Daisy has worked within social care for twelve years, both within voluntary and statutory sector organisations. Her areas of practice include mental health and substance misuse. Since 2003 she has been employed by NHS mental health partnership trusts in the northern and south eastern regions and has held social work leadership roles within both of these area, with emphasis on mental health act and mental capacity practice development and safeguarding vulnerable adult arrangements.

• Setting the scene: the past, the present and possible futuresGovernment Direction: A policy frameworkSocial Work as an Identity within Mental Health ServicesThe social perspective versus the medical perspective: have we found a middle ground?Ownership and the secondment of social work staffWholesale change?Working in partnershipHealth & social care budgets: will the fog ever lift?Integrated services: where do the service users fit in?Approved Mental Health Professionals: a Trojan horseThe experience of substance misuse: a word from the voluntary sectorFrom the other angle: a word from healthThe integration agenda: what have we learnt so far?

Social work students are often confused as to how multi-disciplinary work may operate in practice. This book provides a useful context to current practice arrangements. It provides useful practical applications and recognises some of the compromise models between social and medical perspectives.