Archive

By Elisabeth Reichert.
Columbia University Press
ISBN 0231123086
£41.50

Although Elisabeth Reichert comes to the notion of a human rights approach to social care from a US perspective, nothing is lost in translation. In fact, she goes to great lengths to exemplify her ideas and notions by including European and global illustrations.

She explains the UN Convention of Human Rights and then develops the principles by asking questions, giving case studies and offering her own perspective. Reichert says, this text is not a users' guide. That said, chapter 8, on applications, provides a range of practice areas that users will find instructive.

Reichert argues forcefully that human rights in the domain of social care provides us with a powerful challenge against oppression of vulnerable groups. My one criticism is that she does not explore the difficulties of conflicting rights. As providers of social care intervene to protect one human right, they may risk subverting another. Assessment tools are not always up to the task and we risk colluding with the very oppression we are at pains to avoid.

Reichert opens up her subject in an accessible and interactive manner and provides us with one of the best frameworks for testing social care provision that I have seen to date.

Jane Campbell is chairperson of the Social Care Institute for Excellence.