The Social Work Business

With the contemporary transfer of private sector rationality into state services, the distinction between the private and the public sectors has been increasingly difficult to sustain.The Social Work Businessgives a comprehensive picture of social work in its new guise as a quasi-public enterprise: its origins, its characteristics, its ramifications for the education of social workers and its impact on managers, practitioners, service users, carers and voluntary organizations.

John Harris is a Professor in the School of Health and Social Studies, University of Warwick and Visiting Professor in Sozialpadagogik, University of Wuppertal.