Social Welfare Policy: Responding to a Changing World is a topical, comprehensive introduction to social welfare policy. It uses a contemporary framework that explicitly addresses three forces that have redefined the social policy arena: the growth of the information economy, the rise of globalization, and our current environmental crisis. This framework is applied to the six traditional arenas of policy--child and family services, health and mental health, poverty and inequality, housing and community development, crime and violence, and aging, and explores how to find solutions to both long enduring and brand new problems. John McNutt and Richard Hoefer's introductory text represents a move forward in social welfare policy thinking that is built on the latest scholarship and teaches students that the time to create social policies for the future is in the present.

John McNutt is Professor in the Joseph R. Biden, Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware. Richard Hoefer is Roy E. Dulak Professor for Community Practice Research in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington

1. Welcome to the Future: Your Many Roles as a Social Worker 2. Society and Social Welfare in Agrarian and Industrial Societies 3. Social Welfare History in Developmental Context 4. Current Conditions and the Coming of the Information Society 5. Values, Ideology, and Political Philosophy in Social Welfare Policy 6. Policy Analysis: Tools for Building Evidence-Based Social Policy 7. Policy-Making for Social Welfare 8. Advocacy in the Information Age World of Social Policy 9. Poverty, Inequality, and Income Maintenance Policy 10. Physical and Mental Health Care Policy 11. Social Services for Children and Families 12. Crime and Violence in an Information Society 13. Housing and Community Development 14. Aging and Social Policy