Lifting Our Voices

Lifting Our Voices is the only book to explore the dual roles of professional social workers who are also family caregivers and the only collection on caregiving in which the majority of contributors are African American. After discussing the relevant literature, Lifting Our Voices vividly and sensitively presents the caregiving experiences of ten professional social workers. Using professional and theoretical knowledge and skills, each contributor draws implications for various levels of social work and human service interventions. These poignant descriptions and analyses recount both the frustrations and barriers of negotiating social service agencies and other institutions and the joys and triumphs of family caregiving. Lifting Our Voices frankly discusses how a professional education either prepares or fails to equip an individual with the skills for successful intervention on behalf of a loved one. Contributors hail from rich and varied backgrounds, revealing the importance of age, ethnicity, gender, marital status, and gerontological expertise in the practice of family caregiving.

These essays explore situations rarely reported on in the literature, such as caregivers and care recipients who represent the lifespan from preschool to retirement. Lifting Our Voices graphically describes types of caregiving that are seldom discussed, including simultaneous caregiving to multiple family members and reciprocal and sequential caregiving, thus broadening and refining the very concepts of "caregiving" and "family."

Joyce O. Beckett is professor emerita of the School of Social Work at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her A.B. from Temple University and her M.S.S. and Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College, and completed her postdoctoral studies in gerontology at Duke University. Her professional career spans almost forty years and includes clinical work in a variety of agency settings and private practice.

Debra E. Allwardt:
Beckett's book will initiate meaningful discussions in Bachelor's in Social Work and Masters in Social Work courses on caregiving and aging. It should also prove illuminating to students seeking to understand the broad range of family caregiving experiences. The book provides a clarion call for more culturally competent social work practice and services.

Joseph E. Gaugler:
The great diversity of caregiving is also on display in Lifting Our Voices, which vividly illustrates the challenges caregivers of diverse ethnic/racial background experience.

Needha M. Boutté-Queen:
Two things that stand out to this reviewer are the efforts by individuals to impact policy and practice where they could and the use of tables to provide a visual of implications as they are discussed in each chapter.

Leslie Hempling:
An engaging and accessible text... This book is a strong addition to the caregiving literature and is well recommended.

Beckett's remarkable compilation of caregiving narratives provides insight into the diversity of caregiving experiences... Essential.