Palliative Care, Social Work and Service Users: Making Life Possible

Suzy Croft · Peter Beresford · Lesley Adshead

Nov 2006 · Jessica Kingsley Publishers

About this ebook

This unique book provides a rare look at social work and palliative care from the perspective of service users. It is the first to investigate specialist palliative care social work from this viewpoint.

Drawing on new original research, the authors examine service users' experiences of social work and palliative care, tracking their journeys through it, exploring the care they receive and the effects of culture and difference through their first hand comments and ideas. The writers link service users' critiques with broader debates and developments in social work and palliative care and consider the implications of the book's findings for the formation of policy and practice and for future professional education and training.

A groundbreaking text, Palliative Care, Social Work and Service Users is of particular value to social work professionals, palliative care workers, educators, researchers and policy makers.

About the author

Peter Beresford is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University, Visiting Fellow at the University of East Anglia's School of Social Work and Psychosocial Studies, Trustee of the Social Care Institute for Excellence and Chair of Shaping Our Lives. Lesley Adshead is a research associate at Birkbeck, University of London. She was formerly a senior social worker at St John's Palliative Care Centre and taught Specialist Palliative Care Social Work at Middlesex University. Suzy Croft is a senior social worker at St. John's Palliative Care Centre and Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University. She is a trustee of two leading UK palliative care organisations and she is a member of the editorial collective of Critical Social Policy.