2024 Social Work Titles

Cognella is proud to offer an extensive list of social work textbooks for your 2024 classes written by notable authors.

Check out our list titles below for your courses in introduction to social work, HBSE, social policy, clinical social work and direct practice, diversity and social justice, field work/practicum, research methods, and more—all at student-friendly prices.

If you don’t see the perfect fit for your class, we’re happy to provide you with information on our cost-effective custom options.

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This textbook presents a comprehensive and contemporary overview of social work to help guide students as they begin their exploration of the field. It gives equal coverage to micro and macro social work, has a strong social justice orientation, and features a unique framework highlighting all three major domains of social work: practice, policy, and research.

This text explores the deeply flawed status quo of the social work profession. Its message is clear: it is not acceptable for social workers to labor under intolerable working conditions and financial strain because they work with the poor and oppressed. A rallying cry for social work itself, it is ideal for social work programs and practicing social workers driven to enact meaningful change.

This textbook familiarizes students with key concepts in social work and social welfare with an emphasis on empowerment and social justice. The chapters outline the levels of practice with individuals, families, and communities, and the various roles in which social workers engage to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people.

This book uniquely decolonizes the structure of human behavior in the social environment textbooks by starting with a discussion around marginalized populations and human development set within geopolitical context. The authors then cover relevant variations in development through a lens of historical and structural influences as well as unique biological, emotional, psychological, and/or environmental circumstances.

This text challenges the socialization of preservice social workers by examining the complex features of individuals, families, groups, and societies and how they present themselves within the context of the multiple and simultaneous influences on behavior, cognitions, and emotions.

This text features portraits of development at each stage interwoven with the findings of developmental science research on how inequitable resources and opportunities, which are influenced by social, economic, and political factors, can impact development. It also presents findings on how such data can be used to reduce inequities for children and their families.

This text applies anti-oppressive theories and concepts to a generalist social work practice model to provide students with tools to develop a critically evaluative and self-reflective social work practice. The second edition includes new material on environmental and ecological justice, the ethics of care, feminist theoretical approaches, the non-profit industrial complex, and other contemporary topics.

This groundbreaking text outlines human rights and social justice concerns as a powerful conceptual framework for policy and practice interventions, that are both proactive and reactive, for the helping and health professions. The third edition has been updated robustly throughout and covers some of the most pressing issues facing our world today.

This text illuminates the historical and contemporary experiences of African American families in the United States and demonstrates how they have survived and excelled in a nation not established for them. It describes the African American family, theoretical and methodological approaches to studying African American families, religion and spirituality, diversity among African American families, and more.

Coupling powerful personal narratives with incisive observations, this text reveals the myriad complexities and challenges related to diversity. It gives voice to the experiences of marginalized individuals, illuminating the impact of oppression, ostracism, and hate on mental health and wellness.

In this book, Editor Miguel Gallardo invites a group of psychologists who represent various cultural backgrounds but identify as “White” to share their individual journeys toward recognizing, understanding, and embracing their unique cultural identities and experiences. Contributing authors discuss the challenges and triumphs involved in the pursuit of integration of multicultural and social justice concerns in their personal and professional lives.

This text underscores how practitioners and lay people alike can highlight the strength, fortitude, resilience, and community found in the narratives of enslaved forebears to help young people recover hope for the future. Readers learn how the resilient and resourceful actions of enslaved Africans many years ago can serve as a blueprint for the healing and survival of their progeny in contemporary society.

Edited by renowned scholar and psychologist Kevin Cokley, this contributed volume explores the history and contemporary circumstances of anti-Black racism, offers powerful personal anecdotes, and provides recommendations and solutions to challenge anti-Black racism in its various expressions.

This is a book that is meant to be shared! We’re proud to provide free digital copies of the book to anyone who wants to read it. So, we encourage you to spread the word and share the book with everyone you know, including your students! Download your free digital copy of Making Black Lives Matter: Confronting Anti-Black Racism!

This text demystifies policymaking for social work students and demonstrates why policy practice is a critical dimension of social work. It provides a comprehensive introduction to political advocacy, the political process, and how laws are enacted to inspire social work students to enter the field with a mind for political advocacy and social justice.

This text is built on a clear, conceptual social justice framework and provides analyses of contemporary social policy issues, written by experts in their particular areas of research and practice. It uses case studies and analysis to explore the relationship of social policy to economic, social, and culture transformation and the ongoing conflict between universal and population-specific conceptions of social welfare.

