The Practitioner's Guide to Working with Families [Paperback]

This book offers a clear and coherent guide to working with families for practitioners and students in social work, health, counselling and related professions. It brings together recent thinking on the historical and contemporary constructions of the family in such a way as to provide a helpful framework for practitioners working in a variety of settings in the field. It offers up-to-date information on political, legislative and theoretical frameworks, and it reviews and illustrates a wide range of approaches and practice skills for working with families with different problems in different contexts.Introduction; M. Bell and K. Wilson.- SECTION 1: THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND WELFARE CONTEXT FOR WORKING WITH FAMILES.- New Labour and Family Support; C. Skinner.- Families, Social Change and Diversity; B. Frost and B. Featherstone.- SECTION 2: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICE APPROACHES TO WORKING WITH FAMILIES.- Assessing Families: The Family Assessment: Assessment of Family Competence, Strengths and Difficulties; L. Bingley Miller and A. Bentovim.- Using Extended Attachment Theory as an Evidence Based Guide when Working with Families; D. Heard.- Theme Focussed Family Therapy: Working with the Dynamics of Emotional Abuse Within an Attachment and Systems Perspective; U. McCluskey.- SECTION 3: WORKING WITH FAMILY GROUPS IN DIFFICULTY.- Working with Divorcing Partners; C. Clulow and C. Vincent.- Working with Family Change: Re-partnering and Stepfamily Life; J. Batchelor.- Working with Families Where There are Child Protection Concerns; S. Petrie.- Working with Families Where There is Domestic Violence; M. Bell.- Working with Families Who Neglect Their Children; D. Iwaniec.- Foster Care: Policies and Practice in Working with Foster Placements; K. Wilson and Ian Sinclair.

Dr MARGARET BELL is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of York. Prior to working at the University of York, she worked as a Senior Social Worker at a number of general and psychilÓ=