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Overview
A critical characteristic of human service organizations is their capacity to learn from experience and to adapt continuously to changing external conditions such as downward pressure on resources, constant reconfiguration of the welfare state and rapidly changing patterns of social need.This invaluable, groundbreaking volume discusses in detail the concept of the learning organization, in particular its relevance to social work and social services. Contributors join together from across Europe, North America and Australia to explore the development of the learning organization within social work contexts and its use as a strategic tool for meeting problems of continuous learning, supervision and change. The volume addresses a range of important topics, from strategies for embedding learning and critical reflection in the social work learning organization, to the implications of the learning organization for the new community-based health and social care agenda.
Synopsis
Instructors and practitioners of social work, most of them British, write not in direct response to a recent (2003) inquiry into another abusive death of a British child and perceived failures of the child protection system, but within the dialogues that the case instigated within the field. They address the need to locate the learning and expertise of individual practitioners within the wider organizational context. The concept of the learning organization, they say, developed to meet the needs of commercial enterprises, and its application to social work and social care is problematic, but such aspects as systematic thinking, teamwork, and work-based learning are relevant. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR