Humanistic Social Work: Core Principles in Practice

In this exciting new book, Malcolm Payne draws on core principles of social work to articulate a new humanistic practice for the 21st century. Humanistic Social Work: Core Principles in Practice presents a profession that aims at positive fulfillment in social relationships rather than social control and individualized problem-solving. While these ideas are inherent in much social work writing, this is the first time they have been brought together as the basis for practice.

Showing how practitioners embody flexible, skilled, and knowledge-based responses to the complexities of human individuality within an empowered social context, Payne reconstructs the aims of social work as accountability to clients individual self-fulfillment enabled by community and social development. Emphasizing human rights, he identifies social justice and equality as social work objectives and draws together humanistic approaches to the debate about evidence-based practices.