Bücher von Paul G. Johnson

Social issues shape the news. Yet pulpit and pews maintain an awkward silence about them. One layperson said, ""I have been a member here for twenty-five years, but I have no idea what any member thinks about any social issue."" Op-ed pages and sound bites cause people to wonder if friends are ""red"" or ""blue"" on social issues, but in this book, content dips below the surface where the water is a bipartisan calm. Here is one example: for genuine competition to occur, the sides have to be fairly even. We do this in sports. Another example question is, why is health care so high when the healing is free? Hope is implicit in ""Thy kingdom come . . . on earth,"" recited by many churchgoers on a weekly basis as part of the Lord's Prayer. Hope becomes explicit when practical theology and applied sociology are joined, because they point to the same Source: ""the hidden pressure for justice and peace at work in the world."" This Source allows grace and truth to be discovered in social issues. Indeed, the grace of God generates compassion, a prerequisite for multifaceted social justice. Wrath has no capacity to foster anything but fear of being left behind. There are single-issue books of three-hundred-plus pages, but there are no books that speak to a variety of social issues. This one does speak to a variety of social issues with clarity, readability, and economy.

Thisátext bridges the gap by offering learning activities that can be worked in both settings. The book is divided into four main parts that accounts for the major areas of social work practice. Part I covers the foundations of practice, including self awareness and knowing and learning about the community within one will practice. The second part deals with direct practice and covers individual assessment and group work. The third part focuses on agency practice and finally the last part covers special issues for consideration, including multicultural practice, law-informed practice, ethics, specialist and comparative practice.