Social workers have been involved in social development for many years, but it is only recently that these ideas have been explicitly applied to social work practice. The result is that a new and distinctive approach to social work practice known as developmental social work has emerged. Developmental social work emphasizes the role of social investment in professional practice. These investments meet the material needs of social work's clients and facilitate their full integration into the social and economic life of the community. Developmental social workers believe that client strengths and capabilities need to be augmented with public resources and services if those served by the profession are to live productive and fulfilling lives. Although developmental social work is inspired by international innovations, particularly in the developing countries, it highly relevant to practice in the United States and other Western nations.
In the first book to lay out a clear framework for developmental social work practice, chapters will focus on the traditional fields of social work practice, showing how social investment strategies can be adopted by social workers in their daily practice with populations including families and children, people with mental illness, homeless youth, people with disabilities, the elderly, and those in the correctional system. By facilitating clients' full social and economic participation through a variety of strategies, such as microenterprise or asset-building programs, practitioners can help bring about meaningful changes in clients' lives and throughout their communities.
The editors and contributors offer a highly original exposition of developmental social work theory and practice, providing a definitive guide to an emerging and exciting new approach to practice.
Industry Reviews
"Rarely does a book come along that so aptly translates theory to practice. This book informs rights-based, empowerment-oriented, strengths-based, and investment-related approaches, and brings knowledge in these areas to a new level of practice. Midgley and Conley have put together an extremely valuable resource that should be the standard text for this approach in undergraduate and graduate programs around the world."
--Alice K. Butterfield, PhD, Professor, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
"This is a cutting-edge volume of enormous importance for the profession of social work. Developmental social work as described here can significantly change current approaches to social work, social problems, and social work education. At once encompassing local and global, micro and macro practice, as well as applications and examples relating to major client groups, this book makes compelling reading. It heralds a new era for social work."
--Doreen Elliott, PhD, Professor and Distinguished Teaching Professor, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington
"Midgley and Conley bring the concept of developmental social work to life by applying its core ideas to arenas of mainstream professional practice. Readers will find refreshing perspectives on social investment approaches to interventions in mental health, corrections, aging, child welfare, and more. This book is highly recommended to social work practitioners as well as students."
--Lynne M. Healy, PhD, Professor and Director, Center for International Social Work Studies, School of Social Work, University of Connecticut
"Developmental social work focuses on social investment and building general capacities, in contrast to treatment-oriented social work, which focuses on particular problems to be reduced, if not solved. In this informative volume, James Midgley, Amy Conley, and their colleagues detail developmental social work, with examples in every chapter that illuminate principles and strategies. This book is a valuable resource for social work educators and practicing
social workers, regardless of field of practice."
--Michael Sherraden, PhD, Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development and Director, Center for Social Development, Washington University in St. Louis
"In the contemporary world dominated by neoliberal ideas and institutions, the formation of an innovative and groundbreaking approach in social work with emphases on community, social investment, participation, and human rights is genuinely heartening. Readers will find the elucidation of practicing developmental social work both enlightening and thought-provoking. This is an insightful must-read book for social work practitioners, social policy analysts,
policy makers, and all those who wish to seek effective solutions to the numerous world's social problems of poverty, delinquency, disability, unemployment, aging, and homelessness."
--Kwong-leung Tang, PhD, Professor and Director, School of Social Work, University of British Columbia
"The book is well developed and comprehensive, offering a unique perspective to social work. Each of the subject areas addressed are well researched and thoughtfully positioned. With the current push for internationalization in social work education, the book fills a void in the field and is likely to be of interest to students and scholars in a number of fields, including social work, organizing, and community development." -- Margaret Lombe, Graduate School
of Social Work, Boston College, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
"The value of this book resides in its ability to provide hope and recovery with respect to the various social work fields and concomitantly providing the evidence of practice examples that have been successful in investing in social and human capital with a developmental approach. Therefore, social work and development practitioners, social work and development educators will find this book invaluable as it challenges them to be critical and self-reflective in
their ability to conceptualize, teach and practice in the range of fields where marginalised and vulnerable people are located." - Jean D. Triegaardt, University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Journal
of Social Wefare
