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Task-centred work

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Book cover Social Work

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Abstract

One of the biggest challenges facing the social work profession is how to square professional practice with the ‘circle’ of organisational constraints. The break-up of social work into its constituent tasks and the increasingly proceduralised nature of the work of agency practitioners are two factors which lead back to Brewer and Lait’s question of 1980, Can Social Work Survive? (Brewer and Lait, 1980).

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Further reading

  • Doel, M. (1994) ‘Task-centred work’, in Hanvey, C. and Philpot, T. (eds) Practising Social Work (London, Routledge). Offers a brief overview of the task-centred method.

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  • Doel, M. and Marsh, P. (1992) Task-Centred Social Work (Aldershot, Ashgate). Offers a detailed account of the task-centred model in contemporary British practice.

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  • Reid, W. J. (1992) Task Strategies: An Empirical Approach to Social Work (New York, Columbia University Press).

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  • Tolson, E. R., Reid, W. J. and Garvin, C. D. (1994) Generalist Practice: A Task Centered Approach (New York, Columbia University Press). These two books provide an interesting account of recent developments in the task-centred model, especially with regard to its position as a generalist practice method and the development of task-centred techniques.

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  • Reid, W. J. and Epstein, L. (1972) Task-centred Casework (New York, Columbia University Press). Allows you to understand the origins of the model by returning to first text.

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Authors
  1. Mark Doel
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, UK

    Robert Adams (Professor of Human Services Development) (Professor of Human Services Development)

  2. Department of Social Work Studies, University of Southampton, UK

    Lena Dominelli (Professor of Social and Community Development) (Professor of Social and Community Development)

  3. Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

    Malcolm Payne (Professor of Applied Community Studies) (Professor of Applied Community Studies)

Copyright information

© 1998 Mark Doel

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Doel, M. (1998). Task-centred work. In: Adams, R., Dominelli, L., Payne, M., Campling, J. (eds) Social Work. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14400-6_16

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