Practice Skills in Social Work and Welfare: More Than Just Common Sense

Human service workers need more than just common sense. Practice Skills in Social Work and Welfare offers a comprehensive and practical introduction to practice skills required across the human service sector.

The authors systematically outline the key stages of interaction with clients: building the helping relationship, collaborative assessment, taking action, and evaluating and closure. They examine the skills needed for working with different types of clients: individuals, families and community groups. They also explore the dilemmas faced in daily practice, including the challenges of working with involuntary clients, clients from different cultural backgrounds and clients in crisis situations.

Practice Skills in Social Work and Welfare offers an integrated framework which incorporates the key components of ideology, theory, phase, skill and context. Detailed case studies demonstrate how welfare services can be delivered in different contexts.

This second edition includes contributions from social work practitioners and educators with current knowledge, experience and expertise in specific fields of practice. It has been thoroughly revised and updated and includes new material on online services and strengths-based practice.