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As the number of people affected by dementia continues to rise, this is the first in-depth examination of related services dedicated to the unique demands of remote and rural settings. Contributors from the UK, Australia, North America and Europe explore the experiences and requirements of those living with dementia and those caring for them in personal and professional capacities in challenging geographical locations. For practitioners, researchers, academics and policy makers, this book is an essential review of evidence and strategies to date, and a guide to future research needs and opportunities for improvements in rural dementia practice.

The volume presents a critical history of deinstitutionalisation and the subsequent policy of community care. It explores the development of the asylum regime, the challenges to it and finally the development of community care. It argues that the vision of community based mental health services has never been realized. The failings of community care in the 1990s and the media reporting of high-profile cases led to a backlash against the policy. Despite this, it has been adopted across the world and international perspectives are discussed. The links between deinstitutionalization and the expansion of the use of imprisonment are examined. The final chapters examine the landscape of contemporary mental health services.

A call for change in healthcare thinking, this book explores the fundamental currents and tensions behind recent trends in policy, such as shared decision making, coproduction, and personalization. While these trends are often discussed in connection with a transition in epidemiological thought, this book argues that they instead embody a philosophical shift—a change in our conception of healthcare and of appropriate forms of knowledge and analysis. As clinical concerns are increasingly nested within social concerns, policy analysis must engage with the multiple philosophical tensions that are now at the heart of the healthcare debate. The book's focus on these key, underlying ideas could not be more timely. Accessibly written and with international relevance, the book will help fuel a shift from a delivery model of healthcare to a deliberative one.

At Home with Autism introduces readers to conditions and aspirations of adults on the autism spectrum that demand a new approach to how we provide, locate, design and develop homes in which they live. The book argues that there is no singular stellar residential model, just as there is no singular prototype of autism. Grounded in an extensive array of research sources, the book identifies resident-focused quality of life goals, and profiles design guidelines directed to those goals. The book implores those involved in housing design, production and policy to expand their exposure to what is possible, what is desirable, and to direct their efforts towards expanding residential choices for those on the spectrum.

Over the last 20 years there has been a flourishing of work on feminist care ethics. This collection makes a unique contribution to this body of work. The international contributors demonstrate the significance of care ethics as a transformative way of thinking across diverse geographical, policy and interpersonal contexts. From Tronto’s analysis of global responsibilities, to Fudge Schormans’ re-imagining of care from the perspective of people with learning disabilities, chapters highlight the necessity of thinking about the ethics of care to achieve justice and well-being within policies and practice. This book will be essential reading for all those seeking such outcomes.

Issues of gender and alcohol are approached in ways which demonstrate the need to look differently at our understandings of women’s alcohol use. The use of a social model enables contributing authors to challenge medical models and position them within a political context. Prejudice and injustice are addressed, including the marginalization of women’s needs and the prevalence of outdated models. The book draws attention to failures and misunderstandings whereby the relevance to alcohol use of gender, social class and race have contributed to poor treatment, social injustice, and personal despair. Women’s alcohol use, whether seen as problematic or not, is culturally situated, and as such will reflect the power imbalance remaining within our social structures. This is an interdisciplinary, theoretically grounded book, which is in addition empirically based.

This book provides a hard-hitting and deliberately provocative overview of the relationship between evidence, policy and practice; how policy is implemented, and how research can and should influence the policy process. It critiques the notion of ‘evidence-based practice’, suggesting instead a more inclusive idea of ‘knowledge-base practice’, based in part on the lived experience of service users.

Everyone will experience a number of transitions throughout their life. Many of these will be positive, others may present challenges. This book addresses significant transitions relevant to policy and practice, covering key transition points in social care from childhood to old age. Drawing on the best-available research evidence, it highlights issues common to all experiencing transition, as well as the dilemmas specific to particular situations. Individual chapters explore what we know about how transition is experienced by young people leaving care and by those with learning disabilities and mental-health problems. For young people seeking asylum, there are multiple transitions: of age, of country, and of culture. Further contributions address the current transformation from service provision to self-directed support, the major transition for older people who move to supported living, and the enduring challenges that surround the transition from hospital to community. The practice orientation of the book is reinforced by the inclusion of evidence-based practice guidance for each of the areas addressed and a strong emphasis throughout on the implications for practice development.

Tackling inequalities in health is an essential social-work task. Every day, social workers grapple with the impact on people's lives of the social inequalities that shape their health chances and experience. This book examines the relationship between social work and health inequalities in the context of globalisation. Based on the practice expertise and research of social workers from developing and developed countries worldwide and using specific examples, it demonstrates the relevance of health inequalities to social-work practice and policy across the lifecourse; analyses barriers to good health that result from global social, economic, environmental, and political trends; and develops core ideas on how social workers can act to combat negative effects of globalisation by adopting a health-inequalities lens. The book is a snapshot of a new global social work that is responsive to local conditions and circumstances but seeks partners in the international struggle for equity, rights, and social justice.

Advocacy is an area of increasing importance in service provision, where new ways of working have to be found that increasingly create an enabling, rather than a providing, state. It has an important part to play in this shift. Based on the experience of real advocates, this book is written in a jargon-free style. As well as practical chapters on what advocates do, using case studies from Scotland, where important developments are taking place, it discusses how advocacy fits into the broader scheme of things. The author describes and discusses examples of advocacy, with chapters dealing with management, training, and evaluation of the work. The book concludes with a thought-provoking discussion of various strategies that help vulnerable people speak to power on more equal terms.