Post-Qualifying Mental Health Social Work Practice
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Post-Qualifying Mental Health Social Work Practice
Jim Campbell
and Gavin Davidson
Jim Campbell and Gavin Davidson 2012
First published 2012
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Contents
About the Authors
Jim Campbell qualified as a social worker in 1986 and practised as a mental health social worker for five years before joining Queens University Belfast as a lecturer, then senior lecturer. He has a range of teaching and research interests including mental health social work and law and the impact of political violence on social work practice. He has recently been appointed as Professor of Social Work at Goldmiths, University of London. He is currently co-editor of the British Journal of Social Work with his colleague, Professor John Pinkerton, Queens University Belfast.
Gavin Davidson qualified as a social worker in 1995 then worked for 12 years in mental health services, in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, as a Community Mental Team social worker, out of hours Approved Social Worker, project manager and team leader in assertive outreach and rehabilitation. He moved to Queens University Belfast to be a social work lecturer in 2008 and his research interests are in all aspects of mental health social work, especially the deinstitutionalisation process, the effectiveness of mental health services, trauma and coercion, the recovery approach and mental health legislation. He lives in Belfast with his wife, Katherine, and two sons, Leo and Patrick. Patrick was born between .
Preface
This is a specialist text for post-qualified social workers, and other mental health professionals, who are interested in exploring the complexities of practice using a broad range of explanatory theories and evidence-based approaches. In writing this book we were mindful of the debates about the current mental health social work role (Ramon, 2009; Campbell, 2010) and how it might be changing because of the advent of the generic Approved Mental Health Professional (AMHP) in England and Wales, as well as the potential dilution of professional identity caused by the integration of social work practitioners in multidisciplinary teams.
As will become apparent, however, the book presents a forceful argument for a strong, recognizable identity for mental social workers built upon a solid knowledge base and broad-based application of skills that complement the work of other professionals in this field. We argue that, in the midst of the inevitable changes to role and function created by shifts in law, policy and organization, a discernible position can be identified and maintained for social workers in mental services. For these reasons we believe the text will be of particular interest to mental health social workers practising and studying mental health social work at various levels within systems of post-qualifying education and training across the UK.
The text begins with summaries of four core knowledge areas which inform the rest of the book an Introduction to the various forms of post-qualifying education and training in the UK followed by three chapters on Policy and Agency Contexts, Legal Contexts and Models of Mental Health and Illness. These provide essential, background contextual knowledge that then underpins the other chapters in the book. The following chapters, which focus on the application of theory to practice, are each preceded by references to National Occupational Standards, learning outcomes and case study material. Throughout the book you are encouraged to reflect upon your learning using selected questions, exercises and further reading. We hope you will find it particularly interesting in its use of diverse case material illustrating the many types of mental health problems that individuals, families and groups experience, and how these experiences are shaped by issues of age, class, gender, ethnicity and religion.
The Introduction presents an overarching discussion on the educational and training contexts that inform mental health social work practice in each of the four jurisdictions of the UK. It also explains the history of the specialism and contemporary arguments about the need for critical, reflexive learning approaches that can help us understand the complexity of the mental health social work role.
will help you to explore these factors. It highlights the way that policies and organizations have been shaped, in particular, by the process of deinstitutionalization in each of the jurisdictions of the UK. This has led to more community-based approaches to service delivery which will be familiar to readers. As with other chapters, we hope that you will be able to critically analyse the processes that inform practice in these organizations.
The next core knowledge chapter describes and discusses how mental health laws are used by mental health social workers. Thus in we review the history of mental health laws in the UK and the mandates used by mental health social workers to compel service users to accept hospital- or community-based care and treatment. In deciding to coerce citizens in this way, mental health social workers face many practice dilemmas which you may be able to recognize.
The final core knowledge chapter, , focuses on models of mental health and illness. Mental health social workers are required to understand key paradigms and discourses about mental health and illness. In this chapter a number of key debates in this area are discussed and analysed. We argue that you should be mindful of the importance of the predominant discourses around the medical model but that mental health social workers also need to engage in alternative, critical views on how mental ill-health occurs, and therefore which interventions can be used to address service user needs.
