Social Work: The Social Organisation of an Invisible Trade

• 1. Preface to the Second Edition and an Introduction to the Study. 2. The Area Office: Boundaries and Identities in an Occupational World. 3. Making Social Work Visible: Official Indices and False Trails. 4. Issues of Visibility and Colleague Relationships. 5. Supervisory Relations and the Discreet Art of Assessment. 6. The Client: Common Sense Theory and Everyday Practice. 7. Telling the Case: Social Work Made Visible.

’In the first edition of his book, Andrew Pithouse took us behind the scenes of a busy child care team in a Social Services Department and gave us a fascinating insight into how social workers create relationships with their departments, their colleagues and their clients. Ten years later, a return to the same department and a new edition of the book gives us not only the original sharp observations of the sociologist but an intriguing historical perspective on the changing landscape of social work.’ Professor David Howe, University of East Anglia, UK ’The experienced and novice child protection social worker will nod and smile at some of the descriptions of supervision and case discussions in the practice context...This is an accessible work, available to a wide audience, and one that provides descriptive insights rather than analytic into the juxtaposed experience of two generations of British child protection social workers who find practice meaning through storying their cases.’ Social Work Review