Problem gambling: a suitable case for social work?

Problem gambling attracts little attention from health and social care agencies in the UK. Prevalence surveys suggest that 0.6% of the population are problem gamblers and it is suggested that for each of these individuals, 10–17 other people, including children and other family members, are affected. Problem gambling is linked to many individual and social problems including: depression, suicide, significant debt, bankruptcy, family conflict, domestic violence, neglect and maltreatment of children and offending. This makes the issue central to social work territory. Yet, the training of social workers in the UK has consistently neglected issues of addictive behaviour. Whilst some attention has been paid in recent years to substance abuse issues, there has remained a silence in relation to gambling problems. Social workers provide more help for problems relating to addictions than other helping professions. There is good evidence that treatment, and early intervention for gambling problems, including psycho-social and public health approaches, can be very effective. This paper argues that problem gambling should be moved onto the radar of the social work profession, via inclusion on qualifying and post-qualifying training programmes and via research and dissemination of good practice via institutions such as the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Keywords: problem gambling; addictive behaviour; socia

Editorial : A snapshot of social work in the Asia-Pacific region

202305 bcwwAccepted ManuscriptSelf-fundedPublishe

Decision Support Systems to Promote Health and Well-being of People during their Working Age: the Case of the WorkingAge EU Project

The WorkingAge project aims at improving the psycho-physical condition of workers, with a special focus on ageing subjects. In this context, a Decision Support System, based on a hybrid data-driven/model-driven approach, fed with data coming from environmental and wearable sensors, aims to provide personalised advises to the worker. In this paper we briefly present the WorkingAge project and architecture, and then focus on the decision-making pipeline that, starting from raw data, generates the advises

Editorial: Resilient, Steadfast and Forward-Looking: The Story of Social Work in the UK Told through 50 Years of the British Journal of Social Work

The late 1960s and early 1970s was a remarkable period in the history of social work in the UK. The 12th of June 1970 was a particularly historic moment which marked the formal recognition of the emerging profession itself. Seven professional associations (the Association of Child Care Officers, the Association of Family Case Workers, the Association of Psychiatric Social Workers, the Association of Social Workers, the Institute of Medical Social Workers, the Moral Welfare Workers’ Association and the Society of Mental Welfare Officers) came together to establish The British Association of Social Workers (BASW). Social work research and social work education were not far behind. Early in 1971, the first issue of the British Journal of Social Work (BJSW) was published, and a few years later, the new Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW) discharged its first qualified workers into newly created, unified Social Services (Social Work in Scotland) Departments. A new profession with an ambitious brief was born, eager to claim its place on a public service landscape dominated by other long-established occupations