At a time when accountability and the avoidance of risk are increasingly demanded of social workers, the ability to make clear and informed decisions is essential. This book, written for practicing social workers undertaking their ASYE and compulsory CPD, has been designed to help professionals make sound judgments in increasingly complex contexts and under pressure. The focus is on empowering front-line professionals through reflective practice, so that they are able to draw on multiple factors and perspectives and make sound problem-solving judgements. The book begins with the core concepts, client focus, and legal background before moving on to consider the collaborative processes and the nature of individual judgements. It then considers particular dimensions of social work decision making, such as safeguarding, taking risks, assessment and dynamic decision tools and processes. It then concludes by look at the organisational context of decision management, with a focus on supervision, training and effective communication.

The SAGE Handbook on Decision Making, Assessment and Risk in Social Work provides a comprehensive overview of key strands of research and theoretical concepts in this increasingly important field. With 49 chapters and four section summaries, this Handbook describes the ‘state of the art’; discuss key debates and issues; and gives pointers on future directions for practice, research, teaching, management of services, and development of theoretical understandings. A key aim of this Handbook is to support the development of sound, applied knowledge and values to underpin reasoned professional judgement and decision making by social workers in practice and those in management and regulatory roles. With contributions from a global interdisciplinary body of leading and emerging scholars from a wide variety of roles, this handbook has been designed to be internationally generalisable and applicable to all major areas of social work. This Handbook provides a field-defining account of decision making, assessment and risk in social work which is unrivalled for its diversity and strength of coverage, and will be of value to social work researchers, teachers and practitioners, as well as to those in allied fields such as health care. Section 1: Professional Judgement Section 2: Assessment, Risk and Decision Processes Section 3: Assessment Tools and Approaches Section 4: Developing and Managing Practice Section 5: Concluding Section / Afterword

Covers the essential knowledge required to understand and develop skills in relation to professional judgement and decision making processes in social work practice

As practising social workers, your students will need to be able to make sound judgments in complex contexts and when they are under pressure. This book covers the essential knowledge they will require to understand and develop skills in relation to professional judgement and decision making processes, including: - the use of assessment tools; - engagement in assessment and decision processes; - the context of risk, complexity and uncertainty in practice; - communication and management of risk within social care processes.

This is an essential guide for both social work students and practitioners involved in the assessment of children and their families. It is a guide for practice that is strongly rooted in research evidence.

This book is written for anyone involved in child protection and child welfare work who is interested in how to make better childcare decisions. The author provides a clear framework on decision-making, risk assessment and reasoning in addition to helping explain and justify decisions and judgements and the sources of any disagreements. Effective Child Protection challenges the traditional conflict between analytic and intuitive methods of reasoning and proposes a model in which each method has strengths at different points in the process. Using detailed case studies and graphics to provide memorable illustrations of key points, this book is an invaluable practical and theoretical addition to the complexities of making predictions about children's best interests and is written for social workers, nurses, police officers and health workers as well as those taking or teaching qualifying and post-qualifying courses in child protection and child care. Contents Introduction\Expertise in Child Protection Work\The Social Context\Defining Child Abuse\The Difficulties of Risk Assessment\The Process of Risk Assessment\Making Decisions\Minimizing Mistakes\Conclusion