ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book also presents an alternative conceptual model for understanding the development of social welfare policy. It outlines an alternative social images perspective and explains its utility in responding to a number of serious analytical weaknesses that the two dominant schools of theory share in common. The book examines the origins of the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963, a landmark piece of legislation that officially launched America into the current era of community care and deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. It describes the emergence of a number of important policies for the elderly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The book explains theory by drawing on the case studies to review and elaborate the proposed model.
