What is social work at its best? Social work has laboured too long under a 'deficit' model that focuses on failings and problems of practice. This ambitious book seeks to redress the balance, with its emphasis on best practice, strengths and collaborative partnership. Each of its 16 chapters provides a detailed account of practice, offering a series of vivid windows onto day-to-day social work at its best, framed by concepts and ideas drawn from critical theory. The resulting text combines theory, illustration, evidence and analysis in a way that promotes reflection on what makes good practice and why. Undergraduate and post-qualifying social work students alike will benefit from the insights offered by this rich, wide-ranging and multi-facetted text.