Books published by Policy Press

As the prospect of a legal right to advocacy inches closer, so the need to scrutinise its key values and practices becomes urgent. Although widely acclaimed as a 'good thing', there is little agreement as to how advocacy should be implemented, funded or evaluated. This book offers the first comprehensive analysis of the benefits of advocacy.

Mixing policy discussion and empirical work by leading researchers in the field, "Changing local governance, changing citizens" aims to explain what debates about local governance mean for local people.

This highly practical book, written by experienced practitioners and academics, is a core text about the practice of residential childcare, where workers and children share a common lifespace.

Despite the expansion of higher education, representation, level of participation and likelihood of academic success remain highest amongst young people from affluent areas and lowest amongst those from deprived neighbourhoods. This report identifies factors which impact upon the minority of disadvantaged young people who enter higher education.

This lively textbook, part of the successful Understanding Welfare series, helps us to understand policy, politics and practice. It combines an in-depth exploration of selected theoretical perspectives and concepts with a student-friendly format.

Dementia has been widely debated from the perspectives of biomedicine and social psychology. This book broadens the debate to consider the experiences of men and women with dementia from a sociopolitical perspective. It brings to the fore the concept of social citizenship, exploring what it means within the context of dementia and using it to re-examine the issue of rights, status(es), and participation. Most importantly, the book offers fresh and practical insights into how a citizenship framework can be applied in practice. It will be of interest to health and social care professionals, policy makers, academics and researchers and people with dementia and family carers may find it revitalising.

What does it mean to live a good life? Why has it proved so difficult for people with intellectual disabilities to live one? What happens when we make a good life the centre of our consideration of people with intellectual disabilities? These questions are explored through a re-examination of ideas from philosophy and social theory, and through personal life stories. This important and timely book provides an analysis and critique of current policies and underpinning ideologies in relation to people with intellectual disabilities and explores ways in which a good life may be made more attainable.

"The consumer in public services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Drawing on empirical research, it challenges existing stereotypes about the 'consumer as chooser' and shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services.

"Securing respect" contains essays from leading academics in the field that consider the origins, current interpretations and possible future for the Respect Agenda. It explores various policy and theoretical discourses relating to 'respect', behavioural expectations and anti-social behaviour.

This report provides a detailed exploration of MAPPA policy and practice in order to prompt further debate about the implications of the risk paradigm for young people and youth justice practitioners.

"Children, politics and communication" questions many of the conventional ways in which children are perceived. It is about how they communicate and engage, how they organise themselves and their lives, and how they deal with conflict in their relationships and the world around them.

The important study investigates changes in women's transitions in and out of paid work, comparing Italy and Great Britain across four subsequent birth cohorts from the time they leave full-time education, up to their 40s.

This book addresses the shortfall in knowledge regarding older people's attachment to deprived neighbourhoods, offering a re-conceptualisation of environmental gerontology. The author examines new research, challenging the common view that ageing 'in place' is optimal, particularly within areas that present multiple risks to the individual.

Based upon cross-national case studies of public and private sector workplaces, "Work, families and organisations in transition" illustrates how workplace practices and policies impact on employees' experiences of "work-life balance" in contemporary shifting contexts.

Based on the practice expertise and research of social workers from developing and developed countries worldwide, this book examines the relationship between social work and health inequalities in the context of globalisation.

Citizens' everyday conduct is shaped by governmental action, yet there is much evidence that both front-line public service staff and service users can sometimes act in ways that modify or disrupt intended policy outcomes. This book presents a highly original examination of how policy objectives can be 'subverted' through the actions of citizens.

This book examines who is likely to have a baby as a teenager, the consequences of early motherhood and how teenage pregnancy is dealt with in the media. The author argues that society's negative attitude to young mothers marginalises an already excluded group and that efforts should be focused on support.

The politics of parental leave policies addresses how and why, and by whom, particular policies are created and subsequently developed in particular countries. It examines the factors that bring about variations in leave policy, covering fifteen countries in Europe and beyond.

Modernising health care: Reinventing professions, the state and the public is a crucial contribution to debates about the rapid modernisation of health care systems and the dynamics of changing modes of governance and citizenship.

This much-needed new textbook introduces readers to the development of China's welfare polices since its conception of an open-door policy in 1978. Setting out basic concepts and issues, including key terms and the process of policy making, it overcomes a major barrier to understanding Chinese social policy. The book explores in detail the five key policy areas of employment, social security, health, education and housing. Each is examined using a human well-being framework comprising both qualitative and quantitative data and eight dimensions: physical and psychological well-being, social integration, fulfilment of caring duties, human learning and development, self-determination, equal value and just polity. This enables the authors to provide not only factual information on policies but also an in-depth understanding of the impact of welfare changes on the quality of life of Chinese people over the past three decades. A major strength of the book lies in its use of primary Chinese language sources, including relevant White Papers, central and local government policy documents, academic research studies and newspapers for each policy area. There are very few books in English on social policy in China, and this book will be welcomed both by academics and students of China and East Asian studies and comparative social policy and by those who want to know more about China's social development.

With new devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, this book provides a study of developments in the major areas of social policy and a full comparison between the four UK nations.