Book review: A Practical Guide to Working with Reluctant Clients in Health and Social Care

This book, the author states, is for "practitioners in the broadest sense; all workers who try to make relationships with people who don't want help". There are 15 chapters with exercises for interactive learning and a concise summary in each one.

By helen peddlesden on March 30, 2011 in Workforce

A Practical Guide to Working with Reluctant Clients in Health and Social Care

★★★

Maggie Kindred and Cath Kindred

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

ISBN: 9781849051026

This book, the author states, is for “practitioners in the broadest sense; all workers who try to make relationships with people who don’t want help”. There are 15 chapters with exercises for interactive learning and a concise summary in each one.

The title is misleading, however, because it’s really about basic practice issues including power, staying safe and recording. It would have been more useful to explore in depth the actual reluctance of clients and how to overcome this.

The chapters need to be more focused, an example is how the author refers to the effects of horror and violent films on some people with mental health problems but without offering tips or guidance on how to deal with service users who become angry or violent when their viewing habits are interfered with. More about how this relates to research and how you would approach this would have been useful.

However, the practice issues included make easy reading with good topics which would enable helpful discussion, with students or with practitioners in training.

Interestingly the author chose to look at dress code when working with reluctant clients. This is a consideration for all work, not just with reluctant clients. However, in terms of health and safety the author highlighted the “colour of clothing in a psychiatric setting”. This could have been further expanded for example items of clothing that could put you in danger in any setting, ie a scarf or necklace and reasons for this.

The focus seems broad and less geared towards working with reluctant clients and more about general issues. Its strength, however, is the use of the practical exercises at the end of each chapter.

Helen Peddlesden is a senior practitioner in adult care and freelance practice assessor and mentor in Bristol

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