Towards the use and development of games for social work practice

This paper reviews games that may be of use to social workers in their work with individuals, couples, families and groups. A typology of games is presented, which categorizes games according to their structure and their function. Games are seen as either unstructured or structured, and as stressing either cognitive or behavioural goals. Selected games are presented in more detail as examples and others are presented in brief in an annotated bibliography. Issues relating to designing games are discussed as well as issues in applying games to social work practice.