Managed Care by Joe Barrett

Managed Care by Joe Barrett

Maxy Awards Book of the Year 2019

Pencraft Awards Best Fiction Book of 2019

Witty, occasionally crass, and an unqualified delight. -KIRKUS REVIEWS

Is it too much to ask that a managed care facility refund a year's advance payment when your grandfather dies before he can move in? Frank Johnson doesn't think so, which is why the thirty-three-year-old now lives in a nursing home, locked in a chess match feud with management that doesn't occupy nearly enough of his time.

When foster kid Elroy is thrust into his life, Frank decides to turn this forced relationship to his advantage - launching a string of absurd decisions, inappropriate behaviors and unexpected glimpses of tenderness that ultimately turn a New Jersey suburb upside down. A laugh-out-loud celebration of bad choices for good causes, Managed Care is an offbeat story about three misfits on the social fringes of suburbia and their ridiculous campaign to introduce an unfiltered version of intimacy to their stale, impersonal community. Because, according to Frank, it's probably what Jesus would have wanted.

Joe Barrett, EdD, is an associate professor in the department of teacher education at Brock University in Ontario. His research and service duties revolve around school health policy and health and physical education pedagogy. At Brock University, Dr. Barrett teaches a number of elementary and secondary undergraduate courses that focus on physical and health education curriculum and instruction, as well as graduate courses focused on physical and health education policy and curricula using problem-based learning pedagogies. He has served as the Ontario representative on the Physical and Health Education (PHE) Canada Board of Directors (2013-2015) and as co-chair (2010-2012) and chair (2012-2013) of the PHE Canada Research Council. He served a two-year term as the co-chair (2017-2019) of the PHE Canada National Research Forum.

Carol Scaini, MEd, is an instructor in the department of teacher education at Tyndale University College in Ontario and is an experienced health and physical education teacher with the Peel District School Board. At Tyndale University College, she teaches the physical and health education course for both primary/junior and junior/intermediate teacher candidates. She is well known in the field of health and physical education (HPE): She serves on a number of HPE committees, has taught HPE additional qualification courses at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and has authored several health and physical education resources. She has earned numerous teaching awards, including the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence, the Ontario Teacher of the Year award, the Dr. Andy Anderson Young Professional Award from PHE Canada, the Ontario Association for the Support of Physical and Health Educators (OASPHE) Recognition Award and Advocacy Award, and an Award of Distinction from the Peel District School Board.