This positive book brings together current good practice in education and training for care professionals around a central theme of involving service users and improving the quality of their care. The contributors set out a strategy for the teaching of theory and practice to care professionals in the context of changing policy and practice in agencies and in higher education. Helpful guidance is offered to education and training providers in universities and agencies on the preparation of care professionals for the new millenium and beyond. Topics addressed within the book include: · international comparisons · research teaching · the bridging of vocational, professional and academic frameworks · user involvement · assessing professional competence · teaching anti-discriminatory practice. While drawing primarily from social work, this book takes an interprofessional approach and will be essential reading for all health and care education providers. Rachel Pierce and Jenny Weinstein have brought together academics, researchers and practitioners, to reflect with them - both positively and critically - on a broad range of contemporary educational developments, thus providing a sound analysis to shape future arrangements for quality professional education and training.

This book assists participants in human service organizations in understanding the dynamics that are shaping such organizations. Austin's comprehensive analysis of human services management examines the historical development and program structures of such organizations; their stakeholders, including users, personnel, funders, and policy boards; and the organizational processes of accountability and dealing with change.

Here is a timely, insightful book that greatly increases the effectiveness of human service professionals and the organizations in which they function. Organization, Policy, and Practice in the Human Services is the first such text to bring together in a systematic fashion the concepts of organizational theory, policy, and practice in the human services. Offering a basic orientation to the structure and operations of social service organizations, Neugeboren addresses society’s need for the successful operation of these complex institutions in our highly organized society. He also calls for a re-examination of what is meant by “dependency” and postulates new methods of dealing with the social and personal problems confronting people in contemporary society. This book is indispensable for administrators, practitioners, and students. Practitioners gain instruction in “bureaucratic expertise,” enabling them to maximize opportunities, limit organizational constraints, reduce the likelihood of “burnout,’and otherwise become a “good bureaucrat” instead of an ineffective if well-intentioned one. Administrators will benefit from a model of organizational goals, practical guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness of an organizational structure, and methods for identifying and remedying the causes of organizational dysfunction. Neugeboren’s practical ideas make a significant contribution in preparing tomorrow’s social workers to deal more effectively with the world facing each of us. His theoretical insights are grounded in discussions of actual cases making them easy to apply to any human service organization.