Featuring chapters written by leading scholars in the social work discipline, the second edition of this text examines how American social welfare policies, both historical and current, have sought to control the lives of marginalized populations. The chapters also explore how people of color have organized to critique and resist the racial control aspects of these policies.

This text guides students through an exploration of social policies and policymaking that address the needs of older adults and their families. It situates the experiences of older adults in the context of their environment, examining social welfare policies that affect the rights and interests of older adults.

This text provides students with a reader-friendly introduction to statistics and an engaging exploration of how statistics can enrich their future social work practice. Practical and conceptual in nature, it focuses less on mathematical computation and more on the general information and skillsets that will prove beneficial in professional work.

This text helps students develop evidence-based practice by involving them in the process of research methodology. An innovative storytelling approach follows two students engaged in internships who go through the steps and tasks required to design a program and evaluate it in their practicum. This edition features a new focus on understanding the statistical procedures, symbols, and findings commonly found in research publications.

This text provides readers with a user-friendly, evidence-based, and practical resource to help them make sense of, organize, analyze, and interpret data in contemporary contexts. It incorporates one of the most well-known statistics software applications, the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS), within each chapter to help readers integrate their knowledge either manually or with the assistance of technology.

This text provides readers with a step-by-step guide for applying the original evidence-based practice (EBP) model to carefully select interventions from the research base for individual clients. Readers learn how to obtain and integrate information from three key components—the best available evidence; clinical expertise; and the client’s characteristics, values, and preferences—to support their choice of an effective intervention for the client.

This text prepares students to intuitively theorize and utilize research and statistics within their social work practice. It fosters the skills, savvy, and knowledge students need to interpret, apply, and produce studies within the discipline, enhancing their ability to become better consumers and producers of social work research.

This textbook is deeply grounded in the belief that social sciences research should have a direct connection to helping people and improving communities. It explores how to achieve community engagement and community involvement to bring about positive change through research and action.

Featuring contributed chapters written by a variety of experts in the field, this text presents vital and contemporary concepts within the discipline as an integrated whole, valuing and examining each topic at the micro through macro level. It offers students a cutting-edge approach aligned with building key competencies.

This text furnishes graduate students and clinical social work professionals with a comprehensive guide to contemporary clinical social work practice. It covers frameworks for clinical practice, specific treatment modalities, and specialized clinical issues, themes, and dilemmas. The third edition includes new content within each chapter, thoroughly updated chapter references, and information on emerging themes in the discipline.

This text features select contributions originally appearing in the third edition of Theory and Practice in Clinical Social Work. The chapters offer readers an introduction to the world of advanced clinical practice with focus on the most critical topics for real-world practice. The second edition features new content within each chapter, as well as updated references.

Featuring contributed chapters written by practitioners, scholars, researchers, and students within the health care discipline, this text assists readers in expanding their knowledge, ability, understanding, and perspectives regarding interprofessional education (IPE) and collaborative practice (CP). The book provides readers with international, system-based approaches, emphasizes applications at all levels, and includes examples of student-led initiatives.

This text is designed to help readers hone their ability to understand and create change within social work practice. It employs the Knowledge, Ability, and Skill model to assist readers in conceptualizing, envisioning, and creating change. Readers learn to identify the various stages in the process of creating change, as well as how to handle the challenges of change and plan appropriate treatment for change.

This text introduces readers to core concepts and skills that are vital to cultivating a successful social work practice. Unique in approach, the book clearly connects human behavior theories to engagement, assessment, goal-setting, intervention, and evaluation, while also illustrating the fluidity between micro, mezzo, and macro level activities.

This text effectively bridges the gap between social work theory and application, equipping future social workers with the critical knowledge they need to pass their licensing exams and provide quality care to clients. The guide features detailed instructions for implementing specific interventions, as well as how social work operates at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. The book focuses on the application of interventions at the micro level, including diagnosis, treatment planning, and the use of individual and family therapy models.

This book gives students the foundational skills and knowledge required for effective practice in social and human services, healthcare organizations, social networks and communities. It emphasizes the relationship between structural and institutional inequalities and the experiences of individuals, families, communities, and organizations.

This book gives students the foundational skills and knowledge required for effective practice in social and human services, healthcare organizations, social networks and communities. It emphasizes the relationship between structural and institutional inequalities and the experiences of individuals, families, communities, and organizations.

