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Dissatisfaction with a human services system that is unresponsive, stigmatizing, and ineffective has led to a ferment of experimentation in recent years. Reinventing Human Services examines the historical and economic context of current efforts to reinvent human services, showing the urgency and the difficulty of the task. It draws on successful examples in Britain, Canada, and the United States to develop a new paradigm for social work practice, one that integrates individual, family, and community levels of practice and reconceptualizes professional-community relations. The interdisciplinary team of authors includes scholars, researchers, and practitioners from the disciplines of economics, urban planning, communications, criminal justice, psychology, marriage and family therapy, education, and social work.
List of contents
Introduction; I: The Context of Community- and Family-Centered Practice; 1: Neighborhood-Based Services in Low-Income Neighborhoods: A Brief History; 2: The Economic Context of Community-Centered Practice: Markets, Communities, and Social Policy; 3: Integrating Community and Individual Practice: A New Paradigm for Practice; II: Creating Community- and Family-Centered Practice: Examples from the Social Services, Education, and Policing; 4: Working with Families and Communities: The Patch Approach; 5: Family-Centered Social Services: Moving Toward System Change; 6: Self-Employment Training and Family Development: An Integrated Strategy for Family Empowerment; 7: School-Based Comprehensive Services: An Example of Interagency Collaboration; 8: Linking Schools with Family- and Community-Centered Services; 9: Community Policing: The Police as a Community Resource; 10: Young People as Community Resources: New Forms of Participation; III: Changing Practice to Include Families and Communities; 11: Understanding and Constructing Community: A Communication Approach; 12: Professional Understandings of Community: At a Loss for Words?; 13: Expanding the Focus of Intervention: The Importance of Family/Community Relations; 14: Strengthening Partnerships between Families and Service Providers
About the author
Benjamin Higgins
Summary
Dissatisfaction with a human services system that is unresponsive, stigmatizing, and ineffective has led to a ferment of experimentation in recent years.
