This new contemporary introduction to social work is designed to help beginning students understand the role and function of social workers within the context of a range of social service practice settings - child welfare, adolescence, older adults, mental health, homelessness, health care and hospice, school social work, religion and spirituality, violence and victim advocacy, and international social work. Students learn to recognise a range of social problems impacting people within society, particularly members of at-risk and disenfranchised populations; understand key psychosocial and clinical issues impacting a range of populations within various theoretical frameworks; and apply key intervention strategies to case studies involving frequently encountered social problems and psychosocial issues.