NASW Press Publications

NASW Press is a leading scholarly press in the social sciences. It serves faculty, practitioners, agencies, libraries, clinicians, and researchers throughout the United States and abroad. Known for attracting expert authors, the NASW Press produces scholarly journals, books, and reference works.

Below are some of our most recent publications. Please visit naswpress.org to see our full catalog.


Recent Titles


The Social Work Ethics Casebook: Cases and Commentary (revised 2nd edition)

The Social Work Ethics Casebook: Cases and Commentary (revised 2nd edition)

First published in 2009, The Social Work Ethics Casebook was the first ethics casebook, including extensive cases and commentary, written exclusively for social workers. The second edition was published in 2018. This revised second edition reflects changes made in the 2021 Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers and includes discussion of new and updated ethics standards, especially pertaining to cultural competence and practitioner self-care.

This book draws attention to ethical issues related to confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, client self-determination, professional paternalism, boundary issues and dual relationships, conflicts of interest, cultural competence and diversity, use of technology, termination of services, administration, practitioner impairment, commitments to employers, social work education and training, and more.


Social Work Documentation: A Guide to Strengthening Your Case Recording (3rd edition)

Social Work Documentation 3rd Edition Nancy L Sidell

Designed to help practitioners build writing skills in a variety of settings, Social Work Documentation is a how-to guide for social work students and practitioners interested in improving their record keeping and documentation skills. This wildly popular, must-have resource provides practical advice on current practice issues such as electronic case recording, trauma-informed documentation, and assessing and documenting client cultural differences of relevance.

The third edition has been updated to view documentation through person-first language, and includes a new chapter on bias-free language selection, with examples and exercises to ensure appropriate wording choices are used related to age, disability, immigration and socioeconomic status, and gender and sexual orientation.


Ethical Standards in Social Work

Ethical Standards in Social Work A Revision of the NASW Code of Ethics Revised 3rd Edition

Ethical Standards in Social Work is a practical guide designed to help social workers protect clients, make sound ethical decisions, and minimize the risk of professional malpractice and disciplinary action. The revised third edition reflects the 2021 updates of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers, which provides social workers with a comprehensive summary and analysis of ethical standards in the profession and an explicit statement of the profession’s principal mission and core values. Ethical Standards in Social Work now includes extensive discussion of new and updated ethics standards, especially pertaining to cultural competence and social workers’ self-care.


Black Male Youth Raised in Public Systems: Engagement, Healing, Hope

Black Male Youth Raised in Public Systems: Engagement, Healing, Hope  book cover

Using firsthand accounts from 200 Black adolescents, Black Male Youth Raised in Public Systems: Engagement, Healing, Hope validates the fears, anxieties, and complexities of these youth. The authors point to the need for adults to “get out of the way” so they are better positioned to obtain access to understanding how these youth consider their life journeys and under what terms they allow a relationship with an adult, which is critical and necessary for their healing.

Specifically, the book presents alternative frameworks that invite practitioners to reconsider their approach and encourage academics to explore new avenues of inquiry. Readers will gain practical strategies for moving the art of engagement beyond trauma-informed practice to healing and recovery. The overall purpose is to encourage a sense of urgency rather than fear in every professional’s ability to facilitate the healing of Black male youth who, by the very nature of their circumstances, trust no adults and experience no true safety.


Ecosocial Work: Environmental Practice and Advocacy

Ecosocial Work: Environmental Practice and Advocacy book cover

Since the earliest days of social work practice, social workers have dealt with environmental issues, advocating alongside diverse populations to address disproportionate environmental impacts on systemically marginalized populations including those living in poverty, populations of color, persons with disabilities, and women. In the face of the accelerating climate crisis, social workers must proactively engage with clients and communities and respond to the growing impacts of environmental injustices.

Ecosocial Work encourages readers to consider how simultaneously protecting the planet while meeting the historical aims of the profession advances the values and ethical mandates social workers abide by. Designed to foster critical thinking, the book offers hope and possibility for a just environmental future.


Interpersonal Violence: The Social Work Response

InterPersonal Violence book cover

Interpersonal violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), impacts all communities regardless of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, class, or national origin. Yet, some people—such as those with disabilities, those who identify as LGBTQ, and women of color—are disproportionately impacted.

Interpersonal Violence: The Social Work Response, edited by Tricia B. Bent-Goodley, proposes that it is essential for social workers to understand the evolving and persistent landscape of interpersonal violence, including concurrent victimization, overlapping patterns, and intersections. The book encourages a three-pronged approach, one that is trauma informed, culturally responsive, and survivor centered. Covering a wide range of environments in which social workers work with IPV, contributors offer a variety of innovative methods for working with victims, including constructed agency, antioppressive frameworks, community engagement, and work with abusive persons.


