Human Rights and Social Justice: Social Action and Service for the Helping and Health Professions

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 368 pages
• Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. December 21, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1412938724
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1412938723
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

Product Description
Human Rights and Social Justice: Social Action and Service for the Helping and Health Professions has a unique perspective that views human rights as the bedrock of social justice. It provides a clear blueprint how human rights and social justice concerns can serve as a conceptual framework for policy and practice interventions among the helping and health professions.

Key Features and Benefits

• Provides both historical and philosophical perspectives on human rights principles, with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the centerpiece
• Succinctly summarizes for the educated layperson core principles of other major human rights documents, such as international conventions on: Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR); Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR); the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); the Eradication of Racial Discrimination (CERD); the Rights of the Child (CRC); Torture (CAT); the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; Medical Ethics; and the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness
• Viewing social justice as struggle, advocates a multi-pronged approach dealing with whole, at-risk, and clinical populations to promote physical and mental well-being and eradicate social and individual pathology
• Examines social actions like human rights education, resolutions, and bills; the arts and the media; humanistic administration; grant writing; social entrepreneurship; clinical interventions; and quantitative and qualitative research that fcan promote human dignity, public health, human development, and the creation of a human rights culture, which is a "lived awareness" of human rights principles in mind, heart, and body

"Human rights and social justice is an important contribution to social justice theory and practice. Dr. Wronka presents a solid and sound argument that human rights, as proclaimed in 1948 by the United Nations in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ought to serve as the foundation for socially just ways of life." 
-David G. Gil
Professor, Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University  

"Brilliantly demonstrates that human rights provides a powerful framework for the helping and health professions. Blending in-depth knowledge of human rights with theory and practice in the helping professions, Wronka presents a comprehensive model to guide actions from global to micro levels, and from professional to personal."
-Lynne M. Healy
Center for International Social Work Studies

"At once accessible and learned, theoretical and practical. Wronka’s groundbreaking text, reflecting comprehensive knowledge melded with a commitment to social action, is worthy of every professional’s library. It should be required reading in schools."  
-Janice Wood Wetzel
International Association of Schools of Social Work  

Intended Audience  
This text is an great core or supplement test for social policy and practice courses encompassing social work, psychology, psychiatry, public health, medicine, nursing, ethics, law, theology, philosophy, the arts, peace studies, political science, and world citizenship. Scholars, activists, and practitioners will find it a valuable reference for years to come.

About The Author
Dr. Joseph Wronka is Professor of Social Work, Springfield College, Springfield, MA, and Principal Investigator of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Project, originating in the Center for Social Change at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. His Ph.D. in Social Policy is from the Heller School’s Center for Social Change. His Master’s is in Existential-Phenomenological Psychology with a Clinical-Community concentration from Duquesne University. He had also studied the phenomenology of the performing musician at the University of Nice, France. Select academic appointments included: West Georgia College, St. Francis College, New York University, Ramapo College, College of the Holy Cross, Simmons, Chukchi Community College, the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Boston College, and schools of social work at Berne, Switzerland, Sankt-Poelton, and Vienna, Austria. He was also a counselor at alcoholism and methadone maintenance treatment centers, clinician in private practice, and community mental health centers, director of a mental health/substance abuse center, human rights commissioner; served as vice-president of the World Citizen Foundation, and currently is board member to the Coalition for a Strong United Nations.

Published widely in popular and scholarly fora, he has presented his work in roughly fourteen countries. His interest is primarily the development of social change strategies to implement human rights standards, which mirror substantively millennia of teaching in various spiritual and ethical belief systems, so that every person, everywhere can live with human dignity and to their potential, without discrimination. He likes to swim laps; ride his bike; and play classical music on the piano and concert and ethnic pieces on the accordion.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Human Rights and Social Justice: Social Action and Service for the Helping and Health Professions (Paperback) This book is an essential to the budding activist who strives to get at the core of social disorder perpetuated by commercial capatilisms inherant betrayal of global human rights, additionaly the literature provides solutions that empower the reader to take action and strive for change.