The Social Work Experience : An Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare

Learn how social workers use their professional expertise to assist people.

This text is part of the Connecting Core Competencies Series.

The Social Work Experience: An Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare introduces students to the profession of social work including eight major fields of practice, and provides in-depth discussion of social welfare policy, its history, contemporary issues, and probable future trends. The book helps students understand how social workers use their professional expertise to assist people in solving a wide variety of problems to improve their lives. There are three major parts:

The first part, Social Work and its Context, comprises four chapters which introduce the profession of social work, provide theoretical perspectives underlying generalist practice, investigate the concept of social justice, and explore social welfare policy and its history.

The second part, Professional Practice Settings, offers an in-depth discussion of eight fields of practice: family and children’s services, mental health, health care, schools, older adult services, criminal justice, and developmental disabilities.

The third and final part, A Look to the Future, views the profession through the eyes of futurists and explores the challenges and opportunities that await new social workers.

A better teaching and learning experience
 This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience—for you and your students. Here’s how:

• Improve Critical Thinking — Discussions on values, ethics, human diversity, and generalist social work practice throughout stimulate students to think critically about varying issues.
• Engage Students — Case studies introduce each chapter and are carefully developed to illustrate the myriad of problems that social workers deal with in daily practice.
• Explore Current Issues — Includes new content on a variety of issues, including policy diversity, the environment, and much more.
• Apply CSWE Core Competencies — The text integrates the 2008 CSWE EPAS, with critical thinking questions and practice tests to assess student understanding and development of competency.
• Support Instructors — An Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank, Computerized Test Bank (MyTest), BlackBoard Test Item File, and PowerPoint presentations are included in the outstanding supplements package.

Mary Ann Suppes brings an unusual breadth of teaching, practice, and professional experience to the writing of The Social Work Experience. She is currently a professor of social work at Mount Mary College in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she has served as chair of the social work department for many years. She has provided curriculum consultation to numerous colleges and universities. She holds membership in the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors (BPD), the National Association of Social Workers, and the Wisconsin Council on Social Work Education. She served for many years on the CSWE Commission on Accreditation and also served several terms as a member of the board of directors of BPD. She currently chairs the BPD Social Work Education Continuum Committee. She has also been treasurer of the Wisconsin Council on Social Work Education and has chaired numerous accreditation site visits for CSWE. Mary Ann Suppes received both her undergraduate and graduate (MSW) degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and did postgraduate work at the University of Chicago.

Carolyn Cressy Wells is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She previously taught social work at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. She is a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Academy of Certified Social Workers, and has served on a number of accreditation site teams for the Council on Social Work Education. She is author of three other social work texts: Social Work Day to Day: The Experience of Generalist Social Work Practice; Social Work Ethics Day to Day: Guidelines for Professional Practice; and Stepping to the Dance: The Training of a Family Therapist. She is a Certified Music Practitioner and provides harp music at bedside for a local hospice; she also conducts workshops on Spirituality, Science and Healing. She received her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and an MSSW and Ph.D. in Child Development and Family Relationships from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.