An introduction to the law for human services, the fourth edition of Integrating Human Service Law, Ethics and Practice offers an overview of the legal processes encountered in practice. The text offers an accessible discussion of law and ethics to provide students with an understanding of the Australian legal landscape and an understanding of human service ethics.

The new edition provides an inclusive approach to teaching law and ethics to students, easily demonstrating how to translate the theory into practice. Written by an expert author team, the book provides a unified understanding on the relationship between law, ethics and human practice.

KEY FEATURES

• Improved book navigation, including a table in the introduction relating populations and issues to the relevant chapters
• Fully updated law and human services material, with ‘Law in Practice’ boxes highlighting relevant and interesting cases
• Chapter objectives, Reflect and Law in Practice boxes, and Key Points for Practice prepare students to understand the connections between legal processes and ethical considerations.

Foreword
List of Figures and Tables
Authors’ Acknowledgments
Publisher Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
About this book: Its origins and aims
Our audience
Defining the human services
Terminology
Assumptions about legal knowledge
Book structure: Finding material
Positions reiterated and elaborated 


Part 1: Relationship between Human Service Practice,Law and Ethics

2. Law and the Human Services: Together and Apart
Client problems and beyond 
Integration: Who, what and why? 
Human service client, worker, and agency issues 
Intersection and overlap between law and human services 
Human services in a risk society 
Law and human services: An uneasy coexistence 

3. Law, Ethics, and Other Factors in Decision Making
Integrating legal and other imperatives in human service practice 
The exercise of decision- making power and administrative law principles 
Influences on human service worker decision making 
These influences in interaction 
Making integrated decisions in practice 
Part 2: Legal Obligations, Rights, and Regulationof Human Service Workers
4. Professional, Business, and Employment Matters
Behind the scenes of service delivery 
Professional profile 
Taking care of business 
Contract law 
Contracts and the human services 
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) 

5. Managing Information
What does ‘managing information’ mean? 
Interaction of human service practice, ethics and law 
Collecting (or acquiring) and amending personal information 
Recording information 
Storing information
Permitting or denying access to information 
Legal imperatives to protect information 
Legal imperatives to disclose information or permit access to it 
Electronic and digital records and communications 
Whistleblowing 

6. Courts, Tribunals, and the Human Service
Images and anxieties 
Courts, similar bodies, and dispute resolution 
Scope of human service activity in courts and tribunals 
Range of courts 
Range of tribunals 
Ombudsmen and complaints bodies 
Court processes, evidence, and witnesses 
Preparing court and tribunal reports 
Preparing to appear 
Giving evidence 
Accompanying others attending court

7. Getting It Wrong
Accountable practice 
More than a legal duty of care 
Incompetence, mishaps, breaking the rules, and more 
Rules and standards of conduct in the human services 
Complaints and investigatory bodies 
A mosaic of expectations, risks and possible outcomes 


Part 3: Service Delivery: Diverse Populationsand Jurisdictions

8. Crimes and Victims
Introducing the criminal justice system 
Criminal law in Australia 
Assisting people charged with offences 
Sentencing 
Indigenous Australians and the criminal law 
Young people and the criminal law 
Victims of crime 
Criminal law and family violence 

9. Families and Children
An interdisciplinary perspective required 
Child protection in Australia 
Child protection proceedings 
Family Law 
Family law and arrangements for children 
Family violence and family law 
Property orders 
Child support 

10. Housing and Finance
The law and more 
Income support 
Complaints, review and appeal 
Income management (IM) 
Debt management 
Consumer protection 
Housing, homelessness and accommodation 

11. Diversity and Vulnerability
Rights, needs and protections 
Facilitating social well- being through law 
Guardianship and administration 
Mental illness 
Refugees and asylum seekers 
Emerging matters of vulnerability, difference and the law 

12. Back to the Beginning while Facing the Future
Contradictions and volatility in the big picture 
Implications for the human services 
In pursuit of confidence with law and justice partnerships
Accomplished human service work and workers 
Appendix: Finding, Reading, and Citing Law Finding and reading an Act of Parliament 

How to find cases 

How to read cases Citing legislation and cases Index

Rosemary Kennedy, psychologist working in professional regulation and human service consultant
Jenny Richards, Lecturer, Flinders Law School, Flinders University

Tania Leiman, Senior Lecturer, Flinders Law School, Flinders University

Read a sample from Integrating Human Service Law, Ethics and Practice, fourth edition:

Chapter 2: Law and the Human Services: Together and Apart