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Care has been struggled for, resisted and celebrated. The failure to care in ‘care services’ has been seen as a human rights problem and evidence of malaise in contemporary society. But care has also been implicated in the oppression of disabled people and demoted in favour of choice in health and social care services. In this wide- ranging book Marian Barnes argues for care as an essential value in private lives and public policies. She considers the importance of care to well-being and social justice and applies insights from feminist care ethics to care work, and care within personal relationships. She also looks at ‘stranger relationships’, how we relate to the places in which we live, and the way in which public deliberation about social policy takes place. This book will be vital reading for all those wanting to apply relational understandings of humanity to social policy and practice.

This book focuses on the experiences and perspectives of children and young people who care for a parent with HIV in the global North and South. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research from the UK and Tanzania, it presents a unique insight into the similarities and differences in children' and parents' experiences across diverse socio-economic, cultural, and welfare contexts. The book makes a significant contribution to the growing research evidence on children and young people with caring responsibilities (‘young carers’) and the impacts of HIV and AIDS on families globally. It examines caring relationships within families affected by HIV and AIDS; the outcomes of caregiving; children‘s and families’ resilience; the factors influencing whether children become involved in care work; and local and global policy responses. The book also provides insight into the perspectives of parents living with HIV and service providers working with families.

How welfare states influence population health and health inequalities has long been debated but less well tested by empirical research. This book presents new empirical evidence of the effects of Swedish welfare state structures and policies on the lives of Swedish citizens. The discussion, analysis, and innovative theoretical approaches developed in the book have implications for health research and policy beyond Scandinavian borders. Drawing on a rich source of longitudinal data, the Swedish Level of Living Surveys (LNU), and other data, the authors shed light on a number of pertinent issues in health inequality research while at the same time showing how health inequalities have evolved in Sweden over several decades. Topics covered include: how structural conditions relating to family, socio-economic conditions, and the welfare state are important in producing health inequalities; how health inequalities change over the lifecourse; and the impact of environment on health inequalities — at home, at school, and in the workplace.

Institutionalized racism adversely affects the health of African Americans, and it operates through multiple institutions, e.g., the medical system, the criminal justice system, and families. This book looks at the historic origins of the black health deficit and how it is perpetuated by health policies and interactions. High rates of poverty, joblessness, and neighbourhood segregation also foster poor health among black people, and are associated with a range of health issues. These social conditions are related to illicit drug use and mass incarceration, both of which have significant health implications. This book also explores how the fragility of black families and high rates of non-marriage affect adults and the health consequences of these family patterns for children.

This book provides a transnational perspective on intellectual disability in the twentieth century with contributions from distinguished authors in 14 countries across 5 continents. Each chapter outlines policies and practice from the featured nation. Life stories illustrate their impact on people with intellectual disabilities and their families. The book brings together accounts of how intellectual disability was viewed, managed and experienced in countries across the globe. It examines the origins and nature of contemporary attitudes, policy and practice; and sheds light on the challenges of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCPRD).

Government policy has steadfastly been against drug legalisation, but increasingly critics have argued that this is unsustainable. This book is a timely examination of the issues this raises. Numerous suggestions have been offered. Some seek complete legalisation, others a more modified form, yet still others want an increasing commitment to harm reduction policies. The book examines the implications of these proposals for individuals, especially juveniles, and for society, when set against crime reduction claims. It concludes with the necessary questions a rational drug policy must answer.

This book reports on the first substantial UK study of parenting, disability, and mental health. It examines the views of parents and children in seventy-five families. Covering a broad spectrum of issues facing disabled parents and their families, the book: provides a comprehensive review of relevant policy issues; explores the barriers to full participation in parenting that disabled parents face; examines the complex ways in which broader social divisions, including gender and socioeconomic status, interact with disability; and advocates measures to support disabled parents and their families by promoting and supporting relationships within the family.

This book examines the role that case studies play in understanding and explaining British health policy. Overall, the chapters cover the key health policy literatures in terms of the policy process, analytical frameworks and some of the seminal moments of the NHS. They have been written by health policy researchers in sociology, social policy, management and organisation studies. The book explores and promotes the case study as an under-used method and thereby encourages a more reflective approach to policy learning by practitioners and academics.

