Sail a toy ship across the ocean... Build an igloo... Ollie and Harry Ferguson did it-and you can too! Starting with a list of 500 "adventures", the Scottish brothers set out to live life to its fullest. They've photographed the sea floor, launched a plastic toy into space, mummified fish and tracked wild animals; they've gone magnet fishing and camping, sailed aboard a deep-sea diving vessel, caught lobsters, made a bathtub in the woods, crossed the ocean in a toy boat, gone on a meteorite hunt, made a megapult, raised chickens, built an outdoor shelter, sailed a kite boat, built a wildlife reserve, went on a mountain hike and have flown trained falcons. With striking colour photographs and featuring step-by-step directions for some of the boys' best adventures, this book provides guidance that will inspire families to marvellous adventures of their own.

It is vital for students, policy makers and practitioners engaged in social policy, social work and other related academic disciplines and fields of practice to understand the importance of research and how to interpret research evidence and findings. They also need to know how to effectively carry out and report good quality research of their own. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition of the acclaimed international best-seller will enable readers to meet all these challenges. Comprehensive in scope, and written expertly by 80 leading contributors in an accessible and engaging style, this landmark book from The Policy Press' Understanding Welfare series includes dozens of new sections which highlight developments since the first edition. It also combines theoretical and applied discussions and case examples to provide the essential one-stop guide to research methods, approaches and debates. The book is essential reading for students and teachers of social policy, social work, public policy, criminology, nursing and health sciences, education and other applied social sciences; policy makers and practitioners who would like to improve their use of research evidence; and those who want to conduct high quality research of their own.

Protecting Children in Time provides a highly original analysis of the origins and development of the taken-for-granted notion that it is possible through social intervention to protect children from avoidable harm and even death, to protect children in time . By using case-studies which span the past 120 years of 'modern' practices and drawing on the work of leading social theorists of modernity and risk society it provides a new way of thinking about constructions of child abuse as a social problem and child protection as a late-modern expert system and experience. It proposes new ways of conceptualizing relationships between professionals, children at risk and families and deepens our understanding of what effective interventions have to involve.

Protecting Children in Time provides a highly original analysis of the origins and development of the taken-for-granted notion that it is possible through social intervention to protect children from avoidable harm and even death, to protect children in time . By using case-studies which span the past 120 years of 'modern' practices and drawing on the work of leading social theorists of modernity and risk society it provides a new way of thinking about constructions of child abuse as a social problem and child protection as a late-modern expert system and experience. It proposes new ways of conceptualizing relationships between professionals, children at risk and families and deepens our understanding of what effective interventions have to involve.

How do practitioners step up to the professional challenge of keeping children safe? Leading author Harry Ferguson draws on his own research, personal experience and real-life case studies to challenge the way we think about child protection. This highly original and engaging book captures the daily reality of practice within life's most personal spaces, and offers a rare insight into the lived experience of working with vulnerable children, their parents and other carers. An inspiring declaration of the need for a new, intimate approach to child protection, this ground-breaking book lays the foundations of skilful, authoritative practice. It is a must for Social Work student and practitioners within this challenging field.

Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson gives behind the scenes information including things not shown on screen. He shows how to lie without being caught, how to follow someone without being spotted and how to spot those who might be following you. He reveals the secrets of walk-ins, gangplank approaches, false flag operations, dead letter boxes and brush contacts. There are sections on how to construct an alternative identity, how to check your house for bugging devices and your car for bombs, how to disappear in a crowd by 'going grey'and how agents are spotted and recruited. But Spy also goes beyond the techniques of espionage to examine a range of issues facing today's intelligence services - the morality of using assassination and blackmail, the heroes and villains of the espionage world, and how modern terrorists are able to evade detection by Western intelligence organisations. At the end of it all he even tells you how to apply for a job with the real intelligence services.

What is social work at its best? Social work has laboured too long under a 'deficit' model that focuses on failings and problems of practice. This ambitious book seeks to redress the balance, with its emphasis on best practice, strengths and collaborative partnership. Each of its 16 chapters provides a detailed account of practice, offering a series of vivid windows onto day-to-day social work at its best, framed by concepts and ideas drawn from critical theory. The resulting text combines theory, illustration, evidence and analysis in a way that promotes reflection on what makes good practice and why. Undergraduate and post-qualifying social work students alike will benefit from the insights offered by this rich, wide-ranging and multi-facetted text.

A valuable reference to help practising researchers not only to understand but also to apply innovative approaches to social work research. Featuring extended case studies of actual research projects, the book provides an overview of a number of central features and qualities of social work research. It incorporates both distinctive methodological features, such as approaches to participatory inquiry, and provides accounts of researcher strategies to address particular challenges, such as carrying out studies with hard to reach populations. This book combines important methodological insights with pragmatic guidance on commonly experienced problems and how these challenges can be overcome. This is a key resource for social work and social care students, social work practitioners and academics engaged in research.