Support Systems in Social Work

Support Systems in Social Work
Author: Martin Davies
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 91
Release: 2023-07-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000960196

In the late 1970s the idea of volunteer ‘helping’ in social work had recently been brought to the forefront of public attention again as society had come to depend more and more on volunteer commitment to supplement, support or even replace the professional social worker. Originally published in 1977, the three self-contained essays presented in this book are all concerned with the concept of ‘helping’, and are linked by the author’s experience of an experiment in voluntary service carried out in Manchester’s special schools. Through his personal involvement in the project, Martin Davies is able to give a detailed account of its aims, and to discuss it critically. The first essay monitors the project, and the second uses material gained during interviews with the families and volunteers to analyse their attitudes towards the helping relationship. The conclusions the author reaches had major significance for the practice and organization of the personal social services in Britain. The final essay presents a lucid account of systems theory and its applicability to social work, and raises fundamental questions about the nature of support systems in an urban society.

The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice

The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice
Author: Dennis Saleebey
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Social service
ISBN: 9780205011544

A conceptual and practical presentation of the strengths perspective in social work. Part of the Advancing Core Competencies Series, a unique series that helps students taking advanced social work courses apply CSWE's core competencies and practice behaviours examples to specialised fields of practice. The Strengths Perspective in Social Work Practice, 6th edition, presents both conceptual and practical elements of the strengths perspective - from learning about and practicing the strengths perspective to using the strengths perspective with older adults, the chronically ill, and substance abusers. Many of the chapters address recent events -from the tragic shooting in Tucson to the uprisings in the Middle East. Each chapter begins with a section from an expert in the field. A better teaching and learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience--for you and your students. Here's how: Improve Critical Thinking - Each chapter contains four critical thinking questions and two short essay questions that require the reader to apply key concepts. Engage Students - Extensive case examples keep students interested and help them see a connection between theory and practice. Explore Current Issues - Three new chapters have been added to reflect the most current knowledge in the field. Apply CSWE Core Competencies - The text integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS, with critical thinking questions and practice tests to assess student understanding and development of competencies and practice behaviours.

Health Promotion in Health Care – Vital Theories and Research

Health Promotion in Health Care – Vital Theories and Research
Author: Gørill Haugan
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2021-03-11
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3030631354

This open access textbook represents a vital contribution to global health education, offering insights into health promotion as part of patient care for bachelor’s and master’s students in health care (nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiotherapists, social care workers etc.) as well as health care professionals, and providing an overview of the field of health science and health promotion for PhD students and researchers. Written by leading experts from seven countries in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, it first discusses the theory of health promotion and vital concepts. It then presents updated evidence-based health promotion approaches in different populations (people with chronic diseases, cancer, heart failure, dementia, mental disorders, long-term ICU patients, elderly individuals, families with newborn babies, palliative care patients) and examines different health promotion approaches integrated into primary care services. This edited scientific anthology provides much-needed knowledge, translating research into guidelines for practice. Today’s medical approaches are highly developed; however, patients are human beings with a wholeness of body-mind-spirit. As such, providing high-quality and effective health care requires a holistic physical-psychological-social-spiritual model of health care is required. A great number of patients, both in hospitals and in primary health care, suffer from the lack of a holistic oriented health approach: Their condition is treated, but they feel scared, helpless and lonely. Health promotion focuses on improving people’s health in spite of illnesses. Accordingly, health care that supports/promotes patients’ health by identifying their health resources will result in better patient outcomes: shorter hospital stays, less re-hospitalization, being better able to cope at home and improved well-being, which in turn lead to lower health-care costs. This scientific anthology is the first of its kind, in that it connects health promotion with the salutogenic theory of health throughout the chapters. the authors here expand the understanding of health promotion beyond health protection and disease prevention. The book focuses on describing and explaining salutogenesis as an umbrella concept, not only as the key concept of sense of coherence.

Social Support and Physical Health

Social Support and Physical Health
Author: Bert N. Uchino
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0300127987

This book will change the way we understand the future of our planet. It is both alarming and hopeful. James Gustave Speth, renowned as a visionary environmentalist leader, warns that in spite of all the international negotiations and agreements of the past two decades, efforts to protect Earth's environment are not succeeding. Still, he says, the challenges are not insurmountable. He offers comprehensive, viable new strategies for dealing with environmental threats around the world. The author explains why current approaches to critical global environmental problems - climate change, biodiversity loss, deterioration of marine environments, deforestation, water shortages, and others - don't work. He offers intriguing insights into why we have been able to address domestic environmental threats with some success while largely failing at the international level. Setting forth eight specific steps to a sustainable future, Speth convincingly argues that dramatically different government and citizen action are now urgent. If ever a book could be described as essential, this is it.

Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions

Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions
Author: Werner Schirmer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2019-03-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429663986

Social systems occur in many contexts of social work. This book provides an easy-to-read introduction to systems thinking for social workers who will encounter social problems in their professional practice or academic research. It offers new insights and fresh perspectives on this familiar topic and invites creative, critical, and empathetic thinking with a systems perspective. Through introducing systems theory as a problem-oriented approach for dealing with complex interpersonal relations and social systems, this book provides a framework for studying social relations. The authors present a strand of systems theory (inspired by sociologist Niklas Luhmann) that offers innovative, surprising, and practically relevant understandings of everyday social life, inclusion/exclusion, social problems, interventions, and society in general. Systems Theory for Social Work and the Helping Professions should be considered essential reading for all social work students taking modules on sociology and social policy as well as students of nursing, medicine, counselling, and occupational health and therapy.