In the last decades of the 20th century, successive British governments have regarded adolescent pregnancy and childbearing as a significant public health and social problem. Youthful pregnancy was once tackled by attacking young, single mothers but New Labour, through its Teenage Pregnancy Strategy, linked early pregnancy to social exclusion rather than personal morality and aimed, instead, to reduce teenage pregnancy and increase young mothers' participation in education and employment. However, the problematisation of early pregnancy has been contested, and it has been suggested that teenage mothers have been made scapegoats for wider, often unsettling, social and demographic changes. The re-evaluation of early pregnancy as problematic means that, in some respects, teenage pregnancy has been ‘made’ and ‘unmade’ as a problem. Focusing on the period from the late-1990s to the present in the UK, 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 book argues that society's negative attitude to young mothers is likely to marginalise an already excluded group, and that efforts should be focused primarily on supporting young mothers and their children.

Trust is fundamental to everyday interactions and the functioning of society, but it is particularly relevant within healthcare contexts. An increased awareness of the limitations of medical knowledge and care systems, alongside the challenged authority of the professionals who work within these institutions, renders trust salient yet problematic. In spite of a growing body of research more generally, how trust develops, or fails to develop, within mental healthcare contexts remains poorly understood and under-researched. This book brings together key theories, existing research into trust in healthcare, as well as new empirical findings regarding trust within different dimensions of psychosis services, to answer a range of questions which are pertinent to mental healthcare settings and indeed trust research more broadly. The conditions of uncertainty and vulnerability, which make trust relevant, exist in amplified form in these service-contexts oriented towards people experiencing severe mental health problems. The study harnesses this ‘crucible’ of key factors to explore a number of themes which are central to contemporary theoretical debates around the nature of trust – the role of institutions, risk, rationality, habitus, choice and related concerns. The authors connect these abstract concerns to empirical analysis involving interviews with service-users, practitioners and managers. The findings and conclusions are related to contemporary policy-making issues as well empirical and theoretical research into risk, trust, vulnerable groups and other related topics.

Research on well-being reveals the significance of personal relationships, trust and participation to sustain quality of life, yet it is the economic model that remains the dominant basis for political and social institutions and policy. This book presents a new analysis of well-being in terms of social value, and outlines how it could be incorporated into public policy decisions. It argues that the grandiose attempt to maximise welfare and regulate social relations through contract, in line with the economic theory of information and incentives, is counterproductive for well-being. Instead, both the quality of personal experience and the restraints necessary for a convivial collective life would be better served by a focus on cultures and institutions.

Richard Titmuss was Professor of Social Administration at the London School of Economics (LSE) from 1950 until his death in 1973. His publications on welfare and social policy were radical and wide-ranging, spanning fields such as demography, class inequalities in health, social work, and altruism. Titmuss's work played a critical role in establishing the study of social policy as a scientific discipline; it helped to shape the development of the British Welfare State and influenced thinking about social policy worldwide. Despite its continuing relevance to current social policy issues both in the UK and internationally, much of Titmuss's work is now out of print.

We are often told that ‘money can't buy happiness’. But if money is not the answer, then what is? This book considers this question by examining empirical data stretching back almost ten years. Whereas previous concerns of individual well-being have been drawn towards the negative outcomes of life experiences, this book provides a new approach by directly addressing the circumstances under which subjective high well-being is experienced, often with surprising results. Drawing on nine years of panel data, it examines demographic, social, spatial, health, domain satisfaction and socio-economic circumstances in a rich and complex longitudinal study, providing previously unknown information on factors associated with improved and sustained high well-being. It shows that subjective assessments of our circumstances are more important to well-being than our objective conditions and suggests that high well-being may be the key to improvements in people's subjective experience of a wide range of adverse (and other) life events. The book also highlights that high levels of well-being are more likely to be associated with our social relationships and health status than with income or personal status, and that affluence is no guarantee to high subjective well-being and indeed may have negative consequences. The 21st century is seeing the emergence of a positive science, with a new focus on subjective well-being. This research adds new knowledge to the issues and debates that supports the move towards a better understanding of the factors which promote subjective well-being. Such findings will be important to the international academic field.