Human Growth and Development in Adults: Theoretical and practice perspectives Vol II
Editors: Parker, J. and Ashencaen Crabtree, S.
Publisher: Policy Press
Place of Publication: Bristol
Abstract:The field of human growth and development is central to informed and ‘best’ practice in all the human service or helping professions. It is, however, a diverse and somewhat contested area of study including many theoretical, ideological and practice-focused positions that often remain at a taken-for-granted level. These paradigms have shifted in acceptability and importance through history and often associated with parallel shifts in the social and political climate of societies . Social work thought in the 1980s was beginning to consider development throughout the life course, however, there remained an unspoken assumption that human growth and development was associated with children and young people; as though there was an invisible point after which theories of development were no longer relevant. Social and structural conditions were predominantly ignored, and the inevitable decline towards disengagement and death was simply assumed (Cummings and Henry, 1961).
Source: Manual