POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Social Services & Welfare

This much-needed book calls for a return to mental health social work that has personal relationships and an emotional connection between workers and those experiencing distress at its core.

This inter-disciplinary study considers the past, present and future of mental health services and community care. From the origins of provision as we know it in the 1960s, it sets out the political, economic and bureaucratic factors behind recent crises and considers what the founding principles of community care tell us about the way forward.

With unparalleled access to some of the world’s most reflective and thoughtful philanthropists, this book explores the philanthropic journey of 48 high net worth individuals (HNWIs) and ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) to uncover the person behind the giving.

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

Over the last three decades Britain has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of people receiving welfare benefits that has provoked fears of a growing underclass and mass welfare dependency. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the reasons for this growth and subjects notions of welfare dependency to empirical test.

Despite the high aspirations of young people from disadvantaged communities, they face barriers that are frustrating the realisation of their educational ambitions. This book analyses the ‘left-behind’ phenomenon and explains how denied educational equality undermines social cohesion and what we can do about it.

This book addresses the development of increasingly individualised public social services in the EU. It focuses particularly on activation services that have become crucial in the 'modernisation' of welfare states, comparing their introduction in the UK, Germany, Italy, Finland and the Czech Republic.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork and the author’s own experience, this book explores how diverse welfare users navigate the personal and practical hurdles of Australia’s social security system.

Focusing on a range of welfare issues this book examines the views, values and perceptions of a number of theorists from ancient times to the 19th century, including Plato, St Aquinas, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft and Marx.

This book presents a psychosocial examination of changing relationships between service users, professionals and managers in the post-war welfare state. It challenges current emphasis on consumer rights by linking social responsibility to its psychosocial roots and theorises the links between experiences of care and development of social policy.

This cross-Europe analysis explores crucial aspects of long term recovery from substance use. Leading experts set out the evolving needs of people who have sought to change their use of substances and the factors in their progress. The book concludes with clear recommendations for improving future research, policy and practice.

This edited volume examines the responses of long-term care homes for older people in Western Europe to the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it highlights the institutional, organisational and management challenges facing care homes, both in continuing to provide services to an increasingly ageing population and in future public health crises.