Designed to help future social workers cultivate critical skills, this text helps readers develop strategic competencies that can be applied at micro, mezzo, and macro system levels. Through the development of key skills, readers learn how to understand clients within a specific social context, increasing their ability and effectiveness to intervene and assist across and within diverse client populations.

This text grounds readers in a conceptualization of practice that considers the history and evolution of the profession with a specific emphasis on social work education and practicum. The second edition includes the latest Council on Social Work Education, Educational Policies and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) 2022 throughout, integrates anti-racist practice, and strengthens the human rights component.

This text guides students through the process of compiling a digital portfolio—a collection of artifacts that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and competencies they have mastered and articulates all they have learned throughout their social work program. It is developed to help future practitioners increase their competence and confidence in presenting their knowledge and skills.

The thoroughly updated edition of this book leads readers from knowing nothing about writing grants to having a complete grant proposal. It provides material necessary to understand the larger context of nonprofits in American society, and covers every essential grantwriting topic from writing needs statements to submission to the funder.

This text presents an innovative evaluation paradigm that integrates diversity, equity, and inclusion in all phases of evaluation. It spotlights the scholarly, philosophical, and best practices of emerging Black, Latino/x, Indigenous, and other scholars and practitioners from historically marginalized populations in support of culturally responsive and equitable evaluation (CREE).

In this highly accessible text, David Royse focuses on what readers really need to understand in order to apply useful program evaluation techniques in their practice serving individual clients, couples, and families. He develops readers’ interest by incorporating real-life scenarios, excerpts from articles on program evaluation, and his own personal experiences.

This book is a contemporary guide to program development fundamentals and execution. It explains the full program planning process and outlines the roles that need to be filled. The text posits that advocacy is the foundation for modern program planning, especially in the wake of new civil rights movements, calls for anti-racist practices, disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and more.

This text helps students not only build critical knowledge but also cultivate the unique skills that will help them develop into competent and successful managers and leaders. Experiential exercises, informative case studies, and carefully crafted assignments based on the 2015 Council on Social Work Education’s Educational Policy Accreditation Standards show students how to apply key concepts to gain career success.

This text equips readers with the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to serve as effective nonprofit leaders and advance human rights and social and economic justice. It provides students with a strong foundation in professional values, knowledge development in leadership and management, and opportunities to develop their personal and professional abilities through skill-building activities.

In this robustly updated new edition, the authors respond to recent calls from practitioners, policymakers, and the public to increase the use of effective prevention approaches for child and adolescent behavioral health challenges. This text reviews evidence and identifies practice and policy issues pertaining to the prevention of common child and adolescent behavioral health problems.

This text provides readers with a comprehensive exploration of the practice of counseling young clients. It introduces several theories that have proven effective with young clients, then couples that information with developmentally and culturally appropriate interventions and counseling techniques. This edition retains the features of previous editions but incorporates important updates and additions including 16 brand-new accompanying videos.

This text equips future helping professionals with the knowledge and skillsets they need to assist families in facing a variety of stressors and challenges. It helps students learn key concepts related to family stress and enhances their abilities to make connections among theory, practice, and diverse family circumstances associated with stress.

This text helps future and current child welfare professionals cultivate a practice that employs an intersectional approach and embraces the concept of cultural humility. This dynamic approach recognizes the intersectionality and diversity of children, youth, and families, and empowers workers to engage with and consider myriad identities and cultural experiences.

This text prepares future child welfare professionals to tackle the complex and challenging work associated with responding to child maltreatment. Developed by a former child protection professional and a social work scholar, it draws upon current research and features cases that simulate those child welfare professionals are likely to encounter in the field.

This casebook provides social work students and practicing social workers with 20 real-world cases gathered from four California county child welfare agencies. Readers are exposed to the stories of social workers and families involved in child welfare services. The rich and varied content captures the daily complexities, challenges, and successes that social workers experience in the field.

This text revises Group Parent Education, first published in 2004, by introducing new concepts and strategies and expanding the approach for parent groups to include working individually with parents. It includes the earlier book’s classic content on group parent education. It includes new resources and service delivery models and introduces a continuum of parent education services in a conceptual framework from prevention to intervention, and focuses on relationship-building between the parent educator and parents. It also examines common issues and challenges in the parent educator role.

This text equips future practitioners with fundamental ideas and tools for working effectively with older adults. It provides unique insight into the special issues and challenges of aging populations, connects the dots between theory and practice with older adults, and encourages critical thinking and self-reflection to help students develop a meaningful personal practice.

