Social Work Practice And Social Welfare Policy In The United States: A History Paperback

Philip R. Popple

The first new social work history to be written in over twenty years, Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States presents a history of the field from the perspective of elites, as well as service providers and recipients. A particularly unique feature of the book is that it chronicles and analyzes the development of social work practice theory. As with other parts of the book, this is done on two levels: from the top down, looking at the writings, conference presentations, and training course material developed by leaders of the profession, and from the bottom up, looking at case records for evidence of techniques that were actually applied by social workers in the field. The data for the "bottom up" content in the book was obtained from archival records of agencies including the Philadelphia Almshouse, the Green Bay Wisconsin Department of Public Welfare, Minneapolis Family and Children's Services, the New York Charity Organization Society, the Boston Children's Aid Society, and the Boston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. This text also places social work practice in its institutional context. It is argued that social work has had a significant role in three social institutions: public assistance, mental health, and child welfare. With this in consideration, the author argues that social work has completely lost its place in public assistance; has achieved its major professional goal of becoming a fully licensed and privileged provider of mental health services, but is at risk of losing its dominance in this institution due to the emergence of competing mental health professions; and maintains dominance only in child welfare. He concludes that the profession needs to reengage with public assistance (TANF); develop strategies to regain dominance in mental health (expansion of the DSW as a practice degree is suggested); and continue to emphasize child welfare as a central professional concern.

9780190607326

English

Oxford University Press Inc

43188

392

Philip Popple is Professor and BSW Program Director at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work. He holds the Ph.D. and MSW degrees from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. He has professional experience as a child welfare worker and training specialist, and as a public social service administrator.

Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States is a graceful and knowledgeable rendering of social context, societal responses to emergent problems, pre-social work activities that address social and economic issues, proto-social work formulations, and social works growth as a profession that is intimately linked with the social welfare systems evolution and devolution. The book is a pleasure to read. * Barbara Levy Simon, PhD, Professor, Columbia University School of Social Work * Most history texts in social work focus exclusively on either social policy or social work practice, rarely both. Even rarer are textbooks with a deep appreciation for the interconnection between policy and practice and an impressive familiarity with the historical literature in social welfare and social work written by both social historians and social work academics. Philip Popple's Social Work Practice and Social Welfare Policy in the United States doesall of this, making a significant contribution to social work education and to our understanding the value of historical analysis. * Robert Fisher, PhD, Professor, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut * Dr. Popples compelling history moves gracefully from tightly-focused stories to sweeping overviews. Readers will be drawn in by his brief micro-histories of poor Americans encountering the welfare state in different eras and places. His overviews make the big story he has to tell understandable to students and general readers alike. Based on an impressive synthesis of secondary and primary sources, this book is not merely an institutional history of social welfareapparatuses. Popples history ranges from big changes in political economy to the experiences of individual Americans in need. * Gabriel Loiacono, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh *