Social Welfare Programs: Narratives from Hard Times

Albert and Skolnik enliven the theoretical material that students are required to know. Their integration of legal documents into the text enables students to gain first-hand experience in reading the types of documents they will encounter in practice. This text helps students understand the social programs affecting professional practice with those who have been economically dislocated, the near-poor and poor situated on the fringe of the economy that find themselves dependent upon governmental programs to meet their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and/or medical care. It presents not only the key features of the major national programs supporting this group, but also the subjective experience of program recipients and the impact of program participation on their lives. Clients' voices are given prominence in order to gain insight into the meaning they assign to their participation and its consequences. Clients' stories provide the connection between the often segregated professional knowledge realms of practice and policy and underscore the legal context of professional practice through examination of illustrative legislation, regulation and judicial decisions.

Perhaps best effective as supplemental or preliminary reading prior to a student's first contact with those who need services or the indigent, this collection of stories and commentaries covers a range of aspects of social work, covering an introduction to the economic and political environment of the narratives and to the legislative process, temporary assistance to needy families, public housing and homelessness, unemployment insurance, Supplemental Security Income, food stamps, and Medicaid. The concluding chapter describes helping clients hope with hard times, including the ambivalence in America toward those in need. The authors include a table of cases. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Raymond Albert received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his JD and MSW degrees from the University of Connecticut, where he was the first dual-degree graduate. In addition to serving as Co-Dean at Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, Albert is the Director of the Law and Social Policy Program. He teaches several courses in the LSP program, in addition to teaching a course on social legislation and on community practice in the Master of Social Services program. Albert is the author of LAW AND SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE: A LEGAL SYSTEMS APPROACH.

From 1976-2002, Dr. Louise Skolnik was a professor in the masters and doctoral programs, director of the Social Services Center, and associate dean at the Adelphi University School of Social Work. In 2002, she was appointed deputy commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Social Services and in 2004 was named the County's Director of Human Services. In this capacity, she is helping to implement the County's "No Wrong Door" integration of its health and human services departments. Dr, Skolnik is also t