Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
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The public inquiry that followed the death of Maria Colwell had profound implications for the developing profession and practice of social work in the UK. This book describes the politics, professional concerns and public interest - both local and national - that surrounded the inquiry and its aftermath, and shows how the concerns of this landmark child abuse case have still failed to find a satisfactory resolution today. Social work, then and now, remains ‘on trial’.
In much of the West the concerns of rural people are marginalised and rural issues neglected. This stimulating book draws upon a rich variety of material to show why rural social work is such a challenging field of practice. It incorporates research from different disciplines and places to provide an accessible and comprehensive introduction to rural practice.
The first part of the book focuses upon the experience of rurality. The second part of the book turns to the development of rural practice, reviewing different ways of working from casework through to community development.
This book is relevant to planners, managers and practitioners not only in social work but also in other welfare services such as health and youth work, who are likely to face similar challenges.
The number of disability related support services controlled and run by disabled people themselves has increased significantly in the UK and internationally over the past forty years. As a result, greater user involvement in service provision and delivery is a key priority for many western Governments. This book provides the first comprehensive review and analysis of these developments in the UK.
Drawing on evidence from a range of sources, including material from the first national study of user-controlled services, this book provides a critical evaluation of the development and organisation of user-controlled services in the UK and identifies the principal forces - economic, political and cultural - that influence and inhibit their further development. It summarises and discusses the policy implications for the future development of services and includes an up-to-date and comprehensive literature and research review.
“Independent futures” is essential reading for academics and students on a range of courses including: health and social care; social work; allied health professions, such as nursing, occupational therapy and speech therapy; social policy; sociology; and psychology. It will also be of interest to practitioners and policy makers who need a reliable overview of current policy and critical analysis of key issues affecting future policy and practice.
Scandals do not just happen. They are made. They are constructed out of such everyday tragedies as the small carelessnesses and institutional brutality of the long stay hospital, the abuse of children or the violent deaths of innocent bystanders. This book, by examining the landmark scandals of the post-war period, including more recent ones, such as the Victoria Climbie Inquiry, reveals how scandals are generated, to what purposes they are used and whose interests they are made to serve.
In particular, it examines the role of the public inquiry, an increasingly familiar policy device, in the process whereby the ‘story’ of a particular scandal is told and its meaning fixed. Using transcripts, press coverage, materials from the Public Record Office and other contemporary sources each of the scandals described in the book is located in its own historical and policy context in order to explore the complex cause and effect relationship between public policy and scandal.
