Social Work Risk Assessment Essay

Student social workers are taught that assessments are an integral part of being a practicing social worker and during placement this is a time to learn, develop skills and work with individuals in order to complete organisation assessments. Beckett et al (2008) defines ‘social work assessment and interventions’ as being ‘core skills for qualified social workers and fundamental learning requirements for trainee/student social workers’ (Beckett, et al, 2011:8). In regards to defining ‘assessments’ many researches have agreed with Crisps et al (2003) analysis of assessment being that of ‘involves collecting and analyzing information about people with the aim of understanding their situation and determining recommendations for any further professional

Crisps et al (2005) focused on the point that ‘risk assessment is a significant component of many assessments and requires discussion in its own right’ (Whittington, 2007:[Online]). Crisps et al (2005) further explained the extent that risk has on assessments, specifically in the UK with the emphasis on learning from student text books to teaching, as being ‘a fact that reflects the authorship of the frameworks by UK government agencies and the resolve of governments to place issues of risk at the forefront of policies in social care and health’ (Whittington, 2007:[Online]). Lymbery et al (2007) explained that ‘there is no clear theoretical articulation of assessment and often a technical-bureaucratic understanding of assessment as a task to be completed or a key role to be performed’ (Lymbery et al, 2007, p115). This can be quite simply put as that social workers fail in regards to understanding the reasons behind the assessment (the underpinning legislation and case study), instead social workers have more of an ‘organizational’ understanding to completing assessments (time boundary and a completing