This text helps future social workers identify effective evidence-based treatment options and cultivate the skills needed to successfully engage, assess, intervene, and evaluate, and provide advocacy at micro, mezzo, and macro levels to older adults and their families. Emphasizing intersectionality theory, the text encourages readers to consider the context and intersecting diversity factors of the older adult client and to involve them in deciding their treatment plans, empowering older adults to select culturally preferred and highly meaningful care.

This text highlights the true stories and enhanced writing of diverse contributors on subjects related to positive aging. Organized thematically, the various chapters address topics such as family life, storytelling, the impact of money and career, sexual identity, politics, and more, and the part these play in lives that continue to be well-lived.

This text provides readers with an overview of mental health disorders and their criteria according to the DSM-5, as well as practical information to guide them through assessment and the differential diagnosis process. The chapters examine neurodevelopmental disorders and provide readers with the tools they need to confidently and competently diagnose clients.

This text provides future practitioners with the requisite knowledge base and skill sets essential to treating mental disorders and abnormal behavior. It recognizes the complex, multifaceted nature of treating mental disorders and reveals the interconnectedness of the constructs and dynamics inherent in such treatment. Readers learn about the etiology, diagnostic process and nomenclature, treatment, referral, and prevention of mental and emotional disorders.

This guide introduces students to basic concepts of psychopharmacology to help them develop a broad understanding of drugs and how they work in the body. Students learn the risks and benefits of psychotropic medications, how to identify side effects and adverse reactions, basic lab testing procedures, and how to apply pharmacological concepts to patient education and advocacy.

This text analyzes the challenges social workers face in applying social work values and ethics due to recent significant social, political, cultural, and technological changes. It provides readers with guidelines for ethical practice based on a philosophic foundation rooted in social justice principles.

Timely and essential, this text identifies pertinent ethical challenges and ethically related risk-management issues that social workers should consider when using digital technology to assist people in need. It illuminates how the use of technology is influenced by traditional ethics concepts, including consent, privacy, confidentiality, professional boundaries, documentation, and other issues.

This text equips readers with the knowledge and skillsets they need to successfully publish scholarly articles within academic journals and beyond. Author David Royse shares accounts from his extensive publishing history as well as lessons he learned from teaching students how to write effectively. The book envisions publishing as a journey, and Royse accompanies readers on each step—from initially carving out time and identifying the journal with the best fit to finally submitting the manuscript.

This text presents students with essential primary documents, including Supreme Court decisions, federal legislation, administrative policies, and influential creative works, to illustrate the history of social welfare in the United States. Chronicling more than 500 years of documentation and information, yet focused and foundational in subject matter, the book is ideal for courses in social welfare history, social work, and sociology.

This text provides pre-service and practicing social workers with a wide-ranging review of sport social work. The text helps social workers with an interest in athletics learn how to effectively promote the safety and well-being of athletes, advocate for athlete rights, and ensure athletes receive the recognition and help needed to become strong global leaders.

This text expertly weaves contemporary research on sexual and gender identity with personal narratives of individuals who have navigated social norms and constructs to carve out an understanding of their own sexuality. It provides readers with an innovative and intimate lens through which they can begin to understand the dynamic nature of sexuality.

This book walks writers through the basics and gives quick tips for APA style, formatting, and citation as well as gender-neutral pronouns and unbiased language. Students readily connect with the conversational tone and clear examples that ease them into learning APA 7 style and bringing their writing to a higher level.

Based on her extensive real-world experiences, Peggy L. Chinn illustrates how every participant in a group can be valued as a leader in this updated edition of Peace and Power. This new edition includes examples from the author’s most recent anti-racism activities and discusses her work in groups that were exclusively online on Zoom.

This text presents readers with a proven paradigm for effective conflict resolution in all human systems called the Partnership Way. This model features a strong theoretical foundation, presents a systemic approach to conflict resolution, and empowers individuals to lead more authentic lives.

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The word, “custom”, is often associated with “more expensive”, but that’s not the case with our projects. Customizing one of Cognella’s own texts to create an abridged edition only saves cost for your students; and you can even combine chapters from multiple texts. Our vast collection of partner publisher readings and experienced licensing experts allows us to stay nimble in swapping out expensive content to stay within your price threshold for traditional course pack projects. There’s never any cost to the professors and we’re happy to offer complimentary consultations with our Project Editors.