Relationship-Based Social Work, Second Edition

Relationship-Based Social Work, Second Edition
Author: Gillian Ruch
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2018-02-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1784505439

This comprehensive guide to relationship-based practice in social work communicates the theory using illustrative case studies and offers a model for practice. Updated and expanded, it now includes increased coverage of anti-oppressive and diversity issues, service user perspectives and systemic approaches in social work. The book explores the ranges of emotions that practitioners may encounter with service users, and covers working in both short-term and long-term professional relationships. It also outlines key skills, such as how to establish rapport, and explores systemic issues, such as building appropriate support systems for practice, management and leadership.

Personal Relationships and Social Support

Personal Relationships and Social Support
Author: Steve Duck
Publisher: Sage Publications (CA)
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1990
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

It is widely acknowledged that the support given by friends, intimates andother members of a social network is important to a person's well-being. Until recently, however, little attention has been paid to the relational processes and contexts through which social support is mediated. Personal Relationships and Social Support represents a major initiative in its focus upon social support as a phenomenon embedded in the everyday transactions and dynamics of people's interpersonal relationships. The authors consider such issues as the importance of the day-to-day talk' of social support within interpersonal relationships, the strategies that people use to mobilize support within particular relational contexts and the impact of people's daily life and work patterns on the need for, and ability to mobilize, support. The effect, in turn, of competence in support giving on the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships is examined as are the possible negative consequences of particular kinds of support. Personal Relationships and Social Support brings together for the first time two strands of work, on social support and the nature of interpersonal relationships, which have tended to develop in isolation from each other. This path-breaking book will be essential reading for all those interested in new developments in theory and research in the field of human relationships.

Social Support Measurement and Intervention

Social Support Measurement and Intervention
Author: Sheldon Cohen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2000-10-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780198029229

Surgery and pharmaceuticals are not the only effective procedures we have to improve our health. The natural human tendency to care for fellow humans, to support them with social networks, has proven to be a powerful treatment as well. As a result, the areas of application for social support intervention have expanded dramatically during the past 20 years. As these areas have expanded, so too has the literature on the theory and measurement of social support. Yet, the literature has focussed on very particular areas. Investigators in the social sciences have mainly focused on the protection that social support confers in the context of stressful life events and transitions, whereas studies in the health sciences have concentrated on the effects of social networks and supports on population mortality and morbidity. Although no single theoretical framework has been widely accepted, there is consensus that both the psychological sense of support and actual expressions of support play critical roles in maintaining health and well being. This book is a state-of-the-art resource for the selection and development of strategies for social support assessment and intervention. Designed for use by behavioral and medical scientists conducting studies of physical illness, psychological adjustment, and psychiatric illness in human populations, this volume presents a broad conceptual framework addressing the role of social support in mental and physical health. The book is divided into four sections. The first provides some historical context as well as a conceptual overview of how social support might influence mental and physical health. The second discusses techniques for measuring social networks and support, and the third addresses the design of different types of support interventions. The final section presents some general comments on the volume and its implications for social support research and intervention. This resource is meant to aid researchers in understanding the conceptual criteria on which measurement and intervention decisions should be made when studying the relations between social support and health. Furthermore, the information provided on both measurement and intervention will be valuable to practitioners interested in designing and evaluating prevention and treatment initiatives. Sponsored by the Fetzer Institute as a follow up to their successful 1995 publication, Measuring Stress, this book will provide the most up to date research on the effects of social support interventions on physical and mental health.

Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults

Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2020-05-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309671035

Social isolation and loneliness are serious yet underappreciated public health risks that affect a significant portion of the older adult population. Approximately one-quarter of community-dwelling Americans aged 65 and older are considered to be socially isolated, and a significant proportion of adults in the United States report feeling lonely. People who are 50 years of age or older are more likely to experience many of the risk factors that can cause or exacerbate social isolation or loneliness, such as living alone, the loss of family or friends, chronic illness, and sensory impairments. Over a life course, social isolation and loneliness may be episodic or chronic, depending upon an individual's circumstances and perceptions. A substantial body of evidence demonstrates that social isolation presents a major risk for premature mortality, comparable to other risk factors such as high blood pressure, smoking, or obesity. As older adults are particularly high-volume and high-frequency users of the health care system, there is an opportunity for health care professionals to identify, prevent, and mitigate the adverse health impacts of social isolation and loneliness in older adults. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults summarizes the evidence base and explores how social isolation and loneliness affect health and quality of life in adults aged 50 and older, particularly among low income, underserved, and vulnerable populations. This report makes recommendations specifically for clinical settings of health care to identify those who suffer the resultant negative health impacts of social isolation and loneliness and target interventions to improve their social conditions. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults considers clinical tools and methodologies, better education and training for the health care workforce, and dissemination and implementation that will be important for translating research into practice, especially as the evidence base for effective interventions continues to flourish.