Palliative Care, Social Work and Service Users: Making Life Possible

About the Book

This unique book provides a rare look at social work and palliative care from the perspective of service users. It is the first to investigate specialist palliative care social work from this viewpoint.

Drawing on new original research, the authors examine service users' experiences of social work and palliative care, tracking their journeys through it, exploring the care they receive and the effects of culture and difference through their first hand comments and ideas. The writers link service users' critiques with broader debates and developments in social work and palliative care and consider the implications of the book's findings for the formation of policy and practice and for future professional education and training.

A groundbreaking text, Palliative Care, Social Work and Service Users is of particular value to social work professionals, palliative care workers, educators, researchers and policy makers.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Dorothy Rowe. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part One: The Background to Palliative Care Social Work. 1. Palliative Care: A new perspective. Part Two: What Service Users Say. 2. Becoming involved with palliative care. 3. Starting the palliative care social work journey. 4. What does the social worker do? 5. What service users value most. 6. Working with difference. 7. Exploring outcomes: evaluating specialist palliative care social work. Part Three: Developing the Discussion. 8. Accessing specialist palliative care social work: a broader image problem? 9. The problem of referral. 10. The nature, strengths and weaknesses of practice. 11. Theory and practice. 12. Specialist palliative care social work: a service in the shadows? 13. Issues for the future. Appendix 1: How we carried out the research. Appendix 2: The interview schedule. References. Subject index. Author index.

About the Author :
Peter Beresford is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University, Visiting Fellow at the University of East Anglia's School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies, Trustee of the Social Care Institute for Excellence and Chair of Shaping Our Lives. Lesley Adshead is a research associate at Birkbeck, University of London. She was formerly a senior social worker at St John's Palliative Care Centre and taught Specialist Palliative Care Social Work at Middlesex University. Suzy Croft is a senior social worker at St. John's Palliative Care Centre and Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University. She is a trustee of two leading UK palliative care organisations and she is a member of the editorial collective of Critical Social Policy.

Review :
`This well-written book is significant for all providers of end of life care as well as social workers themselves, their managers, supervisors, educators and future researchers.` `It will be of direct interest and use to social workers in the palliative care field, but also to others who work in health care systems. In addition, I will be recommending it to social work students as a way into service use participation in both research and the development of positive practice in any setting, but particularly in social work with adults.' `Drawing on a three-year research project, this publication examines "what service users think of a specialist palliative care social work" (p.16), and comes from authors rooted within service provision, education and research and promoting user involvement. To the social work and palliative care professional, this publication is essential for reviewing and developing education, research policy and practice for a diverse service at the crossroads of inter-professional health and social care. The language and layout are sufficiently transparent for the absolute beginner, with definitions and history of the field provided.' `It will be of direct interest and use to social workers in the palliative care field, but also to others who work in health care systems. In addition, I will be recommending it to social work students as a way into service user participation in both research and development of positive practice in any setting, but particularly in social work with adults.'

Once again Jessica Kingsley takes a risk in publishing another pioneering book: pioneering because it investigates specialists palliative care social work from the view point of service users. The authors track the patient's experience through care and link these critiques with broader debates and developments in policy and practice.'

'Eager to listen and learn from the individual the authors consider the implications of the researcher's findings for the formation of policy and practice for future education and training. The result is one of the most stimulating and rewarding books on palliative care that I have come across for some time. The sheer quality of the books collaborative research and rigour bear much fruit for any reader wishing to have their presuppositions challenged with a view to developing and improving practice.

`For those who are aware of the presence and influence of social work in palliative care but who have not spent the time to unpick the detail of their vast role this is the ideal starter for ten. The authors bring insight and energy to an area of care which too often is in the shadows.' `This book has much to offer students, social workers and policy-makers in any area of learning or practice... [I]t is essentially a positive, encouraging and hopeful book which would contribute to any module on the social work degree in which students are being introduced to the ethics, values, principles and skills of social work practice, particularly communication skills.' `Drawing on new original research, authors Beresford, Adshead and Croft examine service users' experiences of social work and palliative care, tracking their journeys through it, exploring care they receive and the effects of culture and difference through their first-hand comments and ideas… It is of particular value to social work professionals, palliative care workers, educators, researchers and policy-makers.' `Written in a straightforward and understandable style and likely to be an invaluable resource for social work professionals and trainees working within specialist palliative care.' In this thoughtful and well researched book, the authors examine some of the key issues impacting on palliative care social work. The character of specialist palliative care social work thus emerges specially from the perspective of service users and this focus really distinguishes the book from others available on this subject.