Social Work - Research

The 2008 UK government Youth Crime Action Plan emphasises early intervention in work with young people who offend or considered to be 'at risk' of offending. This approach includes targeted work with families and a reduction in the numbers of young people entering the justice system. This report takes a critical look at early intervention policies.

This timely book addresses an overlooked area of criminal justice by focusing on the reality of pregnancy and new motherhood in prison. Based on the experiences of women in mother and baby units, it passionately argues the case for minimising harm, making key reading for criminology and midwifery students and researchers.

This collection of innovative approaches to social work placements offers hope in the current climate of cuts to services and over-regulation. The international contributions offer practical guidance and challenge conventional approaches to placement finding, teaching and assessment in field education.

A critical analysis of the domino effect of neoliberalism and austerity on social work. Applying theory including those of Bourdieu and Wacquant to practice, it argues that social work should return to a focus on relational and community approaches.

Using international perspectives and case studies, this book discusses the relationships between community development and populism in the context of today’s widespread crisis of democracy. Exploring the synergies and contradictions between populism and community development, it offers new ways of understanding and responding to populism.

Presenting unique and critical reflections on international policy and practice, this book addresses the global dominance of neoliberalism. It examines the extent to which community development practitioners, activists and programmes can challenge, critique, engage with or resist its influence.

Drawing on access to prominent policy makers, Purcell examines the origins and impact of children’s services reform under recent Labour and Conservative-led governments, including Labour’s Every Child Matters programme and the Munro Review. He also reassesses the impact of high-profile child abuse cases, including Victoria Climbié and Baby P.

Exploring the current and historical tensions between liberal capitalism and indigenous models of family life, Ian Kelvin Hyslop argues for a new model of child protection in Aotearoa New Zealand and other parts of the Anglophone world.

Connolly draws on the recent changes in the Malaysian state of Penang to open up new perspectives on urban development, governance and the politics of place. Reviewing the role of residents, activists, planners and other experts in socio-natural changes and urban regeneration, it builds an important new framework of landscape political ecology.

Examining high profile cases including Kiriakou, Snowden, Foxley and Assange, this book offers crucial insights into the subject of whistleblowing.

This book examines and challenges the marginalisation of critical race analysis in debates on social justice, which have been constrained by a facile post-racialism. Highlighting the need to decolonise public debate and antiracism itself, it provides an essential resource for academics, students and activists.

What does it mean to have a good life? Why has it proved so difficult for people with intellectual disabilities to live one? This important book explores these questions, provides an analysis of related policies and underpinning ideologies and looks to how a good life may be made more attainable.