This book explores the experiences of informal home carers in the different welfare systems of the former West Germany and East Germany, and Britain. It is innovative in using a biographical case study approach to compare caring situations and caring strategies in the three different societies. The detail and variety of the case studies show how particular social and welfare patterns give rise to recognisable 'cultures of care'. The authors: show how the social relations of caring are structured within and outside the home environment offer a research tool to take into account the significance of informal networks use separate analysis of 'lived' and 'told' life stories to highlight personal processes of continuity and change in meeting the challenge of caring link individual caring strategies to the structural features of welfare societies. European comparative research creates opportunities for fresh thinking about social policy, showing best practice and piecing together the strengths of each system. The findings of this book underline the significance of caring within social policy agendas and the need to extend and change the parameters of comparative social policy beyond a fixation on social insurance. Cultures of care makes an important contribution to debates about the need to 'strengthen the social' and to build a creative sense of moral agency in welfare systems. It provides a valuable new resource for both academic teaching and the training of social professionals.

Harnessing the inspiration available from the arts and the imagination brings to life sensitive and effective social work practice. Workers feel most satisfied while service users and communities are more likely to benefit when creative thinking can be applied to practice dilemmas. Drawing on contributions from Canada, England and Utrecht this book illustrates the transforming effect of creatively applied thinking to social problems. The first part of the book considers how use of the self can be enhanced by analytic reflection and application to difficulties facing individuals and communities. The second part shows psychodynamic theory to be a valuable aid when thinking about issues faced by social workers facing threats and accusations, therapeutic work with children and restorative youth justice. The third part of the book considers the implications of working with the arts in community settings - an ex-mining community in North West England, the Tate Gallery in London and the 'cultural capital' of Liverpool. Taken as a whole these chapters combine to inspire and provoke thought of how the arts and the imagination can be used creativity to help service users confronted by problems with living and the workers who attempt to get alongside them to think about these. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.

Harnessing the inspiration available from the arts and the imagination brings to life sensitive and effective social work practice. Workers feel most satisfied while service users and communities are more likely to benefit when creative thinking can be applied to practice dilemmas. Drawing on contributions from Canada, England and Utrecht this book illustrates the transforming effect of creatively applied thinking to social problems. The first part of the book considers how use of the self can be enhanced by analytic reflection and application to difficulties facing individuals and communities. The second part shows psychodynamic theory to be a valuable aid when thinking about issues faced by social workers facing threats and accusations, therapeutic work with children and restorative youth justice. The third part of the book considers the implications of working with the arts in community settings - an ex-mining community in North West England, the Tate Gallery in London and the 'cultural capital' of Liverpool. Taken as a whole these chapters combine to inspire and provoke thought of how the arts and the imagination can be used creativity to help service users confronted by problems with living and the workers who attempt to get alongside them to think about these. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.

This book uses a range of interpretive approaches to reveal the dynamics of service users' and professionals' individual experiences and life-worlds. From their research the contributors show how biographical methods can improve theoretical understanding of professional practice, as well as enrich the learning and development of professionals, and promote more meaningful and creative practitioner - service user relationships. The book: * reviews applications of biographical methods in both policy and practice in a range of professional contexts, from health and social care to education and employment; * explores the impact of social change in three main arenas - transformation from Eastern to Western types of society in Europe, major shifts in social and welfare principles, experiences of immigration and of new cultural diversities - on professional practice; * critically evaluates subjective and reflexive processes in interactions between researchers, practitioners and users of services; * considers the institutional arrangements and cultural contexts which support effective and sensitive interventions; * draws on actual projects and tracks reflection, progress and outcomes. With contributions from leading international experts, it provides a valuable comparative perspective. Researchers, policy analysts and practitioners, postgraduate students, teachers and trainers will find this book a stimulating read.

Based on 250 life-story interviews in seven European Union countries, Biography and social exclusion in Europe: analyses personal struggles against social exclusion to illuminate local milieus and changing welfare regimes and contexts; points to challenging new agendas for European politics and welfare, beyond the rhetoric of communitarianism and the New Deal; vividly illustrates the lived experience and environmental complexity working for and against structural processes of social exclusion; refashions the interpretive tradition as a teaching and research tool linking macro and micro realities. * * Students, academic teachers and professional trainers, practitioners, politicians, policy makers and researchers in applied and comparative welfare fields will all benefit from reading this book.

Biographical research methods have become a useful and popular tool for contemporary social scientists. This book combines an exploration of the historical and philosophical origins of this important field of qualitative research with comparative examples of the different ways that biographical methods have been successfully applied internationally. Through these many illustrative examples of socio-biography in process the authors show how formal textual analysis, whilst uncovering hidden emotional defences, can also shed light on wider historical processes of societal transformation.
Topics discussed include:
*individual and linked lives
*generational change
*political influences on memory and identity
*biographical work in reflexive societies
*narrativity and empowerment in professional practice
*ways of theorising and generalising from case-studies.
Biographical Methods in the Social Sciences promotes debate and provides opportunities for students and researchers to widen their uses of narrative research.

Biological research methods have become a useful and popular tool for contemporary social scientists. This book combines an exploration of the historical and philosophical origins of this important field of qualitative research with comparative examples of the different ways that biographical methods have been successfully applied internationally. Through these many illustrative examples of socio-biography in process the authors show how formal textual analysis, whilst uncovering hidden emotional defences, can also shed light on wider historical processes of societal transformation.
Topics discussed include:
*individual and linked lives
*generation change
*political influences on memory and identity
*biographical work in reflexive societies
*narrativity and empowerment in professional practice
*ways of theorising and generalising from case studies

This innovative volume describes how an awareness of culture must be applied to the study and provision of welfare in Europe. It shows how the cultures underpinning social welfare systems are starting to be exposed and explored. The assumption that the values and beliefs which constitute welfare systems are universal and absolute has been overturned for two reasons. First, the post-war period has seen huge changes in traditional structures in Europe, such as class, race and gender, which have prompted people and systems to re-assess and assert their identity and role. Second, the move towards European union and the process of globalization have led to a growing awareness of different welfare systems; traditional distinctions, for example between the individual and the community, the public and private spheres, and the state and the market, have had to be re-evaluated. Defining `culture' as the systems through which social orders are transmitted, experienced and explored, Welfare and Culture in Europe argues that welfare must start with the human individuals involved - the users, providers and policy makers themselves. It constitutes a major qualitative study of the ways in which welfare states reflect and reproduce patterns of social values. Several chapters draw on new biographical approaches to social policy research and analysis. It develops new directions for future policy research and presents alternative methodological bases for empirical work. At a time of crisis, change and anxiety in Europe, this book lays the foundation for an essential re-working of social policy.