Social Work - Policy and Practice

This best practice guide to providing information for users of multi-agency services for disabled children is an invaluable resource for professionals, parents and carers.

Based on the findings of the Innovate Project, this book asks how services can be re-envisioned and transformed through innovation. The authors offer insights into the core conditions necessary for socially just and practice-congruent social care innovation that responds to the distinctive, contemporary safeguarding concerns facing young people.

Current youth justice policy aims to introduce principles of restorative justice and involve victims in responses to crime. The challenges involved in delivering this in a form that is sensitive to victims are considerable. This report provides an evaluation of the manner in which one Youth Offending Service sought to integrate victims.

This is the first book about the intermediary scheme, criminal justice’s untold ‘good news story’. It provides a comprehensive explanation of how intermediaries work in practice and gives ‘behind the scenes’ insights into the criminal process. It will be of interest to practitioners and the wider public.

This report investigates the circumstances, needs, views and life experiences of black young people with caring responsibilities. It highlights significant gaps in service provision, which result in young people undertaking caring responsibilities, and makes recommendations to improve services.

Drawing on interviews with older people, local authority care managers and direct payments support service workers, this topical report looks at how older people use direct payments and how they make them work.

This book is the first to evaluate the recent reforms of UK legal aid from a social policy perspective and assess their impact on family law courts and advocacy. It argues that the reforms effectively ‘delawyerise’ disputes, producing a more inquisitorial justice system and impacting the litigants, court system, staff and process.

There has been considerable recent policy debate and community concern on street sex work in local neighbourhoods. This report examines how residential areas characterised as areas of female street sex work are shared by different sections of the community and considers community and policy responses. Free pdf version available at www.jrf.org.uk

Connections provides flexible support to enable people with acquired brain injury to live in ordinary housing and to develop community links. This evaluation of the Connections service establishes whether or not the model satisfactorily supported people to live in the community and explores its usefulness for replication by other agencies.

Many health, education and social service initiatives aim to implement better multi-agency working between agencies and professionals. But what difference does this sort of change make to those on the receiving end? This book explores the impact of multi-agency working on disabled children and the families and professionals who support them.

Community participation is now demanded of virtually all public sector services and programmes. This handbook provides practitioners, community activists, regeneration managers, teachers and academics with the tools needed to ensure that it is effective.

Drawing on the best available research evidence, 'Managing transitions' highlights issues common to all experiencing transition as well as the dilemmas specific to particular situations. It addresses significant transitions relevant to policy and practice, covering key transition points in social care from childhood to old age.