Book review

Title: Social Work with Older People
Author(s): Philipps, Judith; Ray, Mo; & Marshall, Mary
Year: 2006
Edition: 4
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 1403916136
Price: £17.99

Reviewer: Trish Hafford-Letchfield, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, London South Bank University
Review date: 05/08/2007

Now in its fourth edition and with new contributions from Phillips and Ray, experienced researchers and practitioners in the field, this revised book aims to provide an up-to-date introductory or core text for social workers and other professionals working with older people. The government has claimed a radical shift of policy towards meeting the social care needs of older people in which empowerment and choice have become key drivers (HM Government, 2006). How these are actually integrated into professional practice or experienced by older people themselves has continued to cause tensions for social work practitioners particularly those trying to assert their professional identity within new organisational contexts. This book touches on many of the key themes in this respect by drawing on studies from gerontology and critical perspectives on ageing beyond a fixed paradigm.

Presented in two parts; Part 1 addresses and explains the context for social work with older people by highlighting diversity in ageing and reviewing the guiding frameworks for social work intervention such as government policy, legislation and the challenges of different organisational contexts. The authors conclude by specifically outlining the case for social work with older people with attempts to expose the tensions between preventative approaches, which aim to prevent adverse outcomes in health and well-being in later life and the targeting of services on those who are perceived to have the greatest needs or experience risk. Part II goes on to unpick the practice issues relying on the use of standard tools within care management to assess, plan, monitor and intervene in the lives of older people. The concept of reflexivity, values, evidence-informed practice and anti-oppressive practice are emphasised throughout as a way of moving towards more individual approaches. These concepts are illustrated through evolving scenarios introduced by the authors and to support continuity in the development of the reader’s thinking.

Welcoming for social work students new to social work with older people and as an invaluable handbook for practice learning, this text will also benefit their supervisors and assessors as a benchmark to the required knowledge and skills at this level. It could also be useful as a core text for those following an undergraduate teaching and learning module in this area. Each chapter ends with a ‘putting it into practice’ summary providing three activities for further discussion. These could be used as triggers in student supervision or as seminar topics. In the absence of ‘answers’ to these scenarios, readers would be encouraged to generate their own resources although some may feel dissatisfied with this.

As the authors claim, you could pick up this text and ‘dip into it’. It doesn’t cover all the issues in any great detail and in fact can skim over some areas in a very unsatisfactory way, for example, the section on end of life issues in chapter 2. Interrogation by readers of their own organisational practices and the way in which they respond to managed care models however can be picked up in the brief recommended reading given at the end of each chapter. The pointers to web-based resources were too broad and anyone inexperienced in this field directed to a DH website to find up-to-date policy and legislation will need more detail as to what to specifically look for.

References:

HM Government (2006) Opportunity Age: meeting the challenges for ageing in the 21st
century. Available from /www.dwp.gov.uk/opportunity_age/