Policy & Practice

What prompts information sharing and how do we get it right? This accessible book challenges widely held assumptions about information sharing in child welfare that facts about risks to children are clear and that sharing them with other professionals is a straightforward process.

Until now little published work has focused on how horticulture and gardening can help to promote social inclusion for vulnerable groups. This guide looks at the ways in which social and therapeutic horticulture projects can help foster independence, build self esteem and provide training and employment opportunities for vulnerable groups.

Anyone working, or planning to work, as an advocate for people dealing with public services will want to read this book. Based on the experience of advocates and using case studies based on real practice issues, the accessible style of "Speaking to power" will make it an enjoyable read for professionals, students and lay people alike.

Having a clear sense of which leadership ideas and practices are rooted in sound theory and convincing evidence, and which are more speculative, is vital for healthcare leaders. This book provides a coherent framework through which to scrutinise the leadership literature relevant to healthcare.

In this timely book, the author, with his life-long experience of international social security, advocates reinstating social insurance by reducing the volume of income redistribution, increasing the transparency of money flows and improving citizen information.

This edited book provides a hard-hitting and deliberately provocative overview of the relationship between evidence, policy and practice, how policy is implemented and how research can and should influence the policy process.

This book examines the relationship between health and domestic violence. In a qualitative study of the attitudes of health professionals and the women with whom they come into contact, it gives voice to a range of issues which urgently need to be addressed providing guidance for training and practice, as well as recommendations for policy makers.

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.

This book is an invaluable resource, employing a 'bottom-up' approach to learning. It presents vivid examples of social work practice with children and families and real life illustrations of the challenges facing practitioners. With analysis of each section, it provides essential guidance for students and sets standards for training and practice.

As the prospect of a legal right to advocacy inches closer, so the need to scrutinise its key values and practices becomes urgent. Although widely acclaimed as a 'good thing', there is little agreement as to how advocacy should be implemented, funded or evaluated. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the benefits of advocacy.

This book provides a rigorous and challenging review of recent research in the realms of communication and cultural diversity. Focusing on health communication interventions concerning service users who may lack fluency in English, it shows that meeting the needs of all health service users depends on both structures and processes of communication.

This book summarises and builds on current knowledge and research about direct payments in the UK and considers developments in other European countries. It identifies good practice in the area and explores the implications of direct payments, both for service users and for social work staff.