Radical Social Work Today

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the seminal text Radical Social Work (1975), this volume has been compiled to explore the radical tradition within social work and assess its legacy, relevance and prospects. It is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduates studying social work, as well as social work academics and researchers.

This reader, bringing together articles by social work practitioners and academics, examines the implications of the changes for radical strategies in social work, put forward in the '60s and '70s, implied by growing poverty and the austere social policies of the New Right in the 1980s.

This much-needed textbook provides a fresh understanding of the radical tradition and shows how it can be developed in contemporary social work.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book is full of analysis and ideas about how social work education can confront the individualising and often blaming form of social work that neoliberalism ushered in four decades ago.

How should we live: how should we care for one another; grow our capabilities to work, to learn, to love and fully realise our potential? This exciting and ambitious book shows how we can re-design the welfare state for this century. The welfare state was revolutionary: it lifted thousands out of poverty, provided decent homes, good education and security. But it is out of kilter now: an elaborate and expensive system of managing needs and risks. Today we face new challenges. Our resources have changed. Hilary Cottam takes us through five 'Experiments' to show us a new design. We start on a Swindon housing estate where families who have spent years revolving within our current welfare systems are supported to design their own way out. We spend time with young people who are helped to make new connections - with radical results. We turn to the question of good health care and then to the world of work and see what happens when people are given different tools to make change. Then we see those over sixty design a new and affordable system of support. At the heart of this way of working is human connection. Upending the current crisis of managing scarcity, we see instead that our capacities for the relationships that can make the changes are abundant. We must work with individuals, families and communities to grow the core capabilities we all need to flourish. Radical Help describes the principles behind the approach, the design process that makes the work possible and the challenges of transition. It is bold - and above all, practical. It is not a book of dreams. It is about concrete new ways of organising that already have been developing across Britain. Radical Help creates a new vision and a radically different approach that can take care of us once more, from cradle to grave.