Social Work with Adults, Jim Rogers, Lucy Bright and Helen Davies

There are a number of textbooks, written for social work students and newly qualified practitioners, that focus on social work with adults, starting with broad policy shifts and developments, and then focusing on the application of law, policy and practice with specific service user groups. This book, however, focuses on a specific issue in law, policy and practice—that of capacity and decision making for adults across service user groups, particularly those who are vulnerable, and provides an in-depth examination of the 2005 Mental Capacity Act (for England and Wales) and its interface with other legislation—the 1983 Mental Health Act and the 2014 Care Act, which together form the main legal frameworks for current practice in England. The discussion is developed from how and why the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) was introduced, with the related Code of Practice, to key aspects of the act, as examined in separate chapters. A range of case studies, some of which are introduced at the beginning of the book and then woven in throughout, is used to bring to life how the legislation, policy, guidance and case law impact in individual practice situations. These case studies highlight the complexities surrounding decision making, unpicking ethical dilemmas and challenges in interpreting the law, managing conflicts of interest between different parties (e.g. the service user and their informal carer(s)) and promoting best practice. The book considers, in some detail, different aspects of the MCA, such as the five key principles: what is capacity and a lack of capacity and how is it assessed (the two-stage test), best interests decision making and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards 2009 (DoLS). In relation to the introduction of DoLS, in order to fully structure the context and application of this significant addition to the MCA 2005, the authors trace, in some detail, the impact of important court rulings which highlight the debates about safeguarding and deprivation of liberty. For example, they consider the Bournewood judgment, which concerned a man with severe autism and challenging behaviours, who was detained informally in hospital and, after a series of legal challenges and judgments involving his foster-carers, who had not been consulted in the initial process, his case finally went to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled, in 2004, that he had been illegally detained. The authors also consider the more recent Cheshire West judgment (2014), concerning the case of a man with physical and learning disabilities, and challenging behaviours where physical restrictions, best interests and deprivation of liberty have been further debated in a court setting.

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