Child Social Work Policy & Practice
- Derek Kirton - University of Kent, UK, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK
This book offers an authoritative overview of child care policy and practice in the UK. It covers assessment and family support services, understanding child maltreatment and protection, the care of looked after children, including the contribution of adoption, foster and residential care, services for those leaving care and barriers facing disabled children and their families.
Child Care Policy and Practice reflects the complexity and contested nature of children's needs, rights and interests and relationships between family and state. It analyses relevant debates and research and highlights practice issues and dilemmas. Readers are also directed to sources of further information on topics they may wish to explore in more depth. At the end of each chapter, there is guidance for further reading, resources for practice and questions for discussion.
The book is aimed at social work practitioners and students, both qualifying and post-qualifying, at allied professionals working with children and families and at undergraduate students in Childhood Studies or Social Policy.
Good text book with helpful links to policy and practice.
This book was useful as supplementary reading, but was not relevant enough to the course material to be adopted as a core text. For example, the information on looked after children did not cover legal procedure in enough detail.
This is a well structured and accessible introduction to safeguarding children. I will be recommending this to students on the safeguarding module.
A comprehensive overview of child care policy, I particularly welcome the discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
