The Practice Of Empowerment

This book integrates time-honored approaches to empowerment practice with today's more modest goals, mindful of what empowerment can and cannot do. Synthesizing several theoretical supports -- the strengths perspective, system theory, theories of family well-being, and theories of coping -- the author responds to the question "What works?" with today's families in need. Practice illustrations are provided throughout.

First published in 1994, this book was hailed as a cutting-edge, theory-driven report from the front-line trenches in the battle for social justice. Both clinical and community oriented and written from a global perspective, it presents clients speaking for themselves alongside reports of prominent social work educators. This new edition puts greater emphasis on "how-to" skills in working with people toward their own empowerment and stresses multiculturalism. A new chapter identifies worldwide issues of oppression such as abuse of women and children and neglect of the mentally ill.

Dr Kinlaw, one of America's leading authorities on management development, sees empowerment as a way of improving organizational performance by making the most competent people the most influential most of the time, and his book provides a comprehensive and detailed model for achieving this objective. Drawing on examples and case studies from successful companies, Dr Kinlaw describes a practical, step-by-step process for introducing or extending empowerment in an organization or any part of an organization, and shows how to use feedback, team development and learning to good effect.

What principles should guide an empowerment evaluation? And how can these principles actually be put into practice? One of the primary tasks in an empowerment evaluation (EE) is to increase the capacity of program stakeholders to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs. This book presents the most current formulation of the 10 principles of EE and provides professionals and students with the tools to put these principles into practice. Through case studies of diverse evaluation projects--including community health foundation initiatives, school district programs, and a $15 million corporate program aimed at bridging the digital divide--the founder and leading proponents of EE clarify key concepts and discuss important lessons learned. Coverage includes how to balance program improvement efforts with accountability requirements; how EE can be used to guide standards-based work; how to use EE in a learning organization; the differences among empowerment, collaborative, and participatory evaluation; and much more.

As a philosophy and method of practice, empowerment provides a way to rethink one's approach to social work practice. This book provides specific examples of how empowerment practice is conducted in the field and gives social workers tools for incorporating empowerment in their own practice. In addition to Gutierrez, Parsons, and Cox, 13 authors contribute writings that demonstrate how empowerment practice can be used in different settings and with different populations. Empowerment in Social Work Practice presents a comprehensive model for empowerment practice with applications to key populations across all three levels of social work practice (micro, mezzo, and macro) and even to research, policy, evaluation, and administration.

Health Promotion Practice explores the issue of how such an approach to health promotion practice can improve a community's success towards achieving healthier conditions through its own actions. Placing empowerment at the heart of health promotion practice, and offering advice for health promoters who accept the challenge to work in such a way, Health Promotion Practice defines key concepts of health, health promotion and community empowerment.

Praise for the first edition "Finally, a social work practice text that makes a difference! This is the book that you have wished for but could never find. Although similar to texts that cover a range of practice theories and approaches to clinical practice, this book clearly has a social work frame of reference and a social work identity." --Gayla Rogers, Dean of the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary The major focus of this second edition is the same; to provide an overview of theories, models, and therapies for direct social work practice, including systems theory, attachment theory, cognitive-behavioral theory, narrative therapy, solution-focused therapy, the crisis intervention model, and many more. However, this popular textbook goes beyond a mere survey of such theories. It also provides a framework for integrating the use of each theory with central social work principles and values, as well as with the artistic elements of practice. This second edition has been fully updated and revised to include: A new chapter on Relational Theory, and newly-rewritten chapters by new authors on Cognitive-Behavioral Theory, Existential Theory, and Wraparound Services New critique of the Empirically Supported Treatment (EST) movement Updated information on the movement toward eclecticism in counseling and psychotherapy A refined conceptualization of the editors' generalist-eclectic approach