Jane Fenton

This book provides social workers with a framework for reflecting on their day-to-day practice. Using a social worker's diary as a starting point, it provides valuable insight in to how reflection enhances skills and how factors such as values and emotions can shape social work practice.

Dead bodies? They tend to show up in her life--frequently. Her estranged mother? That's something new. And terrifying. Just one month after the disaster at Christmas, Andi Sloan is doing her best to get her life back to normal: keeping up with the overflowing list of cars to repossess, spending time with her amazing rockstar boyfriend, making sure the Golden Girls don't get into too much trouble, and watching as both her best friends are swept off their feet. Everything is fine-if she ignores the recurring dreams of being held at gunpoint or the flashbacks that seem to be triggered at the littlest reminders of that night. Andi insists she's handling it. Things are about as normal as her life ever gets, so everyone can stop worrying about her. But when her mother-who she's only ever known through her grandparents' stories and old photographs-shows up on her porch out of the blue, Andi is confronted with something even more terrifying than the bullets and bodies that have become an unfortunately common occurrence. Kitty's return to Roanoke digs up old hurts, ones that Andi isn't sure she's ready to forgive. It's not just emotional baggage Kitty's dragged to her front door, however, and between the bodies dropping, the New York mob sniffing around, and the mysterious Broker's involvement, Andi may not have time to get used to her mom's presence before Kitty's taken away from her again-and this time, not by choice. If you're looking for a page-turner adventure that makes you laugh out loud and fall in love with the characters, this is the book for you.

Kate would feel silly for having a crush on a fictional pirate-if he wasn't standing right in front of her. After discovering that her long-term boyfriend has been cheating on her, psychologist Dr. Kate Barnes decides she's still going on their romantic Bahamas getaway-alone. Her vacation takes a turn for the weird when an eccentric bookstore owner insists Kate purchase Pirate's Treasure, claiming it's the perfect book for her. The more she reads, the harder it is to separate fiction from reality, especially when the devastatingly handsome Captain Blackjack swoops into her life to save her from ruffians at a bar. As they grow closer, the similarities between the book and Kate's real life become more pronounced. When the arrival of a puzzle-box from one of Kate's patients launches her into a mystery that seems like it was pulled straight from the pages of Pirate's Treasure, Kate starts to wonder if her sanity is leaving her, too. But when bullets start flying, the book may be Kate's only clue to solving the puzzle box-and saving her life.

Be proud to be a lazy radical! This textbook makes the case for a radical approach to social work that can be embraced by everyone. It's an approach based on real empathy and an understanding of oppression, of managerialism, of the moral heart of social work, of humanism and of the effects of neoliberal hegemony. Jane Fenton provides a model of radical practice for students and social workers who are committed to ‘doing the right thing’, and who want to develop their own framework for practice. This book will appeal to students who are activists, but want to frame their individual-level practice in a meaningful way, and to those who are non-activist and non-political but simply want to be good social workers. It will give a political and moral understanding of social work practice and lead to confident, value-based and enjoyable social work.

She never imagined her part-time job would be so dangerous Life was going well for twenty-five-year-old Repo Agent Andrea Sloan. She hadn't stumbled across any more naked dead guys at work, and her love life was pretty much wonderful. Her biggest problems were keeping warm in a car with a heater that's on the fritz and figuring out what to get her boyfriend for Christmas. When she picked up a part-time job working at the mall for some extra cash as an elf, she never imagined she'd witness Santa gunned down in the parking lot. Just like that, Andi became tangled with friends and foes from her past in a race to find Santa's stolen bag of cash before Christmas. Her life depended on it. Join Andi and her hilarious friends as they maneuver through this dangerous holiday season.

Principles of social justice lie at the heart of the social work profession. This book examines the current climate of social work practice and the challenges presented by neoliberalism. It puts forward a model for reconnecting with more traditional social justice values and doing the right thing rather than just doing things the right way.