Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The product of an intensive collaboration, this book draws on the contributors' cutting-edge experiences in redesigning services and reshaping practices within the human services system. The interdisciplinary modes offered here show how the work of practitioners in such fields as economics, urban planning, criminal justice, psychology, marriage counseling, family therapy, and education-along with social work-is integrating individual, family, and community levels of practice and reconceptualizing professional community relations. The emphasis throughout is on prevention rather than reaction.
Synopsis
Dissatisfaction with a human services system that is unresponsive, stigmatizing, and ineffective has led to a ferment of experimentation in recent years. Reinventing Human Services examines the historical and economic context of current efforts to reinvent human services, showing the urgency and the difficulty of the task. It draws on successful examples in Britain, Canada, and the United States to develop a new paradigm for social work practice, one that integrates individual, family, and community levels of practice and reconceptualizes professional-community relations. The interdisciplinary team of authors includes scholars, researchers, and practitioners from the disciplines of economics, urban planning, communications, criminal justice, psychology, marriage and family therapy, education, and social work.