Book review: Messy Social Work by Richard Devine
Reviewed by Katie Sell, Blue Sky Fostering
I really enjoyed reading this book. It provides an overview of decision making and ultimately, never knowing if the decisions you make were right. In my view, the best practitioners keep that in mind in terms of always wanting to do better. We make hundreds of decisions a day and essentially, just as the title says, that can be ‘messy.’ Indeed, we can never truly know if a decision we made was right as each decision leads to a new set of doors opening that we often can’t go back from.
I think that my overriding thought regarding this book is that it brings to life the often ‘secret’ world of social work. We don’t talk about it, narratives are made in the media or in often poorly played out TV programmes that feed into the public view of social work with children. This book gives social work a voice!
It also refers to the messy side of social work in terms of feelings i.e. hearing a judge agree with your assessment but navigating the feelings around that. The book further goes on to discuss the link between childhood adversity, trauma and the cycle of abuse, and the lack of ‘choice’ that parents have, whilst society firmly believes a parent is making a choice. Often in social work, with poorly resourced services, we treat the symptoms of an underlying problem with the incorrect belief that the symptoms are the actual problem. It signifies the importance of a chronology when working with a family.
From my perspective, this would be an excellent book for a student social worker, or a newly qualified social worker to read as it offers real life examples and advice. Working in fostering, I think it could also provide some valuable insight for foster parents to read in understanding the complexity of decision making.
