Techniques and Guidelines for Social Work Practice (5th Edition)

This text summarizes and recaps many of the techniques and procedures that social work students have learned in their coursework. Parts I and II of the text summarize the essential foundation elements of social work practice. Parts III and IV then set out 160 techniques and guidelines that can be used by students and new practitioners.

Students often keep this text as a reference as they begin their professional practice; Chapter 2, “Merging Person with Profession,” particularly addresses establishing oneself in a social work career and successfully managing both work and personal life. New to this edition are sections on working with managed care, battered women, gay, lesbian, or bisexual clients, clients with eating disorders, and clients experiencing grief or loss. Material has been added on cultural competence and macro practice. Also, new to this edition is a printed Instructor's Manual/Test Bank as well as a complete website that includes teaching suggestions.

Brad Sheafor is Professor of Social Work at Colorado State University where has taught a wide variety of courses in both the BSW and MSW programs. He has also served in administrative positions including Director of the social work program, Associate Dean for Research and Interim Dean of the umbrella college that includes social work, Associate Director of the Human Factors Research Laboratory, and Co-Director of the Family and Youth Institute.

                Dr. Sheafor has served as a juvenile probation officer, director of a community planning council, and as president of his local United Way. He has been a member of the Exam Committee for the Association of Social Work Boards (licensing), part of the workgroup creating NASW’s Center for Workforce Studies, and a founding member of the Baccalaureate Program Directors Association. With the Council on Social Work Education he has been President, Senior Scholar, and recipient of CSWE’s Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award. He has also been a Fulbright Lecturer to New Zealand and a Visiting Fellow in Australia.

                Dr. Sheafor is co-author of 23 books listed with the Library of Congress. In addition to Techniques for Social Work Practice (8 editions with Charles Horejsi), he has co-authored 12 editions of Social Work: A Profession of Many Faces (with Armando Morales and Malcolm Scott), a history of the development of baccalaureate social work in the United States (with Barbara Shank), a book on field instruction (edited with Lowell Jenkins), and book reporting a comprehensive task analysis of social work practice (with Robert Teare).

Charles Horejsi is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Montana having served that university for a number of years as a faculty member teaching primarily child welfare and social work practice courses, as well as being involved with the School of Social Work’s field instruction program.

                A licensed clinical social worker, Dr. Horejsi had practice experience in marriage and family counseling, child welfare, and juvenile probation. He conducted agency staff training in more than a dozen states and received the Montana NASW’s “Social Worker of the Year” award recognizing his many contributions to strengthening the quality of social work in that state.

                Dr. Horejsi’s research has focused on risk assessment in child protection, issues of worker safety on the job, and on methods of assessment and case planning in child welfare agencies. In addition to numerous monographs and more than 30 professional articles, Dr. Horejsi has authored or co-authored 13 books listed with the Library of Congress. These publications include: Family Foster Care: A Handbook for Social Workers, Social Work Practice with Parents of Children in Foster Care: A Handbook (with Anne Vandeberg Bertsche and Frank Clark), three editions of  The Social Work Practicum: A Guide and Workbook for Students (with Cynthia Garthwait), and eight editions of Techniques and Guidelines for Social Work Practice (with Bradford Sheafor).