Social Work - Textbooks

This valuable book provides a comprehensive introduction to politics in social work, unifying the themes of political ideology and social construction across several areas of social work practice, including emerging areas of practice.

In this clear and systematic book covering the both general practice concepts and theoretical insights, best-selling author Malcolm Payne shows you how to work with the main social work theories and practice techniques and pinpoint their strengths and limitations.

A fully updated edition of this bestselling textbook offers a radical approach to community development taking theories of Gramsci and Freire into the current context. The focus is on putting theory into action for those training, working or managing any social justice practice.

This illuminating book offers a fresh and contemporary guide to the field of sociology. By demonstrating the versatility of the sociological imagination, the authors reveal the ways in which thinking sociologically can help us understand the personal, social and structural changes going on in the world around us.

This brilliant book is a great guide for students undertaking their first piece of independent research. Regular critical reflection is an invaluable tool for helping you gain new insights, deal with practical issues as they arise and develop your understanding. This book gets you started in the habit of using a research journal.

One of the few resources available to provide an overview of human need as a key concept in the social sciences, this accessible and engaging second edition models existing practical and theoretical approaches to human need while also proposing a radical alternative.

Informed by sociological theory and recent empirical analysis, the new edition of this classic textbook is an accessible account of the major social divisions that structure social life. Written by experts, it covers an unrivalled range of social divisions, diversity and inequalities. This is an invaluable sourcebook for social science students.

This essential practical guide to best practice in adult safeguarding enables students and practitioners to develop the skills, knowledge and ethical awareness to confidently address the challenges of adult safeguarding across a wide-range of practice contexts.

Covering key concepts, theories, themes and issues, this textbook uses a range of multi-disciplinary insights to show how children and young people negotiate crucial challenges and transitions in their lives. Covering different practice dimensions, it provides fresh insights on key topics and includes a range of learning support features.

This textbook covers the key concepts, themes and issues relating to human growth and development in adults. It examines key topics and issues within professional practice with adults and their families and covers a wide range of practice areas, fuses essential theory with practical application and provides a wide range of learning features.

Approved Mental Health Professionals must possess and deploy a range of skills, knowledge and values in order to make ethically complex decisions on behalf of people with severe mental health difficulties. This invaluable handbook considers these challenges and provides in-depth guidance on all key aspects of the role.

Rogowski’s 2nd edition of this bestselling textbook responds to the major changes to social work practice since the first edition published. Fully updated with new material, it evaluates social work’s development over the last 150 years and calls for critical and radical changes to policy and practice based on social justice and social change.