The perfect guide for new workers entering residential childcare. Adopting a case study approach, this book contains a collection of stories of good practice told from the point of view of the residential care worker that help to demonstrate how they deal with dilemmas and make effective decisions in the moment. Workers in residential childcare have to quickly understand the complexity of how young people's early neglect, abuse and relational trauma impact their lives. There are also conflicts and relationship challenges in abundance. This collection of stories illustrates good practice told from the point of view of the residential care worker and demonstrates their thinking in action around ethical dilemmas, different courses of action taken and why they made these decisions. This book also talks about how effective communication with other adults in the team can de-escalate risk and how to carry out dynamic risk assessments. The users can apply their knowledge obtained from this book through the use of reflective questions which offers relevant neutral material where workers can take a step back from the emotive situations they are currently working in and reflect on the hypothetical. It is also intended that the scenarios in this book can be used as a springboard for further learning or as scenarios in an interview.

Dilemmas and Decision Making in Social Work is a collection of stories to help social workers work with dilemmas, weigh up options and make good decisions. Told in the first person from the point of view of a social worker, each case study begins with the service user's story and then applies relevant theory. It demonstrates where workers have to think outside their own frames of reference and seek other's expertise, how they work with barriers to collaboration with other professionals and how to handle disagreements. Where fitting, the emotional impact of the work is highlighted and how social workers deal with this. In summary: Starts with the human story and then considers which theory applies so very accessible to readers Demonstrates thinking in action Packed with succinct examples of real time challenges and how these have been tackled Full of reflective questions valuable to all social workers and supervisors regardless of experience. This book helps students and new workers learn from experience of established workers, firstly to gain insight into practice in areas they have no experience, but primarily to help them understand how decisions are made reflexively in the moment.