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Elder Abuse, Education and Training

The focus of both these recent publications is to give professional workers not simply an understanding of abuse of older people but skills of assessment and intervention. The authors admittedly had relatively little source material on which to draw but they have demonstrated commitment to the subject and therefore added to the literature. Pritchard is well known in the field of elder abuse and produced prior to this work some interesting findings from local research in the Midlands. She is both a professional social worker and a trainer, which adds to her insight into the needs of practitioners daily called upon to deal with abuse. The handbook adds little new, but draws on valuable material and the case studies are, in my opinion, excellent. On the other hand, Phillipson and Biggs's background in academia suggests an approach which some professionals may find irksome namely that the theory does not easily translate into practical application. Pritchard's approach reflects her experience and her style invites the reader to learn with, rather than from her; by contrast, the more didactic approach of Phillipson and Biggs seems, in places, a little patronising. From my own experience of training professionals both handbooks are perhaps a little too prescriptive as I prefer participants to draw on their own experiences and cases from which we discover and learn. Understanding Elder Abuse is divided into six parts, the first of which explores the social context of abuse; part two discusses definitions (by far the most excellent section); part three provides case studies; four, assessment and intervention (by far the weakest) and part five, abuse in different settings. Prevention is highlighted in part six. Claudine McCreadie (Social Work Today 20.8.92) when reviewing Phillipson and