The Russell House Companion to Leaving Care

Child and Family Social Work 2003, 8, pp 151–159 © 2003 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

What Works for Children? EffectiveServices for Children and Families

Diana McNeish, Tony Newman and HelenRoberts (eds)Open University Press, 2002, 287 pp. ISBN 0 335 20938 6

This book draws together research findings on a rangeof areas pertinent to social work practitioners, stu-dents and academics, although it also addresses areasrelevant to education and health professionals. It is an edited collection in three parts on specific topicsrelated to services for adopted and looked after chil-dren, preventing social exclusion of children andyoung people, and promoting children’s health.

The authors are eminent writers in their field,including such well-known contributors as JuneThoburn on family placement, Mike Stein on leavingcare and David Berridge on residential care. Eachchapter seeks to summarize what is known fromresearch on the subject area under discussion. Eachchapter follows a helpful format of presenting keymessages from research and clarifies the scope of thechapter by identifying the questions the author isseeking to address. At stages throughout each chapter,key points are again summarized, making this a bookone can either dip into for core messages or read morethoroughly in relation to areas of particular interest.An innovative and encouraging aspect of this volumeis its attempt to include the views of children, both inseparate chapters and within each subject areacovered.

The book claims to be primarily of practical use forthose working with vulnerable children, in particularsocial workers, teachers, youth workers and healthprofessionals. The title may give a false impression ofcertainty to practitioners avidly seeking the answer tosome of their most difficult situations.

The arena of ‘what works?’ is rife with academicand political debate on the nature of credible researchin the social science context. The editors explore thisdebate to some extent in their introduction, and pre-dominantly come down on the side of privileging pos-

itivist research such as randomized controlled trials(RCTs) over so-called softer research methods andideologies. In so doing, they become hostage tofortune and present the available ‘evidence’ of whatworks in a negative light, since few RCTs and littleso-called ‘robust’ research has been undertaken in thechild care field in the UK. Therefore many contribu-tors apologetically draw on more ‘robust’ researchfrom the US. Moreover the lack of attention to out-comes per se in social work research is highlighted.

However, some of the contributors clearly take acontrary view on the validity of different researchstyles, notably Berridge, who in his chapter gives aclear and reasoned argument on the merits of otherperspectives on research. I fear that the practitioner,unless advanced in critical thinking in relation toresearch, will find the seeming lack of confidence incurrent research knowledge frustrating and hence the title of the book rather misleading. However, theeditors rightly make no apology for introducing thereader to the debates on the nature of ‘what works’research, as a necessary prerequisite to applyingresearch appropriately to practice.

Another caution for potential readers is the ten-dency of some authors to present primarily theresearch that supports their arguments and prevailingviewpoint. This is particularly evident in the chapterson looked after children and adoption, with onechapter presenting research showing no difference inbreakdown rates or sense of permanency between per-manent foster care and adoption, followed by anotherauthor who concludes that adoption is substantiallymore stable than long-term fostering. An allied diffi-culty for the reader is being aware of the theoreticalbias of the author. This would be unimportant if allavailable findings on a subject were presented, but inexploration of any subject matter, there will always besome selectivity (hopefully unbiased) in presentationof available material. In places, the key messages (thereader might assume from research) are presentingvalue statements rather than objective assessments ofall available material – e.g. ‘randomised controlledtrials are the most reliable source of evidence on theeffectiveness of many social interventions’. Some con-

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Book Reviews

Book Reviews Editor: Fiona Mitchell (these reviews edited by Jonathan Dickens)

Book Reviews Jonathan Dickens

Child and Family Social Work 2003, 8, pp 151–159 © 2003 Blackwell Publihing Ltd

tributors to this volume and many others in theresearch field may have objections to this as a keymessage from research. It is of interest to me thatmuch of the research presented indicates personalqualities and commitment of the worker or service asa primary research finding in relation to ‘what works’.On this finding alone, I wonder if the broad brushresearch methods prioritized in the ‘what works?’agenda would be able to explore the nuances of whatmakes an intervention work in one area, but not when‘replicated’ in another area.

The exploration of research methodology leads meto consider that this volume may have as much, if notmore, to offer to the debate on research in the socialsciences as it has in helping practitioners decide ‘whatworks?’ in their area of practice. I would not wish thisassessment to discourage practitioners from readingthe volume, which for the reflective and thinking prac-titioner will provide interesting and informativereading.

