Learning from History : Lesson 2 : A Comprehensive Assessment
Monday, October 1st, 2007 by David Lane &, chrisdurkin  In the
August edition of the Webmag, we explained that a study of
social work files covering the last three or four decades had
suggested that there were lessons for today’s practitioners. For
the purpose of this series, six topics have been chosen, and in
each case, David Lane describes what he has found out from the
files, and Chris Durkin comments from the viewpoint of current
practice and teaching about social work. It should be emphasised
that the Lessons will all focus on general issues, and will not
disclose any confidential information.  David Lane :  Last month
I suggested that the main way of avoiding bad practice was the
steady application of good standard practice, simply doing what
might reasonably be expected of professional workers. This month
I am focusing on one aspect of practice.  Assessment is part of
good standard practice in social work, but time and again in the
files I