Social Work Skills, 2nd Edition

s e c o n d • What skills do social workers need to become effective practitioners? • How can these skills be perfected and made transferable across different service user and carer groups, contexts, and countries? • How can these skills be used to enhance multi-agency co-operation and collaboration? Written by an experienced academic-practitioner, the new edition of this bestselling text is updated to include the current educational, policy and practice context of social work. It provides descriptions of over fifty social work skills, with case examples to illustrate their creative use in practice. Giving a name to these skills, and being able to identify and demonstrate their effective use in contemporary social work practice, highlights the importance of an evidence-based and research-led approach to practice. In particular, this edition contains new material on: • social work methods, practice approaches and perspectives • the knowledge base of social work and the importance of the relationship between theory and practice • how the terms ‘skill’ and ‘intervention’ are defined and effectively applied in practice Social Work Skills is essential reading for all social work students and a valuable reference text for practising social workers and human service professionals. Pamela Trevithick started in social work in 1972 and trained in 1980. Since then she has practised in Birmingham, London and Bristol as a residential social worker, education welfare officer, statutory social worker, groupworker and team manager. She is Senior Lecturer (half-time) in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, and as a groupwork practitioner, trainer and consultant. She is the co-editor of the journal Groupwork, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Social Work Practice. SOCIAL WORK SKILLS a practice handbook Tr e v i t h i c k The starting point for this text is that social work is – and has to be – a highly skilled activity. It is important to stress this fact because social work practitioners work with some of the most complex, unpredictable and troubling areas of human experience. For this reason, social work practice is also an intellectual activity. This calls for practitioners to acquire a ‘toolbox’ of skills that can be used to enable people to move forward. SOCIAL WORK SKILLS SOCIAL WORK SKILLS A Practice Handbook Second Edition e d i t i o n Cover design: Kate Prentice ISBN 0-335-21499-1 9 780335 214990 P a m e l a Tr e v i t h i c k SOCIAL WORK SKILLS A PRACTICE HANDBOOK Second Edition SOCIAL WORK SKILLS A PRACTICE HANDBOOK Second Edition Pamela Trevithick Open University Press Open Univers