Risk and Social Work

First published in 1982, Risk and Social Work provides a useful framework for analysing risk in the social welfare context. Surprisingly, social work and other helping professions have hitherto given little attention to the use and meaning of ‘risk’, although the term is frequently employed, with clients and helpers being described as ‘at risk’, or ‘in danger’. The media have taken up these terms, noticeably in cases involving child abuse, the elderly and conditions in psychiatric instituti...