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Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace is a practical text that examines a range of sensitive issues concerned with managing and maintaining professional boundaries between worker and client. It uses experiences from probation, social work, the NHS, small business and church settings. A number of issues are addressed including: the relationship between personal and professional values changing professional-client relationships definitions of 'being professional' conflicts arising from different understandings of professionalism.

Services for People with Learning Disabilities provides a broad review of available services for people with learning disabilities. It describes the present network of services and explains the NHS and Community Care Act (1990) in terminoloy accessible to health care professionals and others engaged in this area. It looks in detail at the concepts underpinning new legislation, including care-management and assessment, quality and inspection, and inter-agency planning, and it supplies up-to-date information on current topics such as advocacy and empowerment, and recreation and leisure. An invaluable resource for all practitioners in health and community care, Services for People with Learning Disabilities will also give professionals and carers a much greater understanding of the changes and improvements that are still needed.

The individual chapters of this book collectively present perspectives on how professionalism and professional boundaries have been re-defined. These examples have been drawn largely from health and social welfare fields and are based upon recent research. The suggestion of Abbott (1988) that a way of thinking about professional work is as something that is defined and re-defined through continuous struggle between occupational groups is as valid now as it was then. Professionalism is viewed as a shifting phenomenon, with the values and attributes of professionals subject to change and struggle. The discourse of enterprise (du Gay 1992) referred to continuously has contributed to profound organisational change, impacting upon professional workplace practices in both public and private sectors.

Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace looks at professionalism as a set of workplace practices where boundaries have been redefined in response to socioeconomic and cultural pressures. It uses examples principally from fields of health and social welfare, with the majority of chapters presenting new research findings. Different scenarios are depicted as a response to factors embedded in contemporary culture such as commercialism, credentialism and enterprise. The changed nature of professionalism is viewed also as a response to pressures from the Left and from the user movement. Partnerships and participation are taken as appropriate goals for professionalism, including desirability of extending service-user involvement into broader occupational groupings of caring professionals. Research studies contained in separate chapters are based on probation, social work, community care, NHS, small business and church settings. They address a number of issues including: the relationship between personal and professional values, changing professional-client relationships, definitions of 'being professional', conflicts arising from different understandings of professionalism, and the construction of professional boundaries.

This chapter focuses on policy directions for social and community care within the UK and assesses change and development for the caring professions. In part, the shifting, peripheral and unspecified nature of care in the community is blamed for the failure of groups to professionalise, gain control and achieve closure status. In addition the mixed economy of care has tended to emphasise the need for staff to possess appropriate values, skills and attitudes, and for this to have greater importance than forms of academic training. A drive to 'modernise' health and social care services led by central government in the late 1990s has been accompanied by the search for an underpinning knowledge-base, and also for greater professional and hierarchical accountability. The argument is that this is creating a challenge for caring professions and is leading to the development of different types of expertise within social care.

Johnson Kelley and Walmsley Jan, with Wolfe Marie (2010), People with Intellectual Disabilities: Towards a Good Life?Bristol: Policy Press. £24.99, pp. 204, pbk.

The past decade has witnessed a move towards increased community residential care for the mentally handicapped, essentially involving an expansion of hostels and group homes. The latter has been viewed as a serious alternative only for the more able members: those sufficient in a modicum of independence and behavioural skills. The present paper explores the importance of group interactional dynamics within the framework of providing residential care in ordinary houses for groups of up to five mentally handicapped adults. The use of group theory perspectives concentrates on the potential of individuals to achieve effective social skills that contribute to adequate group harmony. The findings illustrate the potential of meeting the needs of the less able within group home settings through an emphasis on assessment of total group needs rather than on an aggregate of individuals comprising the group. These are discussed within the contest of current efforts both at policy and provider level to expand care within the community.

Examines assessment of mental retardation, and provision of housing, recreation, financial, and other services; Great Britain.