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It is 40 years since the publication of Donald Schön’s hugely influential book ‘The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action’ which every social worker has probably referenced at some point in their initial or ongoing training. Social work has changed very considerably in the ensuing 40 years, but how much has our understanding and practice in terms of reflection progressed?

At the turn of the last century, Ixer (1999) claimed that Schön’s ideas lacked practical application to social work and yet the text is still arguably the basis of much of the teaching about reflective practice in social work education. This little book is designed to be very practical to support the theoretical teaching about reflective practice in social work education.

Reflection can, in fact, be traced back much further than Schön’s work, right back to Aristotle, the Ancient Greek philosopher. Aristotle introduced the ‘rule of three’ in his book ‘Rhetoric: dramatic unity of time, place and action.’ The basis of the rule is that when things are presented in threes the message is clearer. So this very practical book is based around threes.

Firstly, there are three sections:

1 - The Basic Reflective Practice Framework: which covers the three key questions of What? Why? and How?

2 - The Practicalities of Reflective Practice: which covers the three S words of Stages, Steps and Spaces of reflection

3 - Models of Reflection: which covers process models, component models and models developed by practitioners

Within all three sections advice and practical suggestions are provided for readers from three main groups:

1 - Students

2 - Practitioners

3 - Supervisors (this includes practice educators)