Book Description

Use your social work skills to advocate for more effective health care! Social Work in the Health Field: A Care Perspective, Second Edition updates this comprehensive guide to social work practice and policy issues in the health field. An easy-to-use textbook for graduate and undergraduate courses and a practical guide for social work practitioners, the book will help you meet the demands of the growing population of clients in nursing homes or hospice care and for the decline of traditional hospital-based social work. Complete with an instructor's manual to help you facilitate lectures, class discussions, and tests, this new edition focuses even more strongly than the first on prevention and health promotion at the community level as well as the individual client level, the relevance of social environmental conditions to the health of populations, and the growing importance of social work in the health field. Social Work in the Health Field: A Care Perspective, Second Edition is an overview of social work practice in various health care settings. The book addresses the historical background of social work in health care, theoretical perspectives, organizational considerations, theory and practice of interdisciplinary teamwork, client problems, skill and knowledge requirements, values and ethics considerations, and recent developments in hospital social work. New material in this edition includes: an update on primary health care—how social workers can modify communities and social environmental conditions to reduce social inequities and enhance social supports and integration within populations an updated critique of the health care system in the United States—what social workers need to know and the changes they need to make to advocate effectively updates on research findings and statistical data Praise for the first edition of Social Work in the Health Field: “VERY USEFUL TO STUDENTS. . . . One of the few works available that includes a useful discussion of social work practice in nursing homes.” —Choice “EFFECTIVE. . . . presents generic and special knowledge requirements for social work practice in health care settings, including values, ethics, and issues of diversity.” —Social Work Agenda “The book is CLEARLY WRITTEN, and is thought-provoking concerning the role of the social work practitioner in health settings and the nature of the linkage between health and social care. Despite the fact that it is American in origin, it is of relevance to multi-disciplinary and international audiences and contains much which will be OF INTEREST TO STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS AS WELL AS PRACTITIONERS.” —Journal of Social Work