Social Work, Mental Health, and Public Policy in Diverse Contexts

The discipline of social policy, oftentimes deemed a part of social work as a profession, was born in the West. Unlike social policy that started with the post-war idea of a welfare state in the mid-20 th century, social work traces its roots to individual casework pioneered by the Charity Organization Society (COS), early social administration including state-wide poverty relief (an advocacy effort of the COS but with deep roots in the English Poor Laws of the 17th century), and social action emphasizing political activities to improve social conditions (originating from the Settlement House Movement which began in the 1880s).

The development of social work is historically intertwined with that of public welfare, philanthropy, and charity and is an inherently international subject. This conception is broader than international social work as a discrete field of professional practice, which crosses geopolitical borders and all levels of social and economic organizations with a focus on development. However, each nation has a story of its own in terms of professionalization of social work in the evolution of public welfare and philanthropic/charitable undertaking within its particular economic, political, social, and cultural settings. A wide-ranging and in-depth study of various (especially non-Western) country cases is essential to an adequate, comprehensive understanding of the social work profession, which is also a basic requirement of its value of diversity.

China is undoubtedly an important case with the largest population on earth. It's also unique in view of so-called Chinese characteristics which are sometimes fundamentally different from other (particularly Western) societies. It's even intriguing given the country's lengthy, complex history and its recent, rapid rise to a global superpower with a claim of national goals and core values that seem to be rather considerable to social work as a helping profession. Therefore, any significant lessons learned from the Chinese experiences would help with a better international understanding and further advancement of social work and public welfare at a global scale.

Systematic, collective contribution of competent, rigorously trained social work and welfare scholars Both professional standards and cultural/national relevance are upheld by minimizing the influence of various biase Far-reaching, up-to-date review with a historical-comparative approach to the profession's future in Chinese contexts

Auteur
Professor Sheying Chen received his Ph.D. & MSW from the University of California at Los Angeles (School of Public Policy & Social Research) and is currently a tenured professor of Public Administration/Social Policy at Pace University in New York. He is the founding director of the Centers for Social Work Study and Healthcare Administration at top-ranked Tsinghua University, where he served as a senior visiting scholar and senior research fellow of Cross-Strait Research and Sino-American Relations etc. He was Associate Provost for Academic Affairs (2010-2012) at Pace and previously Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Professor of Sociology at Indiana University (Southeast). Prior to IU, Dr. Chen was Professor and Dean at the University of Guam (UOG), overseeing the Colleges/Schools of: Business & Public Administration; Education; Health Sciences, Nursing & Social Work. He held tenure as Professor and Chair at the City University of New York (Staten Island) where he headed a large unit housing psychology, sociology, anthropology, social work, aging, disability studies, women's studies, and a number of interdisciplinary initiatives. He was a permanent faculty member of Sun Yat-sen University at Guangzhou, the "institution of highest learning" in southern China, from 1986 to 1992, where he served as a coordinator for graduate studies and a forerunner of China's rebuilt social work/policy education and research. A Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and one of the most influential scholars in Chinese social sciences, Professor Chen is the co-editor for the Springer Book Series International Perspectives on Social Policy, Administration, & Practice and International Perspectives on Aging.

Contenu

Part I. Introduction.- Chapter 1. Social Work, Mental Health, and Public Policy in China: A Comparative-Historical and Theoretical-Practical Approach.- Chapter 2. Policy System, General Public Policy (GPP), and Comparative Social Policy: A Tale of the Economic State vs. Welfare State (and More).- Part II. Professionalization of Social Work as an Eclectic Discipline with Multidisciplinary Collaboration.- Chapter 3. From Weak Autonomy Embedding to Institutional Embedding in the Development of Social work Professionalization: A Case Study on a Pilot Project of a Child Welfare Institution.- Chapter 4. Effectiveness of Social Work Supervision: A Qualitative Case Study and a Framework of Structure-Relationship-Power Analysis.- Chapter 5. Promoting the Curriculum System Construction of Public Health Social Work in China: Western Experience and Domestic Exploration.- Chapter 6. Psychosomatic Medicine, Professional Social Work, and Evidence-Based Clinical Practice.- Chapter 7. Biomedical Education, Health Promotion, and Social Responsibility: International and Chinese Perspectives.- Part III.- Policy and Practice with Diverse/Special Populations.- Chapter 8. Ethnicity and Diversity: American Experience and Implications to Social Work.- Chapter 9. Spirituality without Religion: Social Work for Promoting Selfhood among Chinese Women in a Consumerist Society.- Chapter 10. A Dialectical Approach to Understanding Family Life: How Parents of LGB Children Experience Coming Out and Navigate Parent-Child Ties.- Chapter 11. Social Worker Intervention and the Support Mechanism for Mothers Having Lost Their Only Child in China.- Chapter 12. Dislocation and Replacement: Delivery of Welfare Services for Children with Rare Diseases in Young Family from the Perspective of Parens Patriae.- Chapter 13. Ambivalence in Family Life During the Era of Falling Fertility and Population Aging: Theoretical and Clinical Considerations.- Chapter 14. China, Aging and Panopticism: A Foucauldian Analysis. <p