Key features of the book include:

- Establishes an understanding of the policy context within which social work takes place, with particular attention to key topics such as inter-professional collaboration and ethics.

- Goes beyond other textbooks to challenge the restricted nature of social work practice, and adopts a positive view of its potential to benefit older people.

- An engaging and practice-led approach which includes student-friendly features and detailed practice scenarios.

- Satisfies the curriculum benchmarks and National Occupational Standards that structure social work training and practice.

Written by a leading academic, this is a key text for social work trainees. Its analytical depth will ensure that it will also be valuable for students undertaking post-qualifying courses, and for those in related disciplines such as health and community care, social policy and social gerontology. Its practice-based and inter-professional approach will mean it is also useful for health and social care practitioners seeking to improve the quality of practice with older people.

`Drawing on both theory and research as well as the author's clear knowledge of current practice, this book is able to deal with practice realities in ways which many texts cannot. It offers social workers realistic options for how to approach their work' - Karen Postle, University of East Anglia