Shame And Social Work

For many service users and professionals in the field of social work, shame is an ongoing part of their daily experience. Providing an in-depth examination of the complex phenomena of shame and humiliation, this book sets out key contextual issues and theoretical approaches to comprehend shame and its relevance within social work. It provides a broad understanding of shame, its underlying social and political contexts and its effects on service users and professionals. The book uses innovative international scholarship and includes theoretical considerations, as well as empirical findings within the field of social work. It shows the importance of sensitive, reflective and relationship-oriented practice based on a better understanding of the complexity of shame.

For many service users and professionals in the field of social work, shame is an ongoing part of their daily experience. Providing an in-depth examination of the complex phenomena of shame and humiliation, this book sets out key contextual issues and theoretical approaches to comprehend shame and its relevance within social work. It provides a broad understanding of shame, its underlying social and political contexts and its effects on service users and professionals. The book uses innovative international scholarship and includes theoretical considerations, as well as empirical findings within the field of social work. It shows the importance of sensitive, reflective and relationship-oriented practice based on a better understanding of the complexity of shame.

Examining experiences of shame and stigma in the context of austerity and the declining welfare state, this book shows how social work can ameliorate the impacts of shame through sensitive, reflective and relationship-based practice. It provides a broad understanding of shame and looks at its impact on both service users and practitioners.

What role does emotion play in child and family social work practice? In this book, researcher Matthew Gibson reviews the role of shame and pride in social work, providing invaluable new insights from the first study undertaken into the role of these emotions within professional practice. The author demonstrates how these emotions, which are embedded within the very structures of society but experienced as individual phenomena, are used as mechanism of control in relation to both professionals themselves and service users. Examining the implications of these emotional experiences in the context of professional practice and the relationship between the individual, the family and the state, the book calls for a more humane form of practice, rooted in more informed policies that take in to consideration the realities and frailties of the human experience.

What we think must inform what we do, argue the editors and authors of this cutting-edge social work textbook. In this innovative, expansive and wide-ranging collection, leading social work thinkers engage with social work traditions to bridge social work theory and practice and arrive at social work praxis: a uniting of critical thought and ethical action. Critical Social Work Praxis is organized into sixteen sections, each reflecting a critical social work tradition or approach. Each section has a theory chapter, which succinctly outlines the tradition’s main concepts or tenets, a praxis chapter, which shows how the theory informs social work practice, and a commentary chapter, which provides a critical analysis of the tensions and difficulties of the approach. The text helps students understand how to extend theory into praxis and gives instructors critical new tools and discussion ideas. This book is the result of decades of experience teaching social work theory and praxis and is a comprehensive teaching and learning tool for the critical social work classroom.

What is a mistake in social work and how can we turn it into a positive learning experience? Simply going over the events of the day is often not enough and can become overwhelming. Learning from professional errors is, however, vital for successful reflective practice. This important book presents a theoretical framework that underpins this learning, along with a series of strategies for social workers to use either by themselves or as part of a group. These include creating questions and narratives to enhance learning, assertive techniques for receiving and offering criticism and organisational learning from mistakes. With plenty of practice examples and questions for reflection, this is essential reading for both social work students, and practitioners and managers at all stages of their career.

Originally published in 1991, this title is a valuable social work text which demonstrated how to apply family system concepts to clinical situations encountered in work with inner-city populations at the time. Unlike traditional theories in clinical social work which were oriented toward the individual, this fascinating book offers a paradigm for social work that encompasses the client, his or her immediate and extended family, the community, the government, and the social worker. The family systems concepts in this refreshing volume are illustrated by case examples addressing the specific issues of AIDS and drug abuse, homelessness, foster care, wife abuse, care of those with intellectual disabilities, and adoption issues. Social workers and social work students can still gain perspective from these insightful chapters and will discover that it is not pathological people that make difficult populations, but difficult life situations that breed pathology.