David E. Biegel

It is hard to think of a more timely and topical major contribution than Drs. Naparstek, Biegel, Spiro, and collaborators have provided in this volume. Their penetrating, comprehensive study and field tests give us mapping toward the goal of reifying the concept of "community" as applied to human services. The book will prove invaluable to those at the policy level-legislators, planners, and administrators. It will serve as an essential reference for community workers-professional provid­ ers, natural helpers, and citizens as a whole. A salient ideal of New Federalism-placing governance as close to the people as practicable-seems a prophetic match with the model of Neighborhood Empowerment. As the authors point out, conventional wisdom has seemed to offer government regulation, control, and pro­ gram evaluation as a panacea package for improving human services. This work suggests a radically different approach; specifically, a shift to greater instrumental involvement of the richly variegated mosaic of American neighborhoods, combined with a system of excellent, high technology service agencies. Certainly, genuine efforts have been made before toward a true linkage of the community with human services. The Great Society pro­ grams, with their emphasis on citizen involvement and "maximum fea­ sible participation" established the foundation for legitimate citizen/ consumer linkage with the program process. Yet, in so many instances, the results fell far short of expectations.

Among the significant trends in human services during the 1980s has been the emergence of emphasis on social networks and social supports in research, prevention, and treatment efforts. Today's human service professionals and planners routinely incorporate information about social networks and social supports into assessments and interventions for a wide range of individual and community problems. Social Support Networks is the most comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography yet published on the theory, research, and practical application of social support networks. Containing approximately 2,700 references, it offers detailed listings for journal articles, books, book chapters, and published reports which appeared from 1983 to 1987. In recent years, social support networks have become a focus for research and scholarship in anthropology, epidemiology, nursing, psychiatry, psychology, public health, social work, and sociology. The literature represented in this bibliography includes a focus on theory, research, practice, and policy drawn from these as well as other disciplines. As such, the volume lends itself to the transfer of ideas and practice across various branches of the social support intervention field, particularly addressing the requirements of practitioners who may feel they have become limited in their response to social problems by relying on their agencies' traditional ways of meeting client needs. The bibliography is divided into five major headings: Overview and Theory, Research-Physical Health, Research-Mental Health, Intervention, and Professional Roles and Policy, and all entries are consecutively numbered to aid cross-referencing by the Author and Subject Indexes. To further facilitate cross-referencing, many Subject Index terms also have sub-indices. This important reference tool will be welcomed by service providers and planners in gerontology, nursing, psychiatry, psychology, public health, social work, sociology, anthropology, and urban affairs.