While social work theory tends to emphasise helping individuals and challenging social injustice, the reality of practice is characterised by challenge and conflict.This text offers a new concept of social work that explains the nature of these conflicts and moves beyond them, with an inspiring and practical vision of what social work is and should be. Placing rights at the heart of practice, this introduction to social work will be useful to practitioners and students with a substantive contribution to the theoretical literature that emphasises the role of social work when rights may be in conflict, enabling students and workers to become more confident in dealing with the uncomfortable realities of practice.