This book focuses on the externally driven difficulties of service workers and agencies in shaping services--such as the consequences of recent conservative social policies on agency life and the way in which the present political environment influences services through privatization.

The Encyclopedia of New York State is one of the most complete works on the Empire State to be published in a half-century. In nearly 2,000 pages and 4,000 signed entries, this single volume captures the impressive complexity of New York State as a historic crossroads of people and ideas, as a cradle of abolitionism and feminism, and as an apex of modern urban, suburban, and rural life. The Encyclopedia is packed with fascinating details from fields ranging from sociology and geography to history. Did you know that Manhattan's Lower East Side was once the most populated neighborhood in the world, but Hamilton County in the Adirondacks is the least densely populated county east of the Mississippi; New York is the only state to border both the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean; the Erie Canal opened New York City to rich farmland upstate . . . and to the west. Entries by experts chronicle New York's varied areas, politics, and persuasions with a cornucopia of subjects from environmentalism to higher education to railroads, weaving the state's diverse regions and peoples into one idea of New York State. Lavishly illustrated with 500 photographs and figures, 120 maps, and 140 tables, the Encyclopedia is key to understanding the state's past, present, and future. It is a crucial reference for students, teachers, historians, and business people, for New Yorkers of all persuasions, and for anyone interested in finding out more about New York State.

Neighbourhood Houses draws on a five-year study to document and contextualize the neighbourhood house movement in Vancouver. Social disconnection has led many observers to declare that urban communities are weakening and fragmenting. Nonetheless, the local community is where most aspects of everyday life occur, where people establish their homes and pursue their ambitions. It offers a secure haven in an unpredictable, globalized world. Neighbourhood houses are community hubs providing services such as public recreation, child care, health care, and adult literacy classes, bringing urban newcomers and neighbours together. Contributors to this book outline the history of the Vancouver network, its relationship with local government and other organizations in the region, the programs and activities offered, and the experiences of participants. While globalization and migration create fragmented and disconnected societies in modern urban cities, this timely study demonstrates that place-based community organizations can provide an antidote.

This book develops a new paradigm suited to the quickly shifting dynamics of a globalized society, both more reliant on social networking, and yet seeking common connection and community.

Chronicles the sweeping history of the storied Henry Street Settlement and its enduring vision of a more just society On a cold March day in 1893, 26-year-old nurse Lillian Wald rushed through the poverty-stricken streets of New York’s Lower East Side to a squalid bedroom where a young mother lay dying—abandoned by her doctor because she could not pay his fee. The misery in the room and the walk to reach it inspired Wald to establish Henry Street Settlement, which would become one of the most influential social welfare organizations in American history. Through personal narratives, vivid images, and previously untold stories, Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier chronicles Henry Street’s sweeping history from 1893 to today. From the fights for public health and immigrants’ rights that fueled its founding, to advocating for relief during the Great Depression, all the way to tackling homelessness and AIDS in the 1980s, and into today—Henry Street has been a champion for social justice. Its powerful narrative illuminates larger stories about poverty, and who is “worthy” of help; immigration and migration, and who is welcomed; human rights, and whose voice is heard. For over 125 years, Henry Street Settlement has survived in a changing city and nation because of its ability to change with the times; because of the ingenuity of its guiding principle—that by bridging divides of class, culture, and race we could create a more equitable world; and because of the persistence of poverty, racism, and income disparity that it has pledged to confront. This makes the story of Henry Street as relevant today as it was more than a century ago. The House on Henry Street is not just about the challenges of overcoming hardship, but about the best possibilities of urban life and the hope and ambition it takes to achieve them.

This book offers a compelling critical analysis of American society by examining the role of psychotherapy within social policy and the culture that has fashioned it. It takes a deeply critical look at ‘the social clinic,’ defined here as a ubiquitous organizational arrangement that includes clinical and community psychology, counseling, clinical social work, psychiatry, much of the self-help industry, complementary and alternative medicine and others. Epstein’s analysis concludes that the social clinic lacks credible evidence of effectiveness and its continued popularity expresses popular but predatory American values such as romantic individualism, the triumph of the subjective, a sense of personal and political chosenness, persistent bigotry, and a preference for tribal as opposed to civic identities. This careful examination of American society through the lens of psychotherapeutic practice characterizes the social clinic as a soothing fiction of the United States. The book offers caring services as the unrealized alternative to clinical treatment, capable of achieving greater personal adjustment as well as social and economic equality. It will appeal to readers with an interest in social welfare, public policy, and public administration, as well as to students and scholars of psychotherapy, counseling, social work, rehabilitation, and community psychology.

Publisher description

Examining three interconnected case studies, Tamar Carroll powerfully demonstrates the ability of grassroots community activism to bridge racial and cultural differences and effect social change. Drawing on a rich array of oral histories, archival records, newspapers, films, and photographs from post–World War II New York City, Carroll shows how poor people transformed the antipoverty organization Mobilization for Youth and shaped the subsequent War on Poverty. Highlighting the little-known National Congress of Neighborhood Women, she reveals the significant participation of working-class white ethnic women and women of color in New York City's feminist activism. Finally, Carroll traces the partnership between the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and Women's Health Action Mobilization (WHAM!), showing how gay men and feminists collaborated to create a supportive community for those affected by the AIDS epidemic, to improve health care, and to oppose homophobia and misogyny during the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Carroll contends that social policies that encourage the political mobilization of marginalized groups and foster coalitions across identity differences are the most effective means of solving social problems and realizing democracy.

Encompassing community development, organizing, planning, & social change, as well as globalisation, this book is grounded in participatory & empowerment practice. The 36 chapters assess practice, theory & research methods.