Challenges of Living: A Multidimensional Working Model for Social Workers

This timely text draws on interdisciplinary theory and research to examine the multidimensional risk and protective factors for eight challenges of living frequently encountered by social workers. The authors provide a working model for social workers to integrate the most up-to-date evidence about challenges of living they face in their daily practice. Using a multidimensional biopsychosocial-spiritual perspective, the book examines etiology, course, and intervention strategies related to these eight challenges of living.

Key Features

• Examines exemplar challenges of living: The working model is applied to eight major problems commonly encountered by social workers―financial impoverishment; community violence; child maltreatment; traumatic stress disorders; substance abuse; obesity; HIV/AIDS; and major depression.
• Presents a range of theories of causation: The book provides up-to-date and accessible coverage of biological risk and protective factors and emphasizes how each challenge of living is experienced across diverse identity groups.
• Makes the material come alive: Four life studies are woven throughout chapters to illustrate theory and research.
• Promotes critical thinking: Active Learning Exercises help students integrate knowledge about the case, knowledge about the self, and values and ethics with general knowledge from the behavioral sciences.

Intended Audience
This is an excellent supplemental text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in social work and counseling such as Human Behavior in the Social Environment and Social Work Prevention. Since the book offers an interdisciplinary perspective, it may also be of interest to those in the psychology, public health, and allied health disciplines.

Elizabeth D. Hutchison received her MSW from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and her PhD from the University at Albany, State University of New York. She was on the faculty in the social work department at Elms College from 1980 to 1987 and was chair of the department from 1982 to 1987. She was on the faculty in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1987 to 2009, where she taught courses in human behavior and the social environment, social work and social justice, and child and family policy; she also served as field practicum liaison. She has been a social worker in health, mental health, aging, and child and family welfare settings and engaged in volunteer work with incarcerated women and environmental justice for farm workers in the Coachella Valley of California. She is committed to providing social workers with comprehensive, current, and useful frameworks for thinking about human behavior. Her other research interests focus on child and family welfare. She lives in Reno, Nevada, where she enjoys hiking around Lake Tahoe and being a hands-on grandmother to two humans and one dog. She collaborates with the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Northern Nevada on local social, racial, economic, and environmental justice issues.

 

Holly C. Matto, M.S.W., Ph.D., received her M.S.W from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Holly is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she teaches courses in Human Behavior and the Social Environment and research methodology. Her social work practice experience and current research interests are in substance abuse treatment.

Leanne Wood received her MSW from the University at Albany and PhD from the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. She began her career as a social worker in the child welfare systems in Washington, DC, and Virginia. After obtaining her PhD, she worked in the research and evaluation field in Baltimore. In 2003, she joined the Nazareth University Department of Social Work in Rochester, New York, as a full-time faculty member, teaching across the social work curriculum. She also began collaborating with the local homeless services provider network on a variety of initiatives, including a Photovoice project and the local Project Homeless Connect. She has been a yoga instructor and has facilitated workshops for diverse audiences on self-care. Recently, she has taken on the department chair role. She continues to teach and advise social work students and is particularly passionate about teaching the course “Theory and Human Development” to students representing a variety of professions within Nazareth’s College of Interprofessional Health and Human Services. 

Pamela A. Viggiani, LMSW, Ph.D., received her M.S.W. and her PhD from the University at Albany. Pamela is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Social Work at Nazareth College of Rochester where she teaches courses in Social Justice, Social Advocacy, Diversity, Policy, and Social Work Methods. She has worked in schools with at risk children and has served as the legislative liaison for the National Association of Social Workers, New York State Chapter. Pamela also has served as an evaluator and consultant for several grants funding public child welfare professionalization. Her research focuses on poverty, and pedagogy.