Ideas drawn from family and systemic therapy form the basis of many interventions in mental health and childcare. This brief introduction offers an ideal starting-point for non specialists and new students keen to develop their skills. Taking a step-by-step experiential approach, it explores key concepts in vivid practice context.

When New Labour came to power in 1997, its leaders asked for it to be judged after ten years on its success in making Britain 'a more equal society'. As it approaches the end of an unprecedented third term in office, this book asks whether Britain has indeed moved in that direction. The highly successful earlier volume "A more equal society?" was described by Polly Toynbee as "the LSE's mighty judgement on inequality." Now this second volume by the same team of authors provides an independent assessment of the success or otherwise of New Labour's policies over a longer period. It provides: ....

This major new book provides, for the first time, a detailed evaluation of policies on poverty and social exclusion since 1997, and their effects. Bringing together leading experts in the field, it considers the challenges the government has faced, the policies chosen and the targets set in order to assess results. Drawing on research from the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, and on external evaluations, the book vbTab]asks how children, older people, poor neighbourhoods, ethnic minorities and other vulnerable groups have fared under New Labour and seeks to assess the government both...

Two-thirds of UK government spending now goes to the welfare state, and where the money is spent healthcare, education, pensions, benefits is the center of political and public debate. Much of that debate is dominated by the myth that the population is divided into those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it. But this groundbreaking book, written by a top UK social policy expert, uses extensive research and survey evidence to challenge that view. It shows that our complex and ever-changing lives mean that all of us rely on the welfare state throughout our lifetimes, not...

This book examines key issues connected with the distribution of personal wealth in the UK. It studies why wealth is now such an important factor in social differences and public policy. It presents the most recent information on current wealth inequalities and a detailed discussion of trends in the distribution of wealth. It uses newly available data to compare wealth inequalities in the UK with the USA, Canada, and Sweden. It uses longitudinal data, which track the same people over time, to examine trajectories in wealth accumulation over the decade to 2005 and inequalities in inheritances...

The term 'social security' has a very different meaning in underdeveloped countries and is best understood as poverty alleviation. This work seeks to define social security in its various forms and to examine what types of programmes are most suitable for developing countries. The authors review current literature on the subject. Some chapters explore broad themes, while others describe social security provisions in various regions in South Asia, China, Latin America, and Southern Africa. Western systems are compared and broad assessments made of the traditional social security systems in...