Developing Skills for Social Work Practice, Michela Rogers, Dawn Whitaker, David Edmondson and Donna Peach

A book that seeks to support students to link their university-based teaching and placement learning experience as explicitly as this one does is in my view to be welcomed. The four authors are experienced practitioners with significant academic experience. Included throughout the book are contributions in the form of case studies, commentaries and reflections from eleven other practitioners, thus ensuring the book is based on a wide range of practice experience and current theoretical knowledge. Professional values are firmly identified throughout; from the outset, the authors make clear their vision of social work as an activity that must be ‘underpinned by a commitment to humane, relationship based practice’ (p. 9). This informative, easy-to-use book is aimed at social work students from the start of their qualification into their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE). (The ASYE, introduced in 2012, is a twelve-month employer-based programme which supports and assesses newly qualified social workers.) The bright, visually appealing front cover of Developing Skills for Social Work Practice advises us that the book contains ‘Everything you need for your 30 days skills’. The back cover expands this stating that ‘This book will provide you with everything you need to know and more, helping you develop and hone your skills and make the best start in your practice placements and continue to develop your skills as a newly qualified practitioner’. The book is divided into three sections; Part 1 addresses Core Skills including Communication Skills, Emotionally Intelligent Social Work, Reflection and Valuing Difference and Diversity. Part 2 introduces skills for assessment and intervention including chapters on Assessment Skills, Conflict Management, Writing Skills for Practice and Court Skills. Part 3 offers Key Social Work Theories and Methods with chapters on Strength Based and Solution Focused Approaches, Person Centred Social Work and The Social Models of Disability and Distress. The Professional Capabilities Framework (the overarching professional standards framework for England containing nine domains of capability) is integrated into the book, with each chapter identifying relevant domains. The Knowledge and Skills Statements for adults and children (which set out what a social worker should know and be able to do by the end of their ASYE) are mentioned, but are less visible.

Medical education · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Sociology · Work (physics) · Engineering · Medicine · Psychology · Research in Social Sciences · Social Work Education and Practice · Social Work