The Values-based Practice Manual

Values are at the heart of best practice. This important manual offers a successful blend of theoretical understanding with very helpful practice guidance to enable readers to make sense of the complex but vitally important issues.

“The manual is infused with a moral urgency and commitment to help readers become ‘the best practitioner you can be’, insisting on honest engagement by the reader with what the implications are for their own practice, their own professional selves and development”

From the Foreword by Professor Harry Ferguson.

This is an ideal resource for anyone involved in types of work where success depends on effective engagement with people.In this manual, Moss and Thompson present the centrality of values in working with people, bringing together and developing a range of pertinent ideas. They usefully introduce key concepts and offer ideas for reflection and development in a coherent flow. I enjoyed going through it, as it enabled me to look in a mirror at whether I can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. It offers an invaluable resource for students and experienced practitioners in remembering the important core of our work.

Abyd Quinn Aziz, Programme Director MA Social Work,Cardiff University

Too many manuals mistake best practice for the mastery of techniques and so relegate the role of values to a perfunctory preface. The Values-based Practice Manual, however, re-opens the door to another view, in which values are at the core of our being and doing – ‘the blood that courses through our veins’ – for all critical and ethical practitioners addressing the impact of complex forms of oppression in the lives of the people they work with and for.

Dr Phillip Ablett, Sociologist and Social Work Educator,University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Students and practitioners in a range of settings will benefit from the fresh light this thought-provoking manual throws on the nature and importance of values in ‘people work’. Easy to read and full of opportunities for the reader to reflect on their own journey into practice, to see more clearly ‘who they are’, it will provide readers with an invaluable anchor point for professional practice and for decision making in the future.

Iolo Madoc Jones, Professor of Criminal and Social Justice,Wrexham Glyndŵr University

BASW Cymru is delighted to endorse this new practice manual from Bernard Moss and our very own Ambassador, Neil Thompson. Neil is a giant of academia and practice, not only in Wales, but internationally. Neil’s work continues to be the gold standard for students and practising social workers because Neil writes for practice, in that his work is accessible, relatable and doable for busy practitioners. There surely can be no more important time than now to support staff in maintaining the highest values in practice.

Allison Hulmes, National Director, BASW Cymru