Shirley E. JacksonDepartment of Social Work StudiesUniversity of Southampton

Anti-Oppressive Social Work Theory andPractice

Lena DominelliPalgrave, Basingstoke, 2002, 211 pp. £15.99. ISBN 0 333

77155 9

Lena Dominelli is one of the ‘big names’ in anti-oppressive practice. She has been recognized as aninternational expert in this area for over 15 years, andher early books on anti-racist social work (Dominelli1988) and feminist social work (Dominelli & McLeod1989) have become classics in the field. Being invitedto review a new publication by Dominelli on anti-oppressive practice therefore brings some trepidationas well as some excitement. Will the book bring any-thing new to the subject, or will it simply rehearsewell-worn themes from her other writing? The answeris that this book offers both the familiar and the newin Dominelli’s writing and thinking. Anti-OppressiveTheory and Practice is Dominelli at her most uncom-promising and most passionate. As she sets the sceneat the beginning, she asserts that a new economic ide-ology is ‘guiding the planet into increasingly danger-ous terrain’; we are being ‘overwhelmed by apredatory capitalism which greedily ingests those whodo not subscribe to its tenets and then spews them

out as worthless garbage’ (p. 3). She goes on to pro-claim that it is up to social workers to challenge thisand seek to empower others, since ‘promoting socialjustice and human development in an unequal worldprovides the raison-d’etre of social work practice’ (p.4).

It is this aspect of Dominelli’s writing which suc-cessive generations of social work students with whomI have worked have found most inspirational, and,paradoxically, most frustrating. Some students arethrilled by the call to what social work might be; to thesocial work which seems capable of challenging andperhaps even changing individuals and institutions.Other students express feelings of demoralization, andsome scepticism.The ‘real world’ of social work whichthey inhabited before coming on their social workcourse, and which faces them daily while on practiceplacement, seems far removed from the one to whichDominelli aspires. Day-to-day social work, in bothstatutory and voluntary agencies, seems much moregoverned by routine practice and ‘common-sense’wisdom than by ideas of social justice; it is much more‘ordinary’ and less obviously political.

Anti-Oppressive Theory and Practice is not, however,simply a work of polemic. It offers social work stu-dents and practitioners a new synthesis of ideas aboutoppression and anti-oppressive practice, reflecting theinfluence of postmodern analysis on critical andradical social work theory. The book begins by givingthe reader the opportunity to think about differentways of understanding power and oppression, beforemoving on to consider how these theories might beput into practice through case studies which illustratethe issues being raised. Dominelli is highly disparag-ing of conventional social work conceptualization ofpower and oppression. She criticizes the ‘personal,cultural, structural (PCS)’ model of Thompson(1993), which she suggests is uni-dimensional anddoes not sufficiently address the complexities ofoppression. She argues that the context within whichsocial work operates is always multi-dimensional, sothat our theoretical understandings must reflect thiscomplexity; social divisions of class, ‘race’, gender,age, disability and sexual orientation are not separatefrom each other. Similarly, power is not always oper-ated in one way by a single dominant group, but ratheris created and recreated in social relations betweenpeople; identity is itself multi-dimensional and a ‘fieldof contestation’ (p. 39). The theoretical perspectiveswhich Dominelli draws on owe much to postmodernand black feminist writing. Her understanding ofpower draws directly on the work of Michel Foucault

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(1980); her idea of ‘intersecting universes of oppres-sion’ has strong associations with the black feministwriter, Patricia Hill Collins (1991). Dominelli is ulti-mately critical of the idea of ‘postmodern welfare’,which she sees as ‘pessimistic and unhelpful in thetask of eliminating oppressive relationships’ (p. 162).Postmodernism may have influenced the developmentof her own ideas, but, she asserts, its failure to dealwith structural and collective considerations turn itinto a ‘politically conservative paradigm in whichexisting systems are taken for granted’ (p. 169).

This book will be welcomed by some social workstudents and practitioners who will see it as address-ing key questions which are fundamental to socialwork theory and practice. For others, hard-pressedwith the demands of case management or a heavychild protection caseload, it may seem overly idealis-tic. Whether this book will become a ‘must-read’ textin the way that Thompson’s more accessible book(Thompson 1993) has become, remains to be seen.

