Complexity in Social Work

Complexity lies at the heart of social work practice and this book is designed to help students and newly-qualified social workers plan for and manage complex cases in an increasingly complex environment. Split into two parts, this book reflects the journey of qualifying social work students from preparation for practice in an educational context to learning ‘on the job’ through working with service users in practice settings, and eventually assuming a more senior role in management, administration and training. Key topics covered in the chapters include managing volatility and uncertainty, making judgements and decisions, building and maintaining relationships, using reflection and supervision, working interprofessionally, managing risk, exploring cause and effect.  

Table of Contents:
Introduction: What is complexity? PART ONE: WORKING WITH COMPLEX CASES Chapter 1: Understanding complex needs Chapter 2: Managing uncertainty, volatility and drift Chapter 3 : Making decisions and judgements Chapter 4 : Building and maintaining relationships Chapter 5: Reflecting on practice Chapter 6 : Working interprofessionally PART TWO: ENGAGING WITH COMPLEX SYSTEMS Chapter 7: Addressing complexity in research and evaluation Chapter 8 : Organising services to manage complexity Chapter 9: Developing policies for social problems Conclusion: Final reflections

About the Author :
Rick Hood is a registered social worker and Professor of Social Work in the Department of Social Work and Social Care at Kingston University. He studied modern languages at Cambridge University and spent a number of years doing youth and community work in Germany and France before training and practising as a social worker in South London. Most of his teaching and research has been in the field of children′s social care, covering topics such as complexity, inequality, assessment and decision-making, reunification from care, interprofessional working, domestic abuse and child protection, and the inspection of services.

Review :
This book provides good coverage on aspects of complexity in social work. It encompasses several features that generate complexity and decision making in social work. This book’s approach makes various landscapes of complexity easy to understand. This makes the book accessible to students and practitioners. Dr Rick Hood is one of the new generation of social work′s intellectual leaders. This book is insightful but accessible and is informed by his substantial practice and research experience. The book highlights the day-to-day experience for social workers of being immersed in, but not paralysed by, the complexity of human behaviour and relationships and of the important and crucial contribution social workers make with others in promoting the welfare and safety of children and helping families. Rick Hood has produced a remarkably clear and conceptually sophisticated account of complexity in social work making a strong case for more appropriate organisational systems for working with unpredictability. An impressive scrutiny of key challenges in social work through the lens of complexity, producing fresh thinking about solutions. The use of case studies and exercises links the abstract ideas clearly to the reality of everyday social work.