This paperback supplement discusses issues and challenges for the future of social work practice. The first chapter covers the future of the social work profession; subsequent chapters focus on future issues in five major areas of social work practice: health care, mental health, children and families, gerontology, and political social work. Each chapter is organized around major controversial issues that will be central to that field of practice in coming years. Topics include the use of technology, future social changes, ethnic diversity, political changes, changes in demography and population, the allocation of resources to social services, and the meaning of “empowerment” and “social justice” in the year 2000 and beyond.