ABSTRACT
A number of references have already been made to the importance of developing ways of understanding and analysing risks. This chapter explains some of the perspectives and components of risk that will be drawn together to suggest an approach to the systematic analysis of risky situations. Social workers have talked about such things as diagnosis, problem formulation, evaluation and assessment frequently and in a wide variety of contexts. Costs and gains are important concepts in the understanding of risk and are closely related to the ideas of goal-setting and task-orientation which can be found in current social-work writing. Risk analysis is highly complex and social workers need a more comprehensive approach. The idea of risk, by definition, involves an awareness of the future. It is concerned with possible outcomes and the variation in those outcomes. The risk analysis framework will not remove the fact of a variability in possible outcomes.
