What are my values? What are the values of others around me? What are the values and ethics of the social work profession? An awareness of our own ethical assumptions, and how these inform our practice, is crucial for the student social worker. The second edition of this bestselling book is now split into two parts. Part 1 considers the foundations of every person's values and provides a background to moral philosophy. Part 2 examines key ethical issues and how they determine practice, such as using power, allocating resources, treating others with respect and celebrating diversity. For the second edition, two new chapters have been added to the book, on: - The political dimension in ethical decision making - Realism as a guiding ethical principle. Written in a uniquely straightforward style, everyday social work practice is the key focus throughout. Every chapter includes interactive exercises and case studies, challenging students to reflect on a range of practical dilemmas. Chris Beckett and Andrew Maynard's book is essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduate social work students.

Author Biography

Chris Beckett qualified as a social worker in the 1980s, and worked in the field for 18 years, first as a social worker and then as a manager, latterly as the manager of a children and families social work team. Like most social workers who qualified at that time, he started out as a 'generic' social worker, working with a range of service users including children and families, old people, and people with mental health problems and disabilities, but his predominant area of work was always with children and families. He moved into academic social work in 2000, working first at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and then at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. In addition to his social work text books, he has published academic articles on a variety of topics including the use of military language in social work, the importance of realism as an ethical principle, and statistics from Sweden about child abuse, following the legal ban there on corporal punishment. His main research area has been decision-making in court proceedings about children, and decision-making about children more generally. Chris has a parallel career as a writer of literary science fiction, and has achieved some acclaim in this field. He won the Edge Hill Short Fiction prize for his story collection, The Turing Test, and the Arthur C. Clarke award for his novel Dark Eden. He now divides his time between his academic career and his fiction writing. More information about his fiction can be found at www.chris-beckett.com. His view is that 'academic' and 'creative' writing have more in common than might at first sight appear: in both cases the author begins with a jumble of ideas that seem to him to be in some way linked together, and attempts, in large part by a combination of intuition and trial and error, to impose some shape and structure. Chris has three adult children, and lives in Cambridge with his wife Maggie and sundry animals.