Sally Holland and Jonathan Scourfield explain what social work is and the range of cases it deals with. Looking at its history and main debates, as well as the

Social workers spend their time trying to ease social suffering. They encounter the extreme casualties of social inequality: the victims of poverty, illness, ad

The image of a job captures our imagination from an early age, usually prompted by the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'. Work — paid, unpai

Introduction to Social work explains the background to social work; how it started and where we are now in contemporary social work. It enables the student to d

This 'Very Short Introduction' discusses the necessity of welfare states in modern capitalist societies. Situating social policy in an historical, sociological,