Divided into three parts, this field-defining work explores what environmental social work is, and how it can be put into practice. It focuses on theory, discussing ecological and social justice, as well as sustainability, spirituality and human rights.

A thoughtful text integrating strengths, assets, and capacity-building themes with contemporary issues in rural social work practice Now in its second edition, Rural Social Work is a collection of contributed readings from social work scholars, students, and practitioners presenting a framework for resource building based on the strengths, assets, and capacities of people, a tool essential for working with rural communities. This guide considers methods for social workers to participate in the work of sustaining rural communities. Each chapter features a reading integrating the themes of capacity-building and rural social work; discussion questions that facilitate critical thinking around the chapter; and suggested activities and assignments. Rural Social Work, Second Edition explores: Important practice issues in rural communities, including the challenges of working with stigmatized populations such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, the homeless, and people living with HIV/AIDS Practice models that hold special promise for rural social workers, including evidence-based practice and community partnership models Newer research tools such as asset mapping, social network analysis, concept mapping, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Exploring how social workers can integrate the tremendous resources that exist in rural communities into their practice, Rural Social Work, Second Edition provides a solid introduction to the complex, challenging, and rewarding work of building and sustaining rural communities.

Social work is a profession under strain, and practitioners report finding the role increasingly challenging. What can sustain social work in these times? How can social workers sustain themselves in the role? How can they derive confidence and meaning from what they do? In addressing these questions, Sustaining Social Work is a source of understanding and support for professionals struggling with the tensions of practice. Accessible and engaging , it explores the fallout that results from social workers experiencing these tensions, including feelings of powerlessness, responsibility, optimism and cynicism. Drawing on ideas from social theory and the social sciences, it puts forward a model of sustainable social work that will help practitioners not just cope but flourish – even in the context of ongoing crises. An enlightening, uplifting read in a difficult and uncertain time for the profession, Sustaining Social Work addresses the challenge of finding sustenance and consolation within day-to-day practice, enriching it beyond the short-term.

This book aims to bring order to the diversity of methods which is so typical of social work. The tools described can be directly put into practice and adapted to the social worker's personalised approach with their clients. Useful for both the inexperienced and the more practiced social worker, the book provides a solid basis through the use of numerous practical examples and offers the more experienced social worker a substantial resource and the means to legitimise a chosen course of action and social work intervention. Schools of social work will be able to use the book as an easily accessible resource for social work assessments, interventions and quality social work management.

The rapid trend of globalization has brought with it a variety of sustainability challenges, including global climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty, and social inequalities, which are problems with unclear boundaries, complicated interrelated components, undefined parameters, contradictory values, and no single solution. Social work has a long-standing tradition of emphasizing the interaction of people and their environment. For this reason, the field of social work is one of the best-placed academic disciplines for studying the impact of environmental change on social systems, and should play an important role in developing strategies for mitigating and adapting to these environmental challenges. However, traditional social work tends to lack sustaining work and neglect globally interconnected social problems. Combining case studies and country reports from around Asia with a theoretical framework for understanding sustainability concerns, this book aims to show how social work can play a valuable role in mitigating and adapting to environmental challenges and social sustainability. For social work to develop a meaningful and viable profession that addresses contemporary sustainability issues, it requires changes and transformation in paradigm, theories, strategies, social policy and social services that will facilitate a sustainable future for all mankind.

Social work is the profession that claims to intervene to enhance people's well-being. However, social workers have played a low-key role in environmental issues that increasingly impact on people's well-being, both locally and globally. This compelling new contribution confronts this topic head-on, examining environmental issues from a social work perspective. Lena Dominelli draws attention to the important voice of practitioners working on the ground in the aftermath of environmental disasters, whether these are caused by climate change, industrial accidents or human conflict. The author explores the concept of ‘green social work' and its role in using environmental crises to address poverty and other forms of structural inequalities, to obtain more equitable allocations of limited natural resources and to tackle global socio-political forces that have a damaging impact upon the quality of life of poor and marginalized populations at local levels. The resolution of these matters is linked to community initiatives that social workers can engage in to ensure that the quality of life of poor people can be enhanced without costing the Earth. This important book will appeal to those in the fields of social work, social policy, sociology and human geography. It powerfully reveals how environmental issues are an integral part of social work's remit if it is to retain its currency in the modern world and emphasize its relevance to the social issues that societies have to resolve in the twenty-first century.

Social work is a profession under strain, and practitioners report finding the role increasingly challenging. What can sustain social work in these times? How can social workers sustain themselves in the role? How can they derive confidence and meaning from what they do? In addressing these questions, Sustaining Social Work is a source of understanding and support for professionals struggling with the tensions of practice. Accessible and engaging , it explores the fallout that results from social workers experiencing these tensions, including feelings of powerlessness, responsibility, optimism and cynicism. Drawing on ideas from social theory and the social sciences, it puts forward a model of sustainable social work that will help practitioners not just cope but flourish – even in the context of ongoing crises. An enlightening, uplifting read in a difficult and uncertain time for the profession, Sustaining Social Work addresses the challenge of finding sustenance and consolation within day-to-day practice, enriching it beyond the short-term.