With the United States’ involvement in numerous combat operations overseas, the need for civilian social workers with the clinical skills necessary to work with members of the military returning from combat, as well as their families, has never been more critical. In this practical and important book, each chapter is written by specialists in a particular area devoted to the care of service members and includes case material to demonstrate assessment and intervention approaches. The reader is introduced to the world of the military and the subsequent development of mental health services for returning men and women. Chapters look at special populations of service members with specific needs based directly on their experience in the military, discussing post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, sexual harassment and assault during their service, and the physiology of the war zone experience. The challenges faced by reintegrating service men and women are explored in detail and include family issues, suicide, and substance use disorders. A section on services available to returning service members looks at those offered by the Veterans Administration and at the use of animal-assisted interventions. The book concludes with a section devoted to unique concerns for the practitioner and explores ethical concerns they may face and their own needs as clinicians working with this population.

This special issue of the journal Advances in Social Work captures the vision of 21 different social work scholars looking ahead to the future in their area of practice. Areas include Futures of: Social Work as a profession, Social Work Education, Social Work Values and Ethics, Global Social Work, Multicultural Social Work, Macro Social Work, Social Welfare Policy, Evidence-based Social Work, Strengths-based Social Work, Technology and Social Work, Spirituality and Social Work, Disabilities and Social Work, Aging and Social Work, Rural Social Work, Families and Social Work, Child Welfare and Social Work, Schools and Social Work, Health Care and Social Work, Mental Health and Social Work, Addictions and Social Work, Criminal Justice and Social Work. This insightful special issue offers a grand view of a very diverse profession and the many areas of practice that social workers serve in. This special issue will be highly useful in all levels of social work education within introductory, policy, and practice classes as an invaluable teaching tool. It will also be informative reading for professionals in the practice who are interested in seeing cutting edge visions of our future as a profession. Every social worker should read this fascinating issue of Advances in Social Work!

Originally published in 1980, this seminal work was the first to introduce an ecological perspective into social work practice. The third edition expands and deepens this perspective, further developing the basic premise that, by being situated within the people:environment interface, the social work profession is distinct from other service professions. The book presents the "what" (theories and concepts) and the "how" (practice methods) to help people with their life stressors and, simultaneously, to influence communities, organizations, and policymakers to be more responsive to them. In this edition, Gitterman and Germain examine major changes to our socioeconomic and political landscape. They restore a chapter on the history of social work practice, offering a view of the limited services for African Americans provided by settlements and charity organization societies. Building on the African American self-help and mutual aid traditions, this chapter traces the replication of a parallel social service system by African American leaders for their own communities. The chapter also addresses the impact of contemporary societal trends, including the global economy, immigration, cultural changes, and the technology revolution. In addition, it discusses current professional contexts of managed mental health care, evidence-based practice, and the professional uses of technology. A new chapter explores issues and processes embedded in assessment, practice monitoring, and practice evaluation. The volume continues to feature innovative schema for assessment and intervention with respect to stressful life transitions and traumatic events, environmental pressures, and dysfunctional interpersonal processes. Practice illustrations offer reflections of today's major social issues, such as AIDS, homelessness, and modern forms of violence.

Social Work Practice in Health Care by Karen M. Allen and William J. Spitzer is a pragmatic and comprehensive book that helps readers develop the knowledge, skills, and values necessary for effective health care social work practice, as well as an understanding of the technological, social, political, ethical, and financial factors affecting contemporary patient care. Packed with case studies and exercises, the book emphasizes the importance of being attentive to both patient and organizational needs, covers emerging trends in health care policy and delivery, provides extensive discussion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and addresses social work practice across the continuum of care.

The aim of this book is to exemplify the ways in which social work and research develop in ‘advanced’ welfare states – countries where public spending is relatively high as a proportion of GNP. While such countries have traditionally been associated with Scandinavian countries in particular, and North-Western Europe more generally, there are other countries where the public spend on welfare is relatively high. The various contributors in this book explore and exemplify ways in which social work and research are distinctive for advanced welfare states. This involves exploring their connection to professional identities, histories and welfare systems; their associations with academic, theoretical and cultural traditions of collaboration between academic and social work practice, and the distinctive links with community, national policy, governmentality and agency, with respect to forms of knowledge, discourses and conception of social problems. Written by contributors who have experience of living and working in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Singapore and the UK, this book speaks throughout about problems, methods, systems and ideas in language that is readily transferable and transcends national boundaries of thought and social work practice. It will be read and understood by social work students across Europe.

This book covers recent advances for quantitative researchers with practical examples from the social sciences. It provides essential information on important issues such as tourism, geography, history, sociology, politics, economy and sport sciences. Each chapter offers a comprehensive range of practical ideas and examples, and all topics are covered by an expert in the field in question. This volume will enable readers to realize that what they see as specific to their own discipline is, in fact, common to several different fields.

This book seeks to trouble taken-for-granted assumptions of anthropocentrism and humanism in social work - those which perpetuate human privilege and human exceptionalism. The edited collection provides a different imaginary for social work by introducing ways of thinking otherwise that challenge human exceptionalism. Social work is at heart a liberal humanist project informed by a strong human rights framework. This edited collection draws on the literature on affect, feminist new materialism and critical posthumanism to critique the liberal framework, which includes human rights. Disrupting the anthropocentrism in social work which positions humans as an elite species at the centre of world history, this book develops an ethical sensibility that values entanglements of humans, non-human life and the natural environment. The book provides new insights into environmental destruction, human-animal relations, gender inequality and male dominance, as well as indigenous and settler/colonial issues and critical and green social work. It will be of interest to all scholars and students of social work, community development, social policy and development studies more broadly.