Book Reviews
The Blackwell Companion to Social Work (3rd Edition)
By Martin Davies (ed)
ISBN: 978-1-4051700-4-8 2008 538 pages Blackwell
Reviewed by Fiona Gardner
Social Work and Social Policy, La Trobe University, VIC
I found the first edition of the Blackwell Companion to Social Work a useful resource for the social work students I was teaching at the time, so I was interested to see how this third edition compared. What's valuable about what Martin Davies has done with these 'Companions' is that you can quickly get an overview of current approaches, preferred theories, issues and interests in social work practice. For social workers, or later year social work students and those in related professions, it is an accessible and informative guide to current thinking in social work across a number of subjects, particularly working with individuals and families, but also social policy and fields of practice. Just looking at the contents pages gives a sense of the breadth of social work. Many of the chapters will be relevant to other disciplines, such as considering what an evidence-based approach to practice might mean or working with cultural differences.
This is, of course, a British book and is focused on practice there. The book is divided into six sections each with chapters from different authors. The first section, Reasons for Social Work, looks at such issues as domestic violence, disability and frail old age in the context of government policies and research. The political and cultural context clearly influences these, so readers need to judge their relevance for Australia.
Other sections are more general. For example, the second section, Applying Knowledge to Practice, explores a wide range of theories, from the broad (such as feminist theory or anti-discriminatory practice), to the more specific (such as family therapy or cognitive behavioural therapy). This is one of the strengths of the book, as most chapters have a useful summary of relevant history and major debates as well as specific examples of how they might be used in practice. Some, however, are better than others. The chapter on anger management, for example, would benefit from further updating and a more critical appraisal of some anger management programs. Section five on the Human Life Cycle is again a general one with articles on life stages which would be of interest across disciplines.
The third section, The Practice Context, illustrates some areas of practice for social workers, such as work with children and families, with schools, in mental health and healthcare generally. These again provide much detail about organisations and policies in the UK and the value is in comparing models and perspectives. The issue of multi-disciplinary work, also of interest in Australia, comes up in the two articles on health systems: one on health care settings and the other on mental health.
I particularly liked the fourth and sixth sections on broader issues, likely also to be of interest to a range of disciplines. In section four, Social Work and its Psychosocial Framework, writers link awareness of individual issues with structural ones. Drakeford's chapter for example (Social Work and Politics), argues that social workers - and, by implication, any worker in the health and welfare field - need to recognise that what they do is inevitably political. Section six, Perspectives on Social Work, is a combination of views not covered so far, such as service users of various kinds, research, legal and ethical perspectives. There are valuable perspectives here, such as the need to hear more from service users about their experience. French and Swain's chapter (The Perspective of the Disabled People's Movement) provides an inspiring example of how people with disabilities are seen as partners in a process rather than passive recipients of services.
I was also impressed by the development in this edition of a stronger exploration of the implications of immigration and population movement and the desirability and challenges of anti-oppressive practice. Owusu-Bempah's chapter (Culture, Ethnicity and Identity) is particularly confronting about the kind of assumptions Western professionals make about people from other cultures as well as the assumptions embedded in the structures of welfare organisations that perpetuate racism. Goldstein's chapter (Black Perspectives) reinforces the need to value black culture while also recognising that there is diversity as well is commonality in any cultural group, that is, not all black people will experience their culture in the same way.
So what are the limitations? This is a substantial book at over five hundred pages and reasonably priced. It certainly provides much in the way of stimulating ideas and perspectives to generate discussion in teaching or wrestling with practice issues. The book's strength of broad coverage means that contributions can seem relatively superficial. A more positive way to look at this is that contributors provide enough of a ‘taste' of the area they are writing about for readers to decide what they are interested in following up. There are some suggestions about further reading at the end of each chapter.
From an Australian perspective, the focus can seem very heavily weighted to work with individuals and families and to some extent group work. This reflects the British experience where community work is seen as a different discipline with separate training rather than another aspect of social work practice. I would expect that an Australian version would include more examples of social workers engaged in community development and health promotion activities.
A surprising gap for a collection published in 2008 is a critical reflection approach to social work. Interest in this has increased significantly across other disciplines too and the value of being reflective is identified in some chapters. Critical reflection provides a framework for exploring assumptions embedded in practice that would be useful in many of the settings and practice areas considered. Working with spirituality is not mentioned either, though it is also a developing field of interest. Maybe next time!
