Abstract
What are the complex social problems social workers will face and deal with in the 21st century? The book Toward a Livable Life analyzes contemporary issues and proposes potential solutions at both policy and practice levels to create livable lives. It collects the distinguished faculty’s experience and wisdom associated with the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at the Washington University in St. Louis. This book is helpful to policymakers, social work educators, scholars, practitioners, and students within the United States. For international scholars interested in social work in the United States, this book provides a comprehensive analysis.
The book has 15 chapters. Chapter 1 summarizes the rationale, content, and organization of the book. Also, chapter 1 demonstrates the concept of a livable life, in which an individual can thrive and develop healthily “across their lifetime to reach their full potential” (p. 10). Chapters 2–11 cover ten crucial topics and related solutions to guarantee livable lives among individuals and families: tackling the social determinants of ill health (chapter 2), alleviating poverty (chapter 3), confronting stigma, discrimination, and social exclusion (chapter 4), reducing cumulative inequality (chapter 5), developing financial assets for lower income households (chapter 6), preventing child maltreatment (chapter 7), fostering civic engagement across the life course (chapter 8), building healthy, diverse, and thriving communities (chapter 9), achieving environmental justice (chapter 10), and engaging older adults (chapter 11). Chapters 12–14 discuss three additional solutions: generating sufficient demand and use of social services, designing and implementing policy and program innovations, and leveraging big data analytics and informatics. In chapter 15, three of the most recent deans of the School of Social Work with nearly 50 years of experience share their previous experience and foresee the future challenges.
This book has four strengths. First, it analyzes social problems and solutions comprehensively and systematically by integrating these three themes: social justice, personal-in-environment, and evidence-based practice. These three themes reflect social work values, how social work professionals understand the world, and integrate practice and research. Second, this book captures the latest trends. The analysis of innovation and big data refresh readers’ knowledge and impressions of social work. Third, this book mainly discusses the nature of the challenges facing Americans, but “at various points throughout the chapters, we reflect on the international dimension of these social issues as well” (p. 2). Fourth, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare initiated the Grand Challenges for Social Work in the 21st century, which champions social progress powered by science. It is a call to action for cooperation to tackle the most challenging social problems in the United States (American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare, 2020). This book systematically responds to part of the Grand Challenges, such as closing the health gap, reducing extreme economic inequality, building financial capacity for all, eliminating racism, creating social responses to a changing environment, advancing long and productive lives, and harnessing big data for social good.
In the future, if a second edition is to be published, the editor may wish to consider exploring the following aspects. First, technology utilization, especially information communication technology utilization in human services is the forthcoming trend. It was mentioned briefly in chapter 13. It is necessary to provide an individual chapter for in-depth exploration. Second, the editor could add content related to international cooperation on some topics, such as aging and big data analysis, and so on. Third, at the end of each chapter, the editor might wish to add a list of resources, such as agencies, webpages, databases, links to audios or videos, to deepen readers’ understanding of social problems and solutions.
Overall, this book guides the reader to understand the challenges for the U.S. social work profession in the 21st century comprehensively and systematically. Additionally, this book proposes realistic policy and practice solutions. In future editions, the editor might further explore technology utilization, international cooperation, and perhaps list additional resources at the end of each chapter.