You write something in order that it can be read, not in order that it can be written – write reports that achieve and illuminate.

The best-selling Writing Analytical Assessments in Social Work guides you through the principles of good writing and methodically shows you:

• how to analyse
• how to structure the process of writing an assessment (researching, chronologising, informed data-gathering, putting it all together), and
• how to get this done under time constraints.

The new edition goes further than just teaching writing skills by exploring the practical and psychological barriers to good practice. It also looks at how you turn good analysis into useful recommendations – making it something useful for the family - by applying the same analytical, critical thinking.

Written in an accessible way and packed with examples and case studies, this book is both practically-minded and constantly returning to first principles: reminding you what it is you are trying to achieve and teaching you how to write reports that can be read by families and judges alike. You will learn how to write high quality, useful and timely assessments without becoming mechanistic or managerial. This book kills the myth of a trade-off between efficiency and quality of work.

Chris is a Lecturer in Social Work at Goldsmith’s University, studying the decision-making process around violent offenders. He has also researched the outcomes of court proceedings, the construction of autism, and the sociology of values, religion and immigration. Chris worked as a local authority social worker for nine years and as an independent social worker for three years. He writes regularly on social work practice and social issues.

Chris believes in the necessity of challenging pervasive views, especially his own.