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Over the coming years, demographers report a rapid increase in the number of people over age 65, and in particular the number of persons from ethnic and racial minority groups over 65. While professionals in aging services are paying close attention to these trends and their implications, there are widespread implications that go beyond aging services. Using New York State as a case in point, this paper utilizes literature, demographics, and interviews with key informants to focus on two major trends associated with these demographic shifts: the increase in family caregiving and grandparents raising grandchildren. These trends are examined for their impact on the design and delivery of services including TANF, child welfare and adult protective services. Professionals beyond those in aging services are called upon to be aware of the impact of these aging demographics for clients in the array of public social service systems, and to meet the challenges of these demographic trends with a multigenerational and multicultural agenda.

This article briefly chronicles the development of mixed methods research and its use in social work. We then move onto a discussion of terms and designs, reasons for (and for not) using mixed methods. Drawing upon exemplars, we address how to write up a mixed methods study when (1) the sample is single; single for one part, with a subset for the other; or, there is more than one sample; (2) the timing is concurrent or sequential; and (3) the priority or weighting is equal or weighted toward one method or the other (qualitative or quantitative). In addition we address the Discussion section of a mixed-methods article as an opportunity to integrate the qualitative and quantitative data for readers.

Collaboration between social workers and teachers is critical in order to maximize students' achievement in school. These professional groups share attributes including their status in professions where women predominate, whose practice occurs in a bureaucratic setting and whose professionals hold a service orientation. Despite these similarities, differences occur in the socialization of the two professions in relation to: the processes of self-selection to the profession; education and training; and in their orientation to and experiences within the organization of the school. This article articulates these differences and similarities and examines their impact on the processes of collaboration between social workers and teachers. In addition, strategies for bridging the differences are presented and illustrated with examples of successful interdisciplinary collaboration in schools.

This multiphase study was designed to gain a qualitative understanding of the experiences of single-mother welfare recipients and the effect of welfare reforms on recipients' perceived ability to care for themselves and their families. The findings were drawn from the first phase of the study in which individual interviews were conducted with 39 current or former recipients, all of whom were women of color living in socioeconomically disadvantaged urban neighborhoods. Eight themes are analyzed, and the implications for social welfare policy and practice are discussed.

Many families living in rural poverty endure toxic stress and trauma, contributing to challenges in engaging with their children's schools. Rural schools also face challenges in partnering with these families. Family engagement as a prevention approach, implemented by a team of social workers in collaboration with a rural school district, is presented as a case example to describe an emerging model. The conceptual framework, developed through a community-based participatory research approach, is (a) strengths-based, to support and enhance the parents' existing capacity; (b) trauma-informed, to understand and respond to the physiological and psychosocial impact of toxic stress; and (c) systems-focused, to facilitate change within the school system to make it responsive to the families' needs and strengths.

Although codes of conduct and ethics provide guidance, professionals have to exercise their own judgement in increasingly complex and demanding roles and work contexts when applying them to practice. At times, this can lead to conflict between personal, professional and interprofessional ethics due to the dynamics of the person-centred environment they function in. This interdisciplinary book draws on the perspectives of 40 authors from four continents to explore the dynamics of ethical dilemmas using theory, research and practice-based examples. Overall, the book will help to spearhead the debate about these ethical dilemmas, and ways of working with them, in an informed manner. It will make ideal reading for students, academics and professionals