Dominant social work and social care discourses on 'race' and ethnicity often fail to incorporate an Irish dimension. This book challenges this omission and provides new insights into how social work has engaged with Irish children and their families, historically and to the present day. The book provides the first detailed exploration social work with Irish children and families in Britain; examines archival materials to illuminate historical patterns of engagement; provides an account of how social services departments in England and Wales are currently responding to the needs of Irish children and families; incorporates the views of Irish social workers and acts as a timely intervention in the debate on social work's 'modernisation' agenda. The book will be valuable to social workers, social work educators and students. Its key themes will also fascinate those interested in 'race' and ethnicity in Britain in the early 21st century.

Remaking Social Work with Children and Families provides a sustained examination of the 'modernisation' of this area of social care. It analyses some of the key themes introduced by the administrations of John Major and Tony Blair and provides a critical exploration of contemporary policy initiatives and issues. These include: · the Looking After Children (LAC) materials · The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families · 'working together' to protect children · the mainstream approach to 'race' and ethnicity in social work · the implications for social work of the emergence of 'personal advisers', mentors and related professionals. The author argues that political and ideological factors need to be taken into account in order to understand the dominant discourses and evolving practices of social work with children. Potential fixation with ensuring that young people are able to 'fit' into their allotted roles in a market economy and an overarching concern about children and criminality have been crucial in this respect. He concludes that while social workers and educators should be prepared to embrace change, they need to be critical agents in the process of change, recognising the ever present need to promote and foster democracy within the sphere of social welfare. This timely book will be helpful to all students, educators and social care professionals who are seeking to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of a changing profession.

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Exploring the neglected history of Britain's largest migrant population, this is a major new study of the Irish in Britain after 1945. The Irish in Post-War Britain reconstructs, with both empathy and imagination, the histories of the lost generation who left independent Ireland in huge numbers to settle in Britain from the 1940s until the 1960s. Drawing on a wide range of previously neglected materials, Enda Delaney illustrates the complex process of negotiation and renegotiation that was involved in adapting and adjusting to life in Britain. Less visible than other newcomers, it is widely assumed that the Irish assimilated with relative ease shortly after arrival. The Irish in Post-war Britain challenges this view, and shows that the Irish often perceived themselves to be outsiders, located on the margins of their adopted home. Many contemporaries frequently lumped the Irish together as all being essentially the same, but Delaney argues that the experiences of Britain's Irish population after the Second World War were much more diverse than previously assumed, and shaped by social class, geography, and gender, as well as nationality. The book's original approach demonstrates that any understanding of a migrant group must take account of both elements of the society that they had left, as well as the social landscape of their new country. Proximity ensured that even though these people had left Ireland, home as an imagined sense of place was never far away in the minds of those who had settled in Britain.

The objectives of this study are to estimate the prevalence of psychiatric illness among different ethnic groups, to examine their use of services and to establish key factors that may be associated with ethnic differences in the experience and reporting of mental distress. The survey presents quantitative and qualitative data, and focuses on five of the main ethnic minority groups in England (that is the Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Indian, Irish and Pakistani communities), together with a general population white group to provide a point of comparison. Topics covered include: common mental disorders and symptoms; physical health issues; social support and networks.