Dr Viviene E. CreeSenior Lecturer in Social WorkUniversity of Edinburgh

References

Collins, P.H. (1991) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Con-

sciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. Routledge, London.

Dominelli, L. (1988) Anti-Racist Social Work, 2nd edn. Macmil-

lan, Basingstoke.

Dominelli, L. & McLeod, E. (1989) Feminist Social Work.

Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Foucault, M. (1980) Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and

Other Writings 1972–77. Pantheon Books, New York.

Thompson, N. (1993) Anti-Oppressive Practice, 2nd edn.

Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Effective Child Protection

Eileen MunroSage, London, 2002, 183 pp. £17.99. ISBN 0 7619 7082 7

Is child protection an art or a science? Is it possibleto end child abuse tragedies, or are some mistakesinevitable? In child protection the stakes are high andthe solutions are neither obvious nor certain. Socialworkers have to assess risk and make life-changingdecisions, under pressure, and often with limitedinformation. Munro asks two fundamental questions– how do child protection workers think, and can weimprove this?

Munro frames these questions within the debatebetween empirical and intuitive reasoning. Munro

looks at the strengths and weaknesses of bothapproaches and tries to find middle ground. Thecentral premise of the book is that ‘the trained, ex-perienced professional cannot be replaced with abureaucrat with a set of forms, but he or she can betrained to use a broader range of knowledge and toreason in a way that is more public and open to eval-uation’ (p. 1).

This book appealed to me because it addressed myfeelings about moving from studying social work topractising. I believed I left college with hard knowl-edge that would lead my practice. Within weeks Ifound myself responding not planning, subsumed intoa team culture and overwhelmed by the suddenweight of responsibility and risk. Munro’s book isreassuring, because she values this immediate, intu-itive thinking, and sees practice wisdom as the sum ofour previous experiences, including research andtheory. But without clarity about thought processes,mistakes can be made, prejudices will slip through,and sometimes, intuitive thinking will pull us in thewrong directions.

The chapter on decision-making illustrates thisusing research on firefighters. Under pressure, theydid not compare alternatives so much as recognizepatterns, then check new information to ensure theywere correct. The problem is that this narrows therange of choices and fosters short-term thinking,without contingency planning. Munro recommendsdrawing decision trees including every option, ratingeach for desirability and probability to clarify thethinking behind decision-making.

The chapter on risk assessment focuses on the dif-ferences between intuitive thinking and hard-boiledstatistics. For instance, our evaluation of new evidenceshould depend on existing information. So if we thinkrisk is already high and we get new evidence of risk,this should raise our concerns a little, but if we cur-rently rate risk as low and then receive more evidence,our concerns should be raised significantly more.Thisis almost the opposite of intuitive reasoning – we tendto place greater emphasis on information that confirmsour current hypothesis and subconsciously discount,forget or discredit any information that contradicts it.Munro recognizes that risk assessment is not the wholestory of child protection. Too heavy an emphasis mayinhibit preventive work and focus concerns towardsimmediate risks rather than longer-term damage. Riskassessment focuses on avoiding harm, but our role isto maximize children’s well-being and a lot of evidenceshows that the best interpersonal method for doing thisis to focus on strengths.

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The only disappointing chapter was that on thehistory of child protection.This gave a fairly standardrun through of the development of our legal system,stressing the social construction of childhood and therole of child deaths in shaping the law. It failed toanswer the more interesting questions about why atti-tudes to child protection can be so different through-out the developed world, despite similarities at thelevel of economics and family structure, and itdescribed the evolution of policy without reallyexplaining the evolution of thinking.

A more psychoanalytic theoretical approach mightfocus more on what makes child protection so diffi-cult. Child protection can involve a complex web ofstrong emotions involving both clients and workers. Italso touches on big questions about the relationshipof the individual to the state, and the limits of per-sonal responsibility. At the same time it is an intimate,personal endeavour, often boiling down to the qualityof the relationships between parent and child, socialworker and client. Reducing child protection to theavoidance of risk seems attractive, but may notproduce lasting change.

