ABSTRACT
Practice that tackles social exclusion is ‘preventive’ practice; that is, a practice that aims to direct resources and intervention towards addressing early signs of social difficulties or social problems before they accelerate and intensify into emergencies that require vastly greater resources in terms of time, energy and money. The notion of ‘preventive work’ is not wholly satisfactory, first because it raises the question preventing what? Second, it suggests that it is a kind of optional extra as if social work is not really social work until it is reacting to harm or imminent crisis. Gerald Smale et al. (2000) use the better phrase ‘development work’ as distinguished from ‘curative’ or crisis work through which social work only offers aid in times of emergency.
