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

This open access book offers essential information on values-based practice (VBP): the clinical skills involved, teamwork and person-centered care, links between values and evidence, and the importance of partnerships in shared decision-making. Different cultures have different values; for example, partnership in decision-making looks very different, from the highly individualized perspective of European and North American cultures to the collective and family-oriented perspectives common in South East Asia. In turn, African cultures offer yet another perspective, one that falls between these two extremes (called batho pele). The book will benefit everyone concerned with the practical challenges of delivering mental health services. Accordingly, all contributions are developed on the basis of case vignettes, and cover a range of situations in which values underlie tensions or uncertainties regarding how to proceed in clinical practice. Examples include the patient’s autonomy and best interest, the physician’s commitment to establishing high standards of clinical governance, clinical versus community best interest, institutional versus clinical interests, patients insisting on medically unsound but legal treatments etc. Thus far, VBP publications have mainly dealt with clinical scenarios involving individual values (of clinicians and patients). Our objective with this book is to develop a model of VBP that is culturally much broader in scope. As such, it offers a vital resource for mental health stakeholders in an increasingly inter-connected world. It also offers opportunities for cross-learning in values-based practice between cultures with very different clinical care traditions.

This book is concerned with the complexities of achieving quality in care transitions. The organization and accomplishment of high quality care transitions relies upon the coordination of multiple professionals, working within and across multiple care processes, settings and organizations, each with their own distinct ways of working, profile of resources, and modes of organizing. In short, care transitions might easily be regarded as complex activities that take place within complex systems, which can make accomplishing high quality care challenging. As a subject of enquiry, care transitions are approached from many research, improvement and policy perspectives: from group psychology and human factors to social and political theory; from applied process re-engineering projects to exploratory ethnographic studies; from large-scale policy innovations to local improvements initiatives. This collection will provide a unique cross-disciplinary and multi-level analysis, where each chapter presents a particular depth of insight and analysis, and together offer a holistic and detail understand of care transitions.

"Contemporary medical models focus predominantly on the technical and financial aspects of care. While these are important aspects of care, they fail to include what may be the most critical need of patients and families - that is, the whole-person approach to care where psychosocial and spiritual needs are viewed as essential and just as important as the physical. Cecily Saunders, the founder of hospice, was one of the first to describe the concept of 'total pain', which led to the biopsychosocial and spiritual model of care. In 2014, the World Health Assembly for the WHO passed a resolution which included spiritual care as an essential domain of palliative care, stating that Palliative Care is an approach that improves the quality of life of patients "through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and correct assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual." WHO also noted that "it is the ethical duty of health care professionals" to alleviate pain and suffering, whether physical, psychosocial or spiritual and further supported an interdisciplinary model by noting the need for collaboration between professional palliative care providers and support care providers, including spiritual support and counseling"--

Treatment Planning for Person-Centered Care, second edition, guides therapists in how to engage clients in building and enacting collaborative treatment plans that result in better outcomes. Suitable as a reference tool and a text for training programs, the book provides practical guidance on how to organize and conduct the recovery plan meeting, prepare and engage individuals in the treatment planning process, help with goal setting, use the plan in daily practice, and evaluate and improve the results. Case examples throughout help clarify information applied in practice, and sample documents illustrate assessment, objective planning, and program evaluation. - Presents evidence basis that person-centered care works - Suggests practical implementation advice - Case studies translate principles into practice - Addresses entire treatment process from assessment & treatment to outcome evaluation - Assists in building the skills necessary to provide quality, person-centered, culturally competent care in a changing service delivery system - Utilizes sample documents, showing examples of how to write a plan, etc. - Helps you to improve the quality of services and outcomes, while maintain optimum reimbursement

There are four core themes developed in this book which deal with critical issues, models, theories and frameworks. These expound understandings of patient centred care and the processes, practices and behaviours supporting its attainment: conceptions and cultures of patient-centred care, coordination, communication, innovation.

This book explores a key phenomenon that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis, namely, the crossroads at which social welfare professionals find themselves. This is a crossroads where, on the one hand, there is an accelerated digitalization process and a reorganization of social programs, while on the other hand, we are confronted by the basic challenge of designing social policies and their methods of evaluation, that is, the generation of robust data that will allow better evaluation of social projects and programs. Rigorously analyzing the crossroads at which social welfare programs find themselves and the new demands for the education of professionals involved in social welfare programs, several key issues can be discerned; • the theoretical debate surrounding the changes brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the process of redefining globalization in which we are immersed. • the challenges to be met by welfare programs, and the good practices that are being implemented. • the key issue of how to generate more robust data in the field of social services and social protection. • how to increase the competencies of professionals through education in schools of social work. Providing 15 newly written chapters drawn from both the global north and the global south, it offers a set of recommendations to address the challenges of inequality and social inclusion in the coming years. It will be of interest to all academics, students and practitioners working in the fields of social work, social welfare and social development.

Improving patient experience is a global priority for health policy-makers and care providers. This book critically examines the various ways in which people's experience of health and healthcare can be recorded, analysed and therefore improved.

This book examines choice and preference in the lives of people with disability, focusing on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It provides an overview of choice and examines foundational concepts related to choice and preference, including self-determination and supported decision making. Chapters examine a range of critical service and policy issues, such as guardianship, individualized funding, the health care system, and the situation regarding choices for people with disability in international contexts. In addition, chapters explore issues ranging from the development of preference and choice in childhood to choices in older age and end of life matters. It provides in-depth analysis of particular choices faced at different points across the lifespan. The book concludes with implications for policy and practice. Topics featured in this book include: Supported decision making for adults with intellectual disabilities or acquired brain injury. The role of parents and families in the development of choice-making skills. Preference assessments for individuals who cannot tell us what they prefer. Employment opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities. Sexual and reproductive rights for people with intellectual disabilities. Disability and the choice to become a parent. Choice, Preference, and Disability is an essential resource for researchers, professors, clinicians, therapists, and other professionals as well as graduate students in the fields of developmental and positive psychology, rehabilitation, social work, special education, occupational, speech and language therapy, public health, and healthcare policy.