Social Work lecturer launches new book that challenges current practice
Martin Sheedy, a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University social work team, has recently launched a groundbreaking new book in the social work field entitled ‘Core Themes in Social Work: Power, Poverty, Politics and Values.’
The book challenges social work students and practitioners to re-evaluate current social work practice and to look at the direction social work is and should be going in. It brings themes and topics together that are relevant to all areas of social work practice that are usually addressed discretely in separate publications.
The book introduces the core themes in social work, and encourages students and practitioners to connect with the important debates surrounding these themes. The key contexts of social work are explored using knowledge from the disciplines of social theory, politics, sociology, psychology and ethics.
The book includes comments from students, service users and practitioners and is unusual in format, in that it has a central argument throughout based on the promotion of critical social work practice promoting the pursuit of social justice. It also has a non-standard discursive style unlike most text books that have ‘bite-size’ sections of knowledge and comment.
Dr Pamela Trevithick, Visiting Professor in Social Work, Buckinghamshire New University, UK said: ‘This excellent text is essential reading for all social workers and students, and a key resource for academics. It highlights ‘ with concern and conviction ‘ the importance of developing an effective critical practice… It calls for a social work practice based on an understanding of the issues of power, politics and ideology – and the values and `world view’ held by the worker – …The issues of `poverty and disadvantage’ and their structural causes run throughout this text ‘ issues that have been too long neglected in social work. In this text, Martin Sheedy corrects that neglect by outlining in some detail the impact of poverty on people’s lives and life chances whilst at the same time describing how critical practice can be used by social workers to promote social justice and empowerment practices.’
The book is available at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Core-Themes-Social-Work-Politics/dp/0335244556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361877391&sr=8-1
