Social Work and Power

Power is an unavoidable issue in social work. Practitioners frequently work with the marginalized and disadvantaged. While they have a duty to protect the vulnerable, sometimes this means exercising authority against the wishes of those they are working with - as when they have to remove a child from abusive parents, section a severely mentally distressed person, etc. This important text explores these complex issues, both at a conceptual and applied level, in order to give students a clear understanding of the theoretical frameworks relevant to practice and to help them begin to think through the kinds of challenges they are likely to face and how they will deal with these.

Power is an unavoidable issue in social work. Practitioners frequently work with the marginalized and disadvantaged. While they have a duty to protect the vulnerable, sometimes this means exercising authority against the wishes of those they are working with - as when they have to remove a child from abusive parents, section a severely mentally distressed person, etc. This important text explores these complex issues, both at a conceptual and applied level, in order to give students a clear understanding of the theoretical frameworks relevant to practice and to help them begin to think through the kinds of challenges they are likely to face and how they will deal with these.

ROGER SMITH is Lecturer in Social Work and Course Director for the MA in Social Work at the University of Leicester, UK. He is a qualified and experienced social work practitioner, a former Head of Policy with a national voluntary organisation and ex-Chair of a local authority Social Services Committee. His publications include Poor Relief or Poor Dead? (Ashgate, 2003), Youth Justice: Ideas, Policy, Practice (Willan, 2003) and Values and Practice in Children's Services (Palgrave, 2004).