Social workers are called upon to perform their varied tasks in a wide range of social settings, often involving intensely intimate contact with, and intervention in, a person's private moral and social world. Offering insights into the lives and motives of social work service users, this text seeks to deomonstrate the practical relevance of sociological research at the end of the 20th century for good social work practice. The book examines such topics as: how social work is taught, managed and delivered; the interaction; that occurs between clients and social workers; the nature of social life in institutions; and informal care and how social work can relate to it. The author argues that sociology is an undervalued resource for social work training and education, and, emphasizing the importance of competences in social work, shows how a greater awareness of sociological issues can help improve services for clients.
