Social Work, Social Policy and Community Care

Thinking Through Social Work is a new series of texts designed and written specifically for those social work students entering the second or final-phase of their degree course. Structured around sets of specific skills each chapter uses critical thinking and reflective exercises to develop greater subject knowledge and critical awareness. Each book contains Links to the Subject Benchmarks or National Occupational Standards for Social Work, providing students with a clear transition from study to practice.

It is essential that social work students understand the complex interactions between social work and social policy, and how social and governmental policy has a lasting impact on service users and carers. This book focuses on this interface between social work and social policy in the context of older people. Adopting an historical perspective, the book traces the development of welfare provision for older people up to the present day, but then leads up to an analysis of contemporary developments which students Will need to know about in order to practise effectively.

At the same time, the book introduces key social policy concepts and demystifies some of the ideas that underpin social policy by making clear Links to social work practice. There are chapters on state welfare and the notion of a 'mixed economy', the lived experience of older people in today's society, demographics and diversity as well as references to the international dimension.