Joanne Warner is one of four editors of a new publication entitled Mental Health Policy and Practice. It examines the ways in which the narrow focus on specific kids of risk, such as violence towards others, perpetuates the social disadvantages experienced by mental health service users whilst, at the same time, ignoring the vast array of risks experienced by the service users themselves.

The book is the culmination of collaborative research with the ‘Prato Group’, an international groups of academics and others whose shared aim is to challenge the dominant paradigm of risk that pervades human welfare services across Europe, North America and Australasia. This work began at a Colloquium in Prato, Italy in May 2012 and has resulted in the publication of a new series of books, ‘Beyond the risk paradigm’. There are also books on child protection and criminal justice in the series.

You can read more about the contents of the book on the publisher’s website.

Dr Joanne Warner is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work within the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Research, specialising in sociological approaches to risk in health and social care.