Social Support Networks

This book offers for the first time a clear conception of what social support networks are, why they are important, how they are identified and sustained, where they fit in an overall framework of human services, and their limits and potential in selected fields of practice. Individual chapters explore: child, adolescent, and family services; daycare and early childhood development; divorced and stepfamilies; schools; delinquency prevention and treatment; mental health; service to the elderly; development disabilities; healthcare and health promotion; and drug treatment. The use of social support networks--extended family, friends, neighbors, and other "informal" helpers--is an idea whose time has come in the human services field. At a time when spiraling costs and popular sentiment weigh against any major expansion of services, it is apparent that a service strategy based primarily on the notion of professional helping delivered on a case-by-case basis, usually in a one-to-one relationship, has serious limitations. Professional response to this major work has been uniformly positive: "[The editors] have assembled a book of considerable importanceà brilliant in both scholarship and constructionà will appeal to a broad readershipà "--Gerald Euster, University of South Carolina. "à offers a much needed balance to the focus on individual and internal dynamics which has characterized social work education for several decades."--Eleanor Reardon Tolson, University of Chicago. "Social Support Networks is a valuable contributionà a unique, original, and authoritative book...an exciting, timely, and definitely practice-oriented book with a strong theoretical and research base."--Anthony N. Maluccio, University of Connecticut. James K. Whittaker is professor of social work at the University of Washington. A former childcare worker, therapist, and administrator in residential childcare, he has been a consultant to governmental and voluntary children's agencies throughout the United States. James Garbarino is Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University. He was president of the Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, Chicago, Illinois, from 1985 to 1994. He is the co-author of Troubled Youth, Troubled Families, also available from AldineTransaction.

The dramatically increasing aging population of Hong Kong has elicited new risks and opportunities to facilitate a positive life for older adults. This book offers a holistic review of gerontological theories and literature, and constructs a conceptual framework of social support networks, coping and positive aging. In light of the implications of the convoy model of social support to depict an indigenous landscape of positive aging in Hong Kong, this is one of the very few empirical studies that adopts both quantitative research and qualitative research. The research consisted of a pilot study of in-depth interviews with 16 older Hong Kong Chinese and a main study surveying 393 older members of District Elderly Community Center. The results of the study indicate that family and peer support constitute the mainstay of support networks of the elderly, and that family and peer support are associated with positive aging. Moreover, the study shows that it is the depth of emotional closeness, namely, close interaction and intimacy with social partners that makes the greatest contribution to positive aging. Additionally, problem coping and emotion coping are found to mediate the relationship between social support networks and positive aging. There is potential in bringing more domestic helpers into elderly care and improving the service quality such that the goal of Aging in Place can be promoted in Hong Kong. Intended for researchers in social work, gerontology and positive psychology, it is also essential reading for graduates and social work professionals interested in this area. This book makes a valuable contribution to social gerontological research among Hong Kong older adults and the promotion of wellbeing in the elderly via the construct of positive aging in the culture of Chinese society.

While insights sometimes are slow in coming, they often seem obvious when they finally arrive. This handbook is an outcome of the insight that the topics of social support and the family are very closely linked. Obvious as this might seem, the fact remains that the literatures dealing with social support and the family have been deceptively separate and distinct. For example, work on social support began in the 1970s with the accumulation of evidence that social ties and social integration play important roles in health and personal adjustment. Even though family members are often the key social supporters of individuals, relatively little re search of social support was targeted on family interactions as a path to specifying supporter processes. It is now recognized that one of the most important features of the family is its role in providing the individual with a source of support and acceptance. Fortunately, in recen t years, the distinctness and separateness of the fields of social support and the family have blurred. This handbook provides the first collation and integration of social support and family research. This integration calls for specifying processes (such as the cognitions associated with poor support availability and unrewarding faIllily constellations) and factors (such as cultural differences in family life and support provision) that are pertinent to integration.

Social Networks and Social Support in Childhood and Adolescence (Prevention and Intervention in Childhood and Adolescence).

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.