Good Practice With Vulnerable Adults
| Pages | 47-48 |
| Published date | 01 February 2003 |
| Date | 01 February 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200300010 |
| Author | Keith Sumner |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Sociology |
The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 5 Issue 1 • February 2003 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited 47
This volume provides the reader with a collection of broad-
ranging papers that deal with several key aspects of dilemmas
and considerations in work around the protection of
vulnerable adults from abuse.
These can be grouped into a commentary on the current
operational framework offered by No Secrets (chapter one) and
those chapters offering perspectives on the identification and
investigation of suspected abuse from the viewpoint of social
workers, inspection staff, police and the medical profession
(chapters two to 16). An exploration of the important role of
‘citizen advocates’ and the potential it has to empower
vulnerable adults is also undertaken (chapter 14).
Chapters seven and 11 to 13 illustrate in more detail the
reality of the work of a registration and inspection officer and
the particular complexities of working with older people who
abuse alcohol and those suffering from mental health
problems. Within this context the author picks up on neglect
(including self-neglect) as a form of abuse to illustrate the very
real tensions between self-determination, choice, and
protection.
The remaining chapters – eight to 10 – consider in some
depth what we know about domestic violence, both in terms
of its incidence and parallels with adult abuse as they relate to
policy formation and practice responses. It is proposed that a
concordance between such working practices and close co-
operation between respective local structures be sought.
Pritchard also includes a revealing chapter on abuse
experienced in earlier life and considers its impact and
relevance to our understanding of behaviour and responses to
abuse in later life, in this case among older women.
She also picks up on the need to develop extensive training
strategies and the place for initiating work with the
perpetrators of abuse, rarely enacted. Hughes, in his
Book review
Good Practice With
Vulnerable Adults
Jacki Pritchard (Editor)
London: Jessica Kingsley
Publishing Ltd (2001)
318pp, £16.95
ISBN 1 85302 982 3
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