1st Edition

Social Justice in Clinical Practice A Liberation Health Framework for Social Work

Edited By Dawn Belkin Martinez, Ann Fleck-Henderson Copyright 2014
    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    218 Pages
    by Routledge

    Social work theory and ethics places social justice at its core and recognises that many clients from oppressed and marginalized communities frequently suffer greater forms and degrees of physical and mental illness. However, social justice work has all too often been conceptualized as a macro intervention, separate and distinct from clinical practice.

    This practical text is designed to help social workers intervene around the impact of socio-political factors with their clients and integrate social justice into their clinical work. Based on past radical traditions, it introduces and applies a liberation health framework which merges clinical and macro work into a singular, unified way of working with individuals, families, and communities. Opening with a chapter on the theory and historical roots of liberation social work practice, each subsequent chapter goes on to look at a particular population group or individual case study, including:

    • LGBT communities
    • Mental health illness
    • Violence
    • Addiction
    • Working with ethnic minorities
    • Health

    Written by a team of experienced lecturers and practitioners, Social Justice in Clinical Practice provides a clear, focussed, practice-oriented model of clinical social work for both social work practitioners and students.

    Introduction  Dawn Belkin Martinez  1. The Liberation Health Model: Theory and Practice  Dawn Belkin Martinez 2. Becoming a Liberation Health Social Worker  Jared Douglas Kant  3. Liberation Health and LGBT Communities  Ezekiel Reis Burgin  4. Working with Major Mental Illness in the Community  Chloe Frankel  5. Liberation Health and Women Survivors of Violence  Ann Fleck-Henderson & Jacqueline Savage Borne  6. Working with Addictive Behavior  Liana Buccieri  7. Working with African Americans  Johnnie Hamilton Mason  8. Working with Upper Middle and Privileged Class Families  Eleana McMurry  9. Liberation Health in a Child Protection Agency  Zack Osheroff  10. Working in Public Housing  Anne Vinick with Carol Swenson  11. Liberation Health in the Hospital  Dawn Belkin Martinez  12. Working With Latino/as  Estela Pérez Bustillo

    Biography

    Dawn Belkin Martinez is Lecturer in Clinical Practice at the Boston University School of Social Work, USA and formerly an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is one of the founding members of the Boston Liberation Health Group and gives presentations locally, nationally, and internationally about her work with immigrant families, liberation health theory and practice, and social justice.

    Ann Fleck-Henderson is Professor Emerita at Simmons College School of Social Work, USA, and a consultant on intimate violence issues and on social work curriculum and pedagogy.

    "This book, written by a struggling consumer and consummate advocate of great stature and growing vulnerability, is a must read for anyone working in the fields of mental health and addictions or living with mental illness and or addiction.”  - Andrew Malekoff, Social Work with Groups

    "This book provides a clear and compelling vision of liberation health practice in social work. While not being prescriptive, it provides tools and a framework for analysis and action. The case presentations are highly effective at demonstrating the use of the triangle in a process of problem formulation that both includes and goes beyond traditional practice. These analyses and the plethora of interventions they inform will likely challenge all but the most cynical of practitioners, expanding readers’ sense of what is possible." -- Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare