Social Work Law: Applying the Law in Practice, Michelle Evans and Denise Harvey

Abstract

Recent years have seen a significant period of change in relation to social work law, albeit its implementation has been frustrated with reform frequently delayed due to national challenges in relation to the UK’s exit from the European Union and the impact of the global pandemic. Understandably, these events have taken the focus away from the implementation of domestic law, particularly in relation to mental health legislation. Evans and Harvey’s new textbook seeks to provide some genuine clarity for social work students and others by placing its focus on the relationship between law and practice. The landscape of legal literature for social work benefits from high-quality books such as Carr and Goosey’s (2019) ‘Law for Social Workers’ and Brammer’s (2020) equally valuable contribution ‘Social Work Law’. These established texts have been updated regularly and provide a very broad coverage of the primary legal territory with as much detail as would reasonably be possible in a general text. Other writers turn their attention to the application of the law, seeking to support the understanding of the interface between law and practice. Braye and Preston-Shoot’s (2020) exploration of The Care Act 2014 very much fits into this mould, exploring issues such as adult safeguarding and including chapters such as ‘The Care Act: the service user’s perspective’ by Beresford and Slasberg, which takes the reader right into the applied reality of social work law. Evans and Harvey seek to strike a balance between these two approaches and to use their experience of practice to help provide a degree of context to assist readers to make sense of how they understand the law.