Adult services in the EU: some unusual central Europe perspectives

I've been involved with the editing of an interesting new book, based on a conference, on social work in adult services in the EU, with mainly a central Europe perspective. There is interesting stuff on helping Roma communities, disability policy and unemployment policy in Poland, papers on services on homelessness in Denmark, chronic drug abuse in Germany, alternative punishment, family problems and older people in Slovakia.

There's a good policy paper on trends in general social services policy, stuff on social work skills, two papers on palliative care from the UK and I wrote a piece on where personalisation is at. Two fascinating papers give you a history of child care during the communist period and after in Poland, as a prelude to looking at recruiting adults to provide foster care and at the transition of care leavers into adulthood. While a UK social worker would distinguish those from adult services abd call them child care, they make the point that understanding the needs of the adults who provide child care in the community is also important and that children inc are become adults and you have to work at making the transition work.

A lovely paper on working with odler people in Poland through the University of the Third Age makes the point that educational initiatives are an important community resource of older people. the perspective of central European social pedagogy emphasisies thatperspective.

Also a bit unusual, there an interesting paper from the owner of a private care home and private domiciliary care in the UK; you don't often see an emphasis on commercial decision-making as an element in decisions about social care.

It’s published by College Publications in London: http://www.collegepublications.co.uk/other/?00018
and you can find it on Amazon UK or US by searching for the title: Social Work in Adult Services in the European Union. Selected Issues and Experiences.