Abstract
According to Cooper, there is a considerable lack of training and resources that address professional boundaries in the UK. Although this invariably differs from sector to sector, Professional Boundaries offers a basic introductory guide and generic outline of some of the main concerns. The book is well-structured and accessible, describing many concepts with a strong grounding in everyday situations and experiences. It provides a clear overview of the main guiding principles on professional boundaries with the stated aim of helping workers to develop greater self-awareness concerning issues such as trust, good practice and confidentiality.
To begin, Cooper uses an interactive approach to engage readers. The inclusion of a self-assessment questionnaire in Chapter 2 enables practitioners to reflect upon their own behaviour and reactions in challenging situations. Questions in this section are realistic and range from the scenario of meeting clients in the street after work hours to being given a gift by a client in the workplace. Cooper’s knowledge and appreciation of the topics discussed, informed by his experience as a social care professional, come to the fore in this book, which succeeds in making the issues surrounding boundaries seem interconnected and relevant. However, it is important to note that Cooper does not provide a prescriptive guide to managing or maintaining boundaries but rather emphasizes the importance of workers using their own professional judgement when deciding how to apply the concepts presented. This helps to avoid the book reading as a self-help manual and means that instead it offers a practical and malleable guide for workers when managing support for clients. This is a book that could be used for students, current social care workers and practice teachers in social care settings.
In the next two chapters, the book discusses what professional boundaries are and why we have them. Cooper describes the ways in which clients and workers are protected from misunderstandings and emotional harm through boundary maintenance. The mutual benefits of managing boundaries are clearly listed, ranging from ensuring consistent service delivery to building the client’s independence and self-reliance. Each benefit is described in a short paragraph with examples to illustrate its importance. However, although concise, these paragraphs are at times too brief to give the reader a full explanation of issues such as structure in social care practice and complaint procedures. Professional Boundaries does provide a practical guide to understanding and managing boundaries but its overall content and analysis would have been better represented by the inclusion of the word ‘introduction’ in the book title.
In Chapters 5−7, Cooper discusses confidentiality, beginning and ending relationships and professional boundaries and the law. He explains that by making the difference between confidentiality and secrecy clear to clients from the outset this can ensure that information sharing is a transparent and open process. Cooper includes a very short summary of UK law, which is developed further by the inclusion of several scenarios that show confidentiality issues in practice. In the final four chapters, Cooper describes the negative consequences of broken boundaries and ways for workers to remain self-aware and conscious of the importance of maintaining boundaries and managing emotions. The book ends with a list of UK and international organizations, useful websites and an additional reading list on the topics presented.
As Professional Boundaries makes clear, it is the social care worker’s responsibility to make sure that they are informed of relevant legislation and to keep up to date with relevant social care or social work literature. This links back to one of the main strengths of this book − its ability to help workers improve upon their practice and awareness without presenting a cast-iron and definitive set of guidelines. The value of this book centres upon its concise and flexible approach to the topic of boundaries. The malleability of the concepts presented means that the book will be useful in many different social settings which involve relationships between service providers and clients. It is impressively wide ranging and contemporary, dealing not only with everyday scenarios in social care settings but also staff burnouts, role confusion and duty of care. Cooper’s book fills a gap in current social work literature by addressing in a simple and accessible way the main ideas and concepts regarding boundaries.