Social Work in an Online World: A Guide to Digital Practice

Social Work in an Online World: A Guide to Digital Practice book cover

Prior to 2020, the field of social work was limited in its adoption of digital practice. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, traditional, in-person service delivery was dramatically interrupted. Previously at a crossroads, the field is now experiencing a seemingly unstoppable shift toward modern technology-mediated forms of delivery.

Social Work in an Online World, edited by David A. Wilkerson and Liam O’Sullivan, addresses this shift and charts the changing landscape from analog to digital practice in varied client systems, system needs, and system levels (micro, mezzo, and macro). Going beyond online mental health service, which is largely individually focused and synchronously delivered, the authors offer a map of digital social work practice that can be expanded to include support, identity, community action, education, and psychoeducation. In addition, the book places special emphasis on digital equity and data justice, highlighting the core social work value of social justice.


Lessons from Abroad: Adapting International Social Welfare Innovations, 2nd edition

Lesson from abroad cover

There is much to learn through the international exchange of policy initiatives and program models. “Lessons from abroad”—the knowledge of problem-solving programs in other countries—can be an important component of understanding and addressing social problems in the 21st century United States, inspiring and informing policy action and program development.

Editors Amy Restorick Roberts and M. C. “Terry” Hokenstad bring together top scholars who share their expertise about approaches for understanding and addressing an array of global challenges through policy and practice examples from both developing and developed countries. Chapters examine distinct content areas, such as child welfare, aging, the climate crisis, and forced migration. Other chapters more broadly address global issues directly aligned with the values and professional ethics of social work, including environmental justice, the alleviation of poverty, social security, and community development. One chapter is devoted to the international social welfare treaties and conventions that affect social welfare and social work practice around the world, and the final chapter provides a thoughtful review of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and discusses the 2030 Agenda, examining implementation strategies and the contributions of social work.


South Asians in the United States: A Guide for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals

South Asians in the United States book cover

Currently, about 5.4 million South Asians live in the United States, with family origins in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Bhutan. When working with South Asian clients, it is crucial to understand their level of acculturation to the mainstream and the profound impact it has on their stress levels, coping mechanisms, and lived experiences.

This unique book debunks the myth of the “model minority,” a term often used to describe South Asians in the United States due to the rapid financial and cultural success of some of the subgroups among South Asians. Instead, the authors have compiled comprehensive evidence-based literature on the prevalence, nature, and types of social issues that South Asians in the United States face, as well as how best to intervene. Beginning with a history of South Asians in the United States, the book explores the immigration patterns, religious diversity, and languages and cultures that shape this community. Using an intersectionality framework, the authors bring together previously fragmented research into this population and explain through case studies the topics particularly relevant to South Asians, including domestic violence, mental health, parenting, gender and sexual orientation, workplace barriers, and aging.


Interactional Supervision: A Teaching Guide for the 4th Edition

For decades, Lawrence Shulman’s text, Interactional Supervision, has been the standard-bearer for teaching supervision, introducing students to the interactional model, work-phase skills, skills of helping, and the concept of parallel process. Now, for the first time, this seminal text has a companion teaching guide designed to aid instructors—both new and experienced—in the teaching of these essential materials.

Interactional Supervision: A Teaching Guide for the 4th Edition masterfully combines Shulman’s supervision principles with activities, assignments, and quizzes that align with the 2015 Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS), the nine competencies that ensure academic excellence by establishing thresholds for learning dimensions and professional proficiency.


Economic Well-Being: An Introduction

by Deborah A. Figart and Ellen Mutari

We are all part of the economy. We all have contributions to make to the economic well-being of our communities. We all make decisions about how we conduct our economic lives based on our values and preferences. Economic Well-Being: An Introduction provides us with tools to accomplish these goals.

As students of social work or other human services professions, it is essential that we understand how economic well-being—or the lack thereof—shapes people’s lives. To use a person-in-environment framework, we must appreciate the challenges faced by our clients, including their access to financial resources and their level of economic functioning. In this groundbreaking text, Figart and Mutari make the study of economic life accessible, applicable, and exciting.


Identifying Moral Panic: The Discourse of Fear in Social Policy

Identifying Moral Panic Book Cover

By Michael H. Eversman

Using the sociological framework of moral panic — periods of exaggerated public fear triggered by high-profile incidents linked to feared social groups — Michael H. Eversman illuminates historic and contemporary moral panic episodes to show how political discourse and stereotyping lead to policy-making and enforcement that maintain social inequalities. Those most affected by these harsh and reactionary policies tend to be vulnerable populations known as “folk devils” — young people, public assistance recipients, immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, those with mental illness, and illicit drug users— groups that have long served as feared targets of moral condemnation.

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