significance of 'user groups' in challenging the exclusion of disabled citizens from all aspects of social, economic, political and cultural life. Unequal partners is essential reading for health and social care policy makers and practitioners, lobby and pressure groups, students and academics in health and social policy and local government studies, and users.

Care has been struggled for, resisted and celebrated. The failure to care in 'care services' has been seen as a human rights problem and evidence of malaise in contemporary society. But care has also been implicated in the oppression of disabled people and demoted in favour of choice in health and social care services. In this wide-ranging book Marian Barnes argues for care as an essential value in private lives and public policies. She considers the importance of care to well-being and social justice and applies insights from feminist care ethics to care work, and care within personal relationships. She also looks at 'stranger relationships', how we relate to the places in which we live, and the way in which public deliberation about social policy takes place. This book will be vital reading for all those wanting to apply relational understandings of humanity to social policy and practice.

Health Action Zones (HAZ) were one of the earliest and most prominent area-based initiatives launched by the New Labour government in England soon after it came to power in 1997. Written by members of the team undertaking the national evaluation of HAZ, this book examines the initiative 's development and impact from a variety of perspectives. It outlines important features of the social, policy and evaluative environment within which HAZ were established and discusses enduring themes such as building and developing capacity with diverse and unequal partners within complex policy systems.

Multidisciplinary in nature, the book provides in-depth analysis of a key policy initiative, offering guidance on how best to design, implement and evaluate future initiatives intended to deal with fundamental social problems.

Care has been struggled for, resisted and celebrated. The failure to care in 'care services' has been seen as a human rights problem and evidence of malaise in contemporary society. But care has also been implicated in the oppression of disabled people and demoted in favour of choice in health and social care services. In this bold wide ranging book Marian Barnes argues for care as an essential value in private lives and public policies. She considers the importance of care to well-being and social justice and applies insights from feminist care ethics to care work, and care within personal relationships. She also looks at 'stranger relationships', how we relate to the places in which we live, and the way in which public deliberation about social policy takes place. This book will be vital reading for all those wanting to apply relational understandings of humanity to social policy and practice.

Over the last 20 years there has been a flourishing of work on feminist care ethics. This collection makes a unique contribution to this body of work. The international contributors demonstrate the significance of care ethics as a transformative way of thinking across diverse geographical, policy and interpersonal contexts. From Tronto's analysis of global responsibilities, to Fudge Schormans' re-imagining of care from the perspective of people with learning disabilities, chapters highlight the necessity of thinking about the ethics of care to achieve justice and well-being within policies and practice. This book will be essential reading for all those seeking such outcomes.

Drawing on contributions from user activists and academic researchers, this topical reader provides a critical stock take of the state of user involvement. It considers different contexts in which such involvement is taking place and includes diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives on the issues involved. This original and insightful critique will be an important resource for students studying health and social care and social work, researchers and user activists.

Many of the recent reforms in public services in the UK have been driven by the image of the 'responsible citizen' - the service user who does not only have rights to receive services but also has responsibilities for the delivery of policy outcomes. In this way, citizens' everyday conduct is shaped by governmental action, yet there is much evidence that both front-line staff in public services and the people who use them can sometimes act in ways that modify, disrupt or negate intended policy outcomes. "Subversive citizens" presents a highly original examination of how official policy objectives can be 'subverted' through the actions of staff and users. It discusses the role of public policy in the creation of 'good citizenship', such as making appropriate choices about what to eat and how much to save, to being an active participant in the local community. It also examines how the roles of service delivery staff have changed substantially, and how theories of 'power' and 'agency' are useful in analysing the engagement between public policies (and those employed to deliver them) and the citizens at whom they are targeted. The idea of subversive citizenship is explored through theoretical and empirical analyses by a range of prominent social researchers and will be of interest to students of social policy, sociology, criminology, politics and related disciplines, as well as policy makers involved in public services.

Many policy and practice initiatives that aim to prevent social exclusion focus on children and young people. This book seeks to consider new approaches to understanding the complexities of prevention, and how these new understandings can inform policy and practice. The authors use evidence from the National Evaluation of the Children's Fund to illustrate and explore the experiences of children and families who are most marginalised. They consider the historical context of approaches to child welfare, and present a new framework for understanding and developing preventative polices and practice within the context of social exclusion. Preventative initiatives such as the Children's Fund have supported large-scale complex evaluations that have generated rich and important data about strategies for addressing social exclusion and what they can achieve. The findings of this book have direct relevance for all those engaged in developing preventative policy and practice and will therefore be of interest to policy makers, practitioners and students of child welfare and social policy more broadly, in providing a timely discussion of key debates in designing, delivering and commissioning preventative services.

Public participation is central to a wide range of current public policies - not only in the UK, but elsewhere in the developed and the developing world. There are substantial aspirations for what enhanced participation can achieve. This book offers a critical examination of both the discourse and practice of participation in order to understand the significance of this explosion in participatory forums, and the extent to which such practices represent a fundamental change in governance. Based on 17 case studies across a range of policy areas in two English cities, the authors address key issues such as: the way in which notions of the public are constructed; the motivation of participants; how the interests and identities of officials and citizens are negotiated within forums; and the ways in which institutions enable and constrain the development of participation initiatives. Much of the literature on public participation is highly normative. This book draws from detailed empirical work, theories of governance, of deliberative democracy and social movements to offer a nuanced account of the dynamics of participation and to suggest why experiences of this can be frustrating as well as transformative. This book will be essential reading for students of public and social policy and offers important insights for those directly engaged in developing participation initiatives across the public sector

What are the implications of current economic, social and political trends in Britain for older people? Social and demographic changes have led to traditional areas of welfare being transformed. The contributors to this book take a critical look at the current situation and assess the implications for future practice. They debate the assumptions and values underlying established welfare programmes and consider the case for change as growing demands put health and social services under increasing pressure. The second part of the book discusses specific areas in detail, ranging from the organisation of effective domiciliary social care to the impact of new technologies on older people's lives. This book provides a comprehensive and practical overview of the provision of services for older people and will be a valuable and thought-provoking resource for anyone involved in caring for and supporting them.