Feminist Groupwork explores the purposes, practice and effectiveness of groupwork with women, drawing upon the authors' own involvement in setting up and running community-based women's groups. The book offers clear accounts of the structured content of group sessions and the definitions and measurements of change developed by participants. It makes a convincing case for adopting a feminist approach with women who are isolated in their own communities and who bear the brunt of socio-political disadvantage. Central to the book is the focus on women's understandings of themselves and their experiences, and how groupwork can lead to potentially liberating interpretations with profound consequences for participants' lives. Women are encouraged to recognize their resilience, survival skills and strengths. Feminist Groupwork was awarded a 1992 Distinguished Publication Award by the Association for Women in Psychology, USA.

Based on practice experience in both the UK and the USA, Gender and Groupwork brings together the best of groupwork knowledge, skills and values in a true transatlantic partnership.

Launching Palgrave's new interdisciplinary Professional Keywords series, this reader-friendly reference guide distils the vast field of groupwork study and practice into digestible, yet authoritative, chunks. With over 60 alphabetized entries, it is the perfect introduction to groupwork for health and social care practice.

This highly successful book on groupwork practice, first published in 1979, has become a standard introductory text on most social work training courses. It is very popular with social workers, whatever their agency setting, and is also used by health visitors, youth workers and the voluntary sector. This new enlarged and revised third edition includes two new additional chapters. The first of these addresses the issue of groupwork in day and residential centres where special kinds of group skills are required in addition to those already well established for fieldwork groups. The second new chapter attempts to understand the significance of race and gender in groupwork and to begin to develop a framework for anti-discriminatory practice. All key sections from previous editions have been retained and updated, while those on group composition, open groups, co-working and consultation have been extended and revised to give more comprehensive coverage. The bibliography has also been developed to include the most recent additions to the groupwork literature, including many articles from the journal Groupwork for which Allan Brown is co-editor.

Practicing Social Workprovides a systematic exploratiuon of ar ange of social work approaches. Each chapter focuses on a single theme and explains the practice implications of a particular method.

The actions social workers take are aimed at helping people, communities, and societies attain a sense of mastery, become or remain competent, and achieve or retain a sense of well-being. Such a broad scope of practice necessitates a theoretical foundation that is anchored in the concept of human competence.This text explores the concept of competence, and shows how it is expressed in a variety of theoretical frameworks, including traditional models and emerging theoretical approaches. This approach toward human behavior focuses on mutually beneficial interactions between people and society, and emphasizes the connections between individuals and various systems that influence their lives. It enables the social worker to conduct multilevel client assessments, gaining an understanding of how clients function within their total environment, and plan a range of helpful interventions.The volume is organized around the competency-based approach to social work education, adopted by the Council on Social Work Education. Written by leading analysts in the field, Competence is essential reading for the field of social work.

This wide-ranging volume presents in-depth research into the effect of new information technologies on organizational structure, assesses their progress towards transformation and describes the changes they are making to long-established business process roles, cultures and working practices. The book is based upon a series of rolling surveys carried out between 1989 and the present day, and funded by leading organizations such as IBM and KPMG. It provides a detailed picture of a sector in transition during a period of anxiety and doubt dominated by restructuring, downsizing and experimentation with re-engineering. As the 'lean and mean' emerge, they must now ask themselves if their competencies will enable them to survive into the next decade as competitors, such as Sainsburys, Virgin, Microsoft and Ford position themselves to become major players in the sector. This book is a major contribution to the debate on the growth of knowledge work, the need for core organizational competencies in the information age and the need for evolutionary, or radical, change.

This truly monumental work maps the literature of women's studies, covering thousands of titles and Web sites in 19 subject areas published between 1985 and 1999. Intended as a reference and collection development tool, this bibliography provides a guide for women's studies information for each title along with a detailed, often evaluative review. The annotations summarize each work's content, its importance or contribution to women's studies, and its relationship to other titles on the subject. Core titles and titles that are out of print are noted, and reviews indicate which titles are appropriate as texts or supplemental texts. This definitive guide to the literature of women's studies is a must-purchase for academic libraries that support women's studies programs, and it is a useful addition to any academic or public library that endeavors to represent the field. A team of subject specialists has taken on the immense task of documenting publications in the area of women's studies in the last decades of the 20th century. The result is this truly monumental work, which maps the field, covering thousands of titles and Web sites in 19 subject areas published between 1985 and 1999. Intended as a reference and collection development tool, this bibliography provides a guide for women's studies information for each title along with a detailed, often evaluative review. The annotations summarize each work's content, its importance or contribution to women's studies, and its relationship to other titles on the subject. Most reviews cite and describe similar and contrasting titles, substantially extending the coverage. Core titles and titles that are out of print are noted, and reviews indicate which titles are appropriate as texts or supplemental texts. Taking up where the previous volume by Loeb, Searing, and Stineman left off, this is the definitive guide to the literature of women's studies. It is a must purchase for academic libraries that support women's studies programs; and a welcome addition to any academic or public library that endeavors to represent the field.

This enlightening book examines how the feminist spirituality movement contributes to the establishment of new paradigms of mental health for women. Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Lives examines possible psychotherapeutic implications for women engaged in feminist spirituality and stimulates much-needed conversation between feminist therapists and feminist theologians/ritualists. Feminist spirituality is part of the current broad challenge to accepted ways of knowing and being. This book argues that as women tell their own stories, they create rituals that enable them to feel a sense of control over the future and to move toward a kind of authority, agency, and autonomy associated with mental health and psychological well-being. Women from many cultural backgrounds and religious perspectives have embraced alternative forms of spiritual expression, based on profound theoretical challenges to mainstream religious beliefs, ranging from calls for the radical reclamation and reconstruction of religious traditions to personal involvement in goddess worship and Wicca. Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Lives presents theoretical, conceptual, and experiential chapters that analyze the extent to which these proliferating women’s groups represent the beginnings of new norms of mental health for women.Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Lives presents a variety of voices, including Native American, Christian, Jewish, and Wiccan. Chapters are divided into three sections--Laying the Groundwork, Theoretical Challenges, and Living It Out--and explore a diverse array of topics such as: the “shouting” church and Black women’s mental health a traditionalist Native American challenge to New Age cooptation a feminist group and Jewish women’s self-identity lesbian altar-making and mental health feminist Wicca in the U.S. and Germany the martial arts and women’s mental health the use of feminist rituals in therapy and as therapyFeminist therapists and theologians, as well as other individuals interested in feminist spirituality or alternative spirituality, will find this book a fascinating exploration of the various aspects of the spirituality of women. Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Lives is also an excellent reader to expand the thinking of students in classes in women’s studies and religious studies.