Self-Harm and Violence: Towards Best Practice in Managing Risk in Mental Health Services presents the first exploration of the most effective clinical practice techniques relating to the management of risk in mental health care settings.

• Based on the Department of Health’s Best Practice in Managing Risk guidance document, which was developed over a 12-month period in consultation with a national expert advisory group
• Features contributions from many members of the group that drew up the Best Practice document – all leading theoreticians and practitioners in their particular fields – and embeds the principles laid out in the guidelines in real world practice
• Reveals how contemporary risk management is a multidisciplinary and collaborative enterprise in which practitioners from different professions need to engage with each other in order to achieve success

Richard Whittington is Professor of Mental Health in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Liverpool and an Honorary Research Fellow at Mersey Care NHS Trust. He has a PhD from the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and is a researcher and forensic psychologist with a particular research interest in the issues of violence, self-harm and mental health.

Caroline Logan is a Consultant Forensic Clinical Psychologist in Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. She has a DPhil from the University of Oxford and is both practitioner and researcher, focusing on violence and self-harm, personality disorder and risk.