Review: The Effectiveness of Health Impact Assessment: Scope and Limitations of Supporting Decision-Making in Europe Matthias Wismar, Julia Blau, Kelly Ernst and Josep Figueras (eds) World Health Organization, Copenhagen, 2007, 291pp, ISBN 978—92—890—7295—3, £21.85 (pbk)

These themes are underpinned by earlier chapters which provide a base for understanding practice including Mary Rayner’s very helpful chapter on ethics and values in social work. Here she demonstrates a set of principles which should be seen as essential to measuring ‘performance’ at student practitioner and managerial levels. The final three chapters in many ways provide the main learning from the book. At a practical level, Maisch offers a schema which enables social workers to think about learning derived from portfolios in an innovative way. Similarly, Lawson-Brown’s informative chapter – although perhaps a little too UK orientated – has resonance for an international audience interested in constructing best practice methods for practice. Overall, this handbook ‘gets it right’ in terms of balance and does not, for example, unduly focus on any one social work practice. Clearly, in terms of social work education, the book has value at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, but – importantly – it can serve as a useful reference guide and resource for more experienced and busy practitioners who can simply ‘dip into’ it. In this way the book may somewhat resemble Martin Davies’ Blackwell Companion to Social Work or Coulshed and her colleagues’ Management in Social Work. Its central message is that what social workers do well (the skills component) is, in part, dependent on how they think about, consider and ponder their activity (the reflective component). Perhaps the tension regarding the role of social work being perceived as solely concerned either with ‘direct work’ or conversely as ‘case management’ could have been elaborated on more. This is immensely important in the context of changing patterns of work and intervention. Nevertheless, the Post-Qualifying Handbook for Social Workers is a solid, reliable contribution which has value for those already practising as social workers and those – students – preparing for it. Pat Dolan National University of Ireland, Galway