The process of engaging in social work assessment should be therapeutic and perceived of as part of the range of services offered. This view acknowledges that assessment is more than an administrative task, a form of gatekeeping for resources, or a means of determining risk. It confirms the need for assessment and intervention to be conceptualized as part of a continuum of contact between social worker and service user. This essential book, acclaimed in its first edition, offers social workers an extensively revised, restructured, updated, and comprehensive guide to empowering practice for themselves and for the people with whom they work. Using case illustrations, evidence-based guidance, and practical activities combined with extensive references, this valuable learning resource will help students, practitioners, managers, trainers, and policy-makers synthesize their social work knowledge and theory, to provide holistic support and effective services. Based on UK legal regulations, this second edition is geared towards the needs of those in graduate training courses, as well as for a range of in-service training in voluntary or statutory social work and social care. It combines the practice elements of assessment and intervention in a uniquely integrated way, which is consistent with an anti-oppressive practice and the foundational values and skills of modern psycho-social practice.