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"This thoroughly revised and expanded new edition provides a comprehensive introduction to contemporary social policy and addresses its historical, theoretical and contextual foundations as well as contemporary policy issues relating to health, education and welfare as well as the impact of Brexit. Divided into four sections, it opens with a survey of the socio-economic, political and governmental contexts within which social policy operates, before moving on to look at the historical development of the subject. The third section examines contemporary aspects of providing welfare, whilst the final part covers European and wider international developments"--

The completely revised second edition of this highly respected textbook provides a comprehensive yet digestible and accessible introduction to the theoretical foundations, development and crucial areas of contemporary concern in social policy and welfare. Fully up to date, it provides a concise but thorough overview of the context for the provision of social welfare in contemporary Britain and beyond. Providing an integrated framework to highlight the relationships between theory, policy and practice, Introducing Social Policy examines social policy from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It th

Coventry University has made a strategic commitment to address the dimension of 'race' in its learning and teaching. Central to this is the establishment of a cross-institution curriculum change initiative called 'Curriculum 2025'. The case study shared here details how we are approaching this task and some early reflections. Two things are explained: first, the provision of resources for staff who want to learn more about possible actions to take; second, our approach to working alongside course teams on new materials, often designed as reusable learning objects. An example of such a learning object is discussed which uses Wikipedia to enable students from diverse backgrounds to examine critically academic texts, books and other resources to understand how their learning may be skewed in favour of Western-originated thought and to identify alternative perspectives. The student activity also provides a co-creation opportunity, in that students are discovering the curriculum for themselves.

Summary This paper focuses on the impact of a personal budget – either in the form of a direct payment or managed personal budget – on the role of unpaid carers of older budget holders. Data were collected via postal survey of 1500 unpaid carers and semi-structured interviews with 31 carers. Findings Unpaid carers played a central role in supporting older budget holders irrespective of the type of budget received. The allocation of a personal budget may have decreased the amount of 'hands-on' care they provided, enabling them to do different things for and with the person cared for, but most did not relinquish direct involvement in care provision. Both kinds of personal budget provided greater flexibility to juggle caring tasks with other roles, such as childcare or paid employment. However, carers supporting direct payment users did experience higher levels of stress. This seemed linked to the additional responsibilities involved in administering the direct payment. Carers seemed relatively unsupported by their local Adult Social Care Department: the survey found that only one in five said they had ever received a carer assessment. Application The findings offer a detailed exploration of the impact of personal budgets on carers, suggesting that even in countries with relatively well-developed systems of support for carers such as England their impact remains overlooked. The paper may be of interest to social work practitioners, managers, academics and social work policy specialists working in countries that have, or are about to introduce, personal budgets or other forms of cash-for-care scheme.