Understanding Care, Welfare and Community: A Reader

Edited by Bill Bytheway, Vivien Bacigalupo, Joanna Bornat, Julia
Johnson, Susan Spurr, Taylor and Francis Books.
ISBN 1 84310 023 1
£15.99

This volume covers an immense range of issues concerning
community care for adults. Whether lecturer, student or
practitioner, readers will find much that is useful.

The weighty themes of power and oppression, stigma, care policies
and balancing rights with risks feature prominently. Major
thinkers, such as Michael Ignatieff, Amitai Etzioni and Erving
Goffman, are found side-by-side with social policy stalwarts,
including Caroline Glendinning, Julia Twigg and Jane Lewis.
Interspersed are users’ experiences in often compelling chapters.
Steve Clarke’s piece is, alas, the only one focusing on community
development.

The volume has a sprawling structure of parts and chapters, with
some subdivided into individual readings. One does sense that the
editors have brought their own penchants to the volume. David
Cooper – he of the Dialectics of Liberation conference circa 1967 –
is present, as is travel writer Bill Bryson.

In the all-too-brief introduction to each part the issues are not
always crystallised sufficiently to help the reader understand why
particular readings are important.

John Pierson is senior lecturer, institute of social work
and applied social studies, Staffordshire University.