Social Work Skills: A Practice Handbook
OverviewThis text provides a detailed description of over 50 social work skills, with case examples of their creative use in evidence-based practice. The book takes as its starting point the view that social work is a skilled activity but one that is uniquely located in "no-win" situations, caught in a tension between conflicting and sometimes incompatible needs and expectations. These tensions call for critical thinking and balanced and judicious decision-making across a range of fundamental issues such as the rights of parents and the needs of the child; acknowledging the needs of carers alongside those of their "dependents"; weighing individual freedom against the risk to society. In order to address often severe and enduring problems and complex situations social workers need to have at their fingertips a "toolbox" of practice skills in order to help people to move their lives forward. Giving a name to these skills and being able to identify and demonstrate their effective use in evidence-based practice is a central theme of this text and one which provides an important and timely contribution to the literature on social work theory and practice.