Social Care: Resource Guide
Lindsey BakerLead Health
Librarian
Herefordshire Clinical Library Service
As social policy / social care focuses on
provision of health care and services, it is vital that information is
current and informative. For this reason, the resources included in
this resource guide are from educational institutions, government
departments and voluntary agencies.
GATEWAYS TO INTERNET RESOURCES…
Resource Discovery Network:
www.rdn.ac.uk
Select the “Health and Medicine” section to
search for health related resources, or select the “social sciences”
section to search for social care related resources
Social Science Information Gateway:
www.sosig.ac.uk
SOSIG is an Internet service that provides easy
access to quality information relating to social sciences. It forms
part of the Resource Discovery Network (as detailed above). It
contains an Internet catalogue of resources, as well as a social
sciences search engine.
Social Care Institute for Excellence:
www.scie.org.uk
The Social Care
Institute for Excellence gathers and publicises knowledge about how to
make social care services better. SCIE is an independent organisation
created in response to the government drive to improve quality in
social care services (http://www.scie.org.uk/links/scqpleaflet.pdf)
across England and Wales.
SCIE has three main functions:
- Reviewing knowledge about social care
- Developing practice guides and other resources based on that
knowledge
- Promoting the use of practice guides in policy
and practice
Electronic Library for Social Care:
www.elsc.org.uk
ELSC is the definitive gateway to social care
information and knowledge. It is SCIE’s flagship web service for
spreading social care knowledge and good practice. The site provides:
- Free single
point of access to a wide range of social care resources
- Free access to
information about social care
- Free access to
practice information
- Free access to
knowledge of value to users, carers and supporters
- Free access to
skills tutorials to help critically appraise research
- Free access to
skills tutorials to help use the web effectively to find social care
knowledge
PUBLICATIONS ONLINE…
Early pamphlets in Social Policy:
www.lse.ac.uk/library/pamphlets/SocialPolicy/social_policy_pamphlets.htm
18th,
19th
and 20th
Century pamphlets are available to print or download free. Social
policy documents covered include: the poor and origins of the welfare
state, health, housing, pensions and unemployment insurance
DATABASES…
Check your local library for access details for
the following databases:
ASLIB Index to Theses:
Index to theses contains bibliographical information on theses
accepted for higher degrees by the universities of Great Britain and
Ireland, and by the Council for National Academic Awards.
ASSIA: Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts:
References with abstracts and some full text links to journal articles
from around 650 UK, US and international journals (from 1987) on
social services, health, economics, politics, race relations and
education.
BHI: British
Humanities Index:
References and abstracts and some full text links to articles from key
British journals and newspapers on a broad range of subjects including
the arts, humanities, politics and society.
CaredataWeb (accessible through
www.elsc.org.uk)
References and some
full text of journal articles, research papers and books on social
work, social care and related subjects (housing, education, health).
ChildData:
Covers health and welfare of children and young people. ChildData also
contains the full text of the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child.
DH-Data: Health Administration and Medicine Toxicology (available
through Dialog Data star – Athens password required):
DH-Data is jointly
produced by two services at the Department of Health (UK): The
Department of Health Library and Information Service and the PH
(Protection of Health) Information Unit. The core subjects covered by
the Department of Health Library are health service and hospital
administration. The PH Information Unit specialises in medical
toxicology and environmental health.
Legislation Direct:
Text of Acts and Statutory Instruments in force.
Regard:
www.regard.ac.uk
A (free) national database service containing references and contact
information to completed and ongoing social science research.
Social Services
Abstracts:
References with abstracts of journal articles (from 1980 to date) on
current research in social work, human services and related areas,
including social welfare, social policy and community development.
Zetoc
(available via National electronic Library for Health
www.nelh.nhs.uk -
Athens password required)
Gives the tables of contents information for approximately 20,000
current journals and 16,000 conference proceedings published per year.
All subjects are covered.
SOCIAL CARE JOURNALS…
Check your local library for details. Most
popular journals for Social Care include:
-
British
Journal of Guidance and Counselling
-
British
Journal of Social Work
-
Child
Abuse and Neglect
-
Childhood
-
Children
-
Childright
-
Community Care
-
Critical
Social Work
-
Disability and Society
-
European
Journal of Social Work
-
Family
Policy
-
Findings
-
International Social Work
-
Journal
of Learning Disabilities – London
-
Journal
of Social Work Practice
-
Social
Research Update
-
Sociological Review
-
Sociology – Cambridge
- Welfare Digest
OTHER RESOURCES…
Acts of Parliament
UK Legislation:
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts.htm
Full text of Acts of
Parliament from 1988-to date
Care and Health.com professional community for social work:
http://www.careandhealth.com/arch/policywatch.asp
Collection of resources on
social care and social work education, training, careers/jobs and care
practice and placements.
The General Social Care Council is the social
care workforce regulator. It registers social care workers and
regulated their conduct and training
Online Dictionary of Social Sciences:http://webref.org/sociology/sociology.htm
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