The SAGE Handbook on Decision Making, Assessment and Risk in Social Work provides a comprehensive overview of key strands of research and theoretical concepts in this increasingly important field. With 49 chapters and four section summaries, this Handbook describes the ‘state of the art’; discuss key debates and issues; and gives pointers on future directions for practice, research, teaching, management of services, and development of theoretical understandings. A key aim of this Handbook is to support the development of sound, applied knowledge and values to underpin reasoned professional judgement and decision making by social workers in practice and those in management and regulatory roles. With contributions from a global interdisciplinary body of leading and emerging scholars from a wide variety of roles, this handbook has been designed to be internationally generalisable and applicable to all major areas of social work. This Handbook provides a field-defining account of decision making, assessment and risk in social work which is unrivalled for its diversity and strength of coverage, and will be of value to social work researchers, teachers and practitioners, as well as to those in allied fields such as health care.   Section 1: Professional Judgement Section 2: Assessment, Risk and Decision Processes Section 3: Assessment Tools and Approaches Section 4: Developing and Managing Practice Section 5: Concluding Section / Afterword

Professionals in child welfare and protection are often required to make decisions-fraught with many difficulties and shortcomings-that have crucial implications for children and families. There are many indications that these decisions are frequently unreliable and involve unavoidable errors in judgement due to the uncertainties. Despite the central role of judgements in the field, child welfare and protection training and research programs pay limited attention to leveraging the human factors aspect of practice. Although extensive research exists in relevant areas-such as medicine, psychology, business administration, and economics-little has been done to help develop, transfer, and translate scientific knowledge to the child welfare arena. Decision-Making and Judgeent in Child Welfare and Protection pulls together the best internationally sourced expertise and makes it accessibly available and applicable to scholars, educators, practitioners, students, and policymakers-the key stakeholders in child protective services and child welfare.

This volume provides a wide spectrum description analysis of the contemporary and well established child protection systems in a range of countries, such as Australia, Canada, Netherlands and Spain. It presents a brief orientation about the public and private systems involved in protecting children in each country. Further the book identifies current key policy and implementation drivers that orient the systems of child protection, such as children's rights, family preservation, use of evidence and public health orientation. Finally it presents a critical analysis of the strengths and limitations of the systems, as well as, strategies for prospects for improving outcomes for children and their families.