Social welfare & social services

With contributions from a range of experts across OECD countries, this book examines changes in long-term care systems throughout those countries, discussing and comparing key changes in national policies and examining the main successes and failures of recent reforms.

This exciting and practical book is filled to the brim with useful ideas for busy practitioners. Building on the work of Paulo Freire, theories are presented in interesting and straightforward ways to provide an everyday reference for practice.

Featuring detailed case studies and examples of good practice, this is an excellent international source book for practitioners and policy makers in social work and social care.

This detailed study of children’s everyday practices in a small deprived neighbourhood of post-socialist Bratislava, provides a novel insight on the formation of children’s agency and the multitude of resources it comes from.

This book presents the perspectives of 22 leading figures involved in shaping the field of Childhood Studies over the last 30 years. They reflect on the changes that have taken place in the study of children and childhood, discuss ideas underpinning the field, examine current dilemmas and explore challenges for the future.

The international contributors to this unique collection demonstrate the significance of care ethics as a transformative way of thinking across diverse geographical, policy and interpersonal contexts.

Using the UK government’s play strategy for England (2008-10) as a case study, this is the first book to look in detail at children’s play within public policy. It is an essential tool for practitioners and campaigners around the world.

This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making.

Where do concepts such as “welfare state” and “social security” come from and how has their meaning changed over time?. This edited collection, written by a cross-disciplinary group of leading social policy researchers, analyses the concepts and language used to make sense of contemporary social policy.

This fully updated edition of an essential introductory text offers a concise guide to the key structures and concepts in social policy and is designed to work in partnership with unique, innovative digital content that adds depth and provides a truly integrated way of learning.

The 2008 global economic crisis has led to a new age of austerity, based more on politics than economics, which threatens to undermine the very foundations of the welfare state. However, as resistance to the logic of austerity grows, this important book argues that there is still room for optimism.

EPUB and EPDF available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. This unique study explores how strategies to safeguard the provision of legal advice and access to welfare rights to disadvantaged communities might be developed in ways that strengthen rather than undermine the basic ethics and principles of public service provision.