Human Behavior for Social Work Practice: A Developmental-Ecological Framework

"This text represents an advance in the integration of social work course curricula."ùTimothy Page, Louisiana State University

"Highly engaging and easy to read!"ùJoanne Levine, Wichita State University

Human Behavior for Social Work Practice offers a fresh approach to this area of the social work curricula by giving students a framework for critical thinking and problem-solving. This book gives social work students strategies they can use in their careers when they face evolving social problems.

The authors use a developmental-ecological framework as an analytic tool for understanding complex social issues such as illness, substance abuse, violence, poverty, war, and natural disaster. By connecting social issues with the developmental changes individuals face throughout their life span, Human Behavior for Social Work Practice makes the abstract policies and problems social work students will face more tangible.

This book includes several features designed to aid readers who are eager to make connections between the classroom and professional practice:

practical advice and stories drawn from interviews with seasoned practitioners from many different fields, displayed in text boxes across the chapters, highlight real-life experiences and introduce a variety of policy contexts

social issues such as substance abuse, poverty, violence are followed across the life span in text boxes throughout the chapters

text- and Web-based resources are provided at the end of each chapter for supplementary information or for the preparation of papers

a glossary highlighting the key concepts introduced in the text is included.

Human Behavior for Social Work Practice will benefit students and teachers with in-depth examples of contemporary social issues as well as the framework necessary to understand complex developmental change within particular contexts and individual lives.

Wendy L. Haight (PhD, University of Chicago) is professor and Gamble-Skogmo Chair in Child Welfare and Youth Policy, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. The focus of her career has been to build a more culture-inclusive understanding of diverse children s development and to use this understanding to enhance social work practice. This has required deeply and respectfully engaging with a variety of cultural perspectives and scrutinizing mainstream North American assumptions that undergird so much research in developmental psychology, education, and social work. She is author or coauthor of eight books including Raise Up a Child: Human Development in an African American Family, also available from Lyceum.

Edward H. Taylor (MSW, University of Denver; PhD, University of Southern California, Los Angeles) is associate professor and director of the University of British Columbia-Okanagan School of Social Work. Previously he served as associate professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus, and chief of social work for the Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, and he spent ten years as a clinical social worker and researcher with the National Institute of Mental Health, Intramural Research Program. Throughout his career, Taylor has specialized in assessing, treating, and researching children and young adults with severe mental disorders.