Sally Riggall is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Lincoln where she teaches communication skills to students. She is a qualified counsellor and has many years experience working as a counselling trainer. Sally’s research interest is in finding ways of helping students to develop their practical communication skills with service-users in social work practice. Her most recent research project involves collaborating with social workers in training to evaluate how the Egan Skilled Helper Model equips students to develop effective, empathic communication skills which place service-users at the centre of decision making.

• IntroductionCounselling Skills and Social WorkBuilding RelationshipsEmpathic RespondingOvercoming BarriersUsing Challenging Skills to Raise ConcernsService-Users Managing Their Own LivesWorking with Loss and GriefWorking with ConflictCounselling Skills in GroupworkCounselling Skills in Different SettingsConclusion

This text enables students to understand the use if counselling skills in social work and the clear difference between social work practice and counselling.