Over the last hundred years, pregnancy and childbirth has become increasingly safe – yet it is still a site of risk, and a contested ground on which health professionals and pregnant women both face high costs of error. In this context, all those involved in managing pregnancy and birth are expected to identify and mitigate risk: pregnant women are subject to increasing surveillance to ensure the safety of the unborn foetus, and every aspect of childbearing is increasingly medicalised. Thi...

Based on mothers’ experiences and accounts, Community Care and the Mentally Handicapped (originally published in 1984) explores the daily challenges of caring for a severely disabled child at home.Having recognised the limitations of institutional care, the authors examine the needs and experiences of families from the initial discovery of intellectual disability in their child through practical care within the family, informal community support, and the role of formal ser...

First published in 1986, Institutional Care and the Mentally Handicapped is a historical record of institutions at one stage of their development.The book is divided into four parts. Part one examines the development and history of institutions, and the methods used by the author for this study. Part two explores the structure of ideas in one institution. Part three discusses the structure of social action in the institution, and the final part examines the general nature ...

First published in 1980, Crisis in the Health Service explores the problems of the National Health Service and discusses approaches to promote change. It examines strategies adopted since the service’s creation in 1948, finding them inadequate, particularly management structures organized as if the institution operates like a private firm. By analyzing management processes within health authorities, the book demonstrates the limited impact of central preferences on local behaviour...

`The book has no competitor; it summarises the development of the method, follows through all stages of research from accessing subjects through design to analysing diary information as data, and considers how the method can best be exploited and used. No other book comes remotely near doing this. I for one shall be using it gratefully as the single best text for diary research′ - Professor Anthony P Macmillan Coxon, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of EdinburghIn this acce...

The past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making.This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices.Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries res...

Risk has emerged as a key mechanism for controlling the future and learning from past misfortunes.How did risk influence policy makers’ responses to COVID-19? How will they be judged for their decisions?Drawing on case studies from the UK, China, Japan, New Zealand and the US, this original text explores policy responses to COVID-19 through the lens of risk. The book considers how different countries framed the pandemic, categorised their populations and communicated risk. ...

This new textbook opens up the policy-making process for students, uncovering how government decisions around health are really made. Starting from more traditional insights into how ministers and civil servants develop policy with limited knowledge and money, the book goes on to challenge the conception of policy as a rational process, revealing it to be something quite different.Knee-jerk reactions to disasters, keeping voters satisfied, the powerful leverage of interest groups, ...

First published in 1990, this book was the first informed study to focus on care within the voluntary sector. Written with the child in mind, it is a sensitive work which explores the administration, strategy, and problems facing carers in children’s homes, at that time.Centring on small, community-based facilities, the authors discuss the processes involved in setting up and running such facilities. They examine the difficulties of evaluating progressive services that are influenc...

This book is part of the highly successful Transforming Social Work Practice series and is written specifically to support students on the social work degree. Full of practical activities, case studies and opportunities for students to critically reflect and explore theory and practice.Current practice in the field was driven by the government White Paper ′Valuing People′ (2001) which declared some radical aims for services with people with learning difficulties. Now somewhat compr...

Following the publication of the House of Commons Education Select Committee Report in 1999, the Department of Education and Employment has set up a number of initiatives, including Excellence in Cities, to address the problematic issues relating to provision for gifted and talented pupils in primary and secondary schools.This book rehearses and develops further the central idea put forward by the authors in the first edition titled Educating Able Children that teachers remain the ...

An unrivalled introduction to the pioneers of educational theory that you won't be able to get through your studies without. This must-have book includes profiles on Vygotsky, Steiner, Montessori and Froebel, as well as 24 other theorists.