Social Work with Families: Content and Process

There is no good substitute for what family can provide for the growth and development of its members. In a diverse and constantly changing world, practitioners aim to help families improve relationships between members and with their environment. This book successfully illustrates how social work practice can identify, utilize, build upon, and reinforce the unique strengths of families to help family systems become more effective and just in the face of certain challenges.
The authors integrate the most recent developments in theory, technique, and research into the century-old tradition of social work practice with families and couples. Constable and Lee have developed a clear, flexible, strengths-based approach that accommodates family and individual intervention and multiple methodologies, as well as the social institutional contexts in which social workers practice. This new edition focuses on the current trends in family therapy and explores the possibilities of broadening the scope of services that social workers can provide to families and couples in all settings.

Strengths of this edition: New! reflects recent clinical trial research on couple and family interventions; New! incorporates family life education, broadening the focus into newly developing areas with great potential for sustainable practice; New! includes chapter-by-chapter questions for discussion; Updated! integrates a wide range of new research and theory with practice transcultural perspective provides a bridge for working with couples and families in diverse cultures; case studies involve the reader and open the content to different interpretations of the complexity of family life; theory and practice for work with families in school social work, health care, mental health care, the judicial system, child welfare, and more.

Robert Constable (MSW, Loyola University Chicago; DSW, University of Pennsylvania) is professor emeritus in the School of Social Work at Loyola University in Chicago. In addition to his work in academia, he has practiced with families in various settings and in private practice for more than forty years. He has published extensively in the fields of social work with families, school social work, and values and ethics in social work.

Daniel B. Lee (MSW, Florida State University; DSW, University of Utah) is professor emeritus in the School of Social Work at Loyola University in Chicago. He has been a member of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy since 1972 and is the founder of the Transcultural Family Institute and co-founder and former president of the Global Awareness Society International. He is currently a member of the journal editorial board of NACSW.