READINGS IN SOCIAL WORK: Changing Perspectives and Practices of a Profession

This comprehensive volume is an outcome of the quintessence of the lifetime work of the author during his long career of over five decades, having a wide coverage of the discipline of social work, dealing with methods and fields of social work, application of the methods in various settings, such as families, schools, communities and the larger society.
The book covers a wide range of topics like social casework, social group work, community organization, social action, application of the methods of social work in various settings, i.e. family social work, school social work, medical and psychiatric social work, community development, family courts, family counselling agencies, etc. The book also covers various issues of contemporary relevance like leadership in community development, social action as a method, forms, principles and strategies, mobilization of resources, sources and methods of financing social action, legislation, drafting a bill and allied topics. The author has further added a new dimension to social work education and practice by including a section on Gandhian Social Work.
The highlight of this book is its comprehensive scope, simple, lucid and logical presentation. It has dealt with all the aspects of the subject with latest developments in social work education and practice. The issues presented in this book are thought-provoking for the academics, researchers, community workers, NGOs, social service agencies, voluntary organizations, professional social workers, social activists, and all those working in rural, urban and tribal communities.

M. Lakshmipathi Raju is one of the few pioneering social work educators in the country with over five decades of teaching career. He started his career during 1962 as a lecturer and thereafter worked in various schools of social work as Founder Head, PG Department of Social Work; Director and Principal of Postgraduate Studies at DNR College, Bhimavaram; Visiting Professor and Founder Head, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur; Professor and Head, Department of Social Work, S.P Mahila University, Tirupathi; and Visiting Professor and Coordinator, MR PG College, Vizianagaram.
For the last seven years, he has been teaching Sociology of Law at Damodaram Sanjivayya National Law University (DSNLU), Visakhapatnam. Presently, he is a member of Executive Council and Academic Council of DSNLU. He has delivered e-lectures in sociology for the UGC, Government of India which were recorded by Electronic Media Research Centre, Osmania University, Hyderabad. He has published more than 30 books and over 100 research papers in national and international journals. He has presented papers in international conferences held in Japan, Austria and Sweden. In addition, he has presented more than fifty papers in national seminars and conferences.