Munro’s submission to the Victoria Climbie Enquirydescribes Arthurworry’s actions as predictable giventhe lack of training, supervision and resources. Thetemptation after such a tragedy is to try to reduce theroom for human error,by introducing increasingly pre-scriptive methods of risk analysis.This book shows thatwhile such tools can enhance our analytic and criticalthinking, they can only be a starting point, and willnever be 100 per cent effective. Its key point, thatclarity of thought will produce good practice and befairer to clients, is timely and well made.

Clea BarryChildren and Families Social WorkerLondon

Social Work Practice with Children andFamilies

Anthony N. Maluccio, Barbara A. Pine andElizabeth M. TracyColumbia University Press, 2002, 368 pp. ISBN 0 231

10766 8

The book is designed both as a primary text for childand family practitioners in training and as a compre-hensive reader for established practitioners alreadyengaged in this area of practice in diverse agency set-tings. The authors, three of the most highly regarded

child and family professionals in the USA, recognizethe increasingly complex and changing nature of thisfield and have sought to construct a text that is com-prehensive and contemporary.The outcome is a bookthat is detailed, scholarly, balanced and a must-havefor those who want to bring conceptual rigour andcareful planning to interventions.

The book is organized in four sections. Part 1 hasfour chapters examining the knowledge base andoffers a detailed exploration of concepts of vulnera-bility and risk. There is a full examination of the lit-erature on protective factors and a balanced look atthe diverse and connecting threats posed to the sta-bility of children and families by poverty, e.g. limitingaccess to health care and education. Contemporarydifficulties relating to parental substance misuse andimpact on children are explored. The authorsacknowledge that some children are harmed andinjured by their carers, sometimes very seriously, andplace that component of child and family work in thebroader context of children and families in difficulty.Attention is given to the many ethical difficultiesposed for practitioners in constructing interventions,not least in those situations where culpability isunclear. Part 2 examines the practice base and lookssequentially at engagement, assessment, planning andgoal setting.The constructs and the literature dovetailwith contemporary United Kingdom developments inrelation to assessment frameworks, are consistent withguidance and procedure on partnership with parents,and align with law and policy designed to keep chil-dren in the family of origin whenever possible. Thereis a concluding chapter in this section wholly devotedto school-based work. This will be of particular inter-est to ‘pioneer’ practitioners in community schoolprojects and will encourage the inclusion in teachertraining education of the concept of the school as aprotective environment for children.

Part 3 has a useful and timely chapter on evalua-tion and outcome issues, offering general guidanceand specific instruments to help practitioners con-struct practice outcome learning loops. The conclud-ing section is really an extensive collection ofappendices, with many containing very helpful infor-mation on measurement tools and assessment instru-ments. A number also offer website addresses. Withincreasing numbers of child and family practitionersnow tuned to the web – often with advice and guid-ance from their own small children – this sectionoffers rich opportunity for exploration.

I would like to see this book on the shelves of edu-cational institutions providing teaching and training

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to social workers, teachers, health staff and other pro-fessionals who undertake work with vulnerable chil-dren and families. It is a richly detailed, informed andbalanced text and will be a lifeline for practitionersstruggling to be effective in an increasingly complexarea of practice.

Jim EnnisDirector of Studies (Child Care and Protection)Faculty of Education and Social WorkUniversity of Dundee

Family Centres and their InternationalRole in Social Action: Social Work asInformal Education

Chris Warren-Adamson (ed.)Ashgate, Aldershot, 2001, 230 pp. £42.50. ISBN 0 7546

1424 7

The literature on family centres is sparse, and muchof it has not moved beyond the descriptive mode,which is especially unfortunate because, as this bookillustrates, there is a wealth of creative and innovativework in such centres. Part of the problem has beenthat there is perhaps no agreed operational or theo-retical model for family centres, and even the varioustypologies that have been produced have not usedsimilar terms of reference. Some, indeed, would arguethat the family centre is an idea whose time has now gone: their heyday in the UK was in the lateeighties and early nineties, and they became ‘official’with their recognition in the Children Act 1989 andthe rather half-hearted duty imposed on local author-ities to provide ‘such family centres as they considerappropriate’, including ‘therapeutic family centres’,but they have become increasingly constrained and squeezed as the child protection agenda has tightened.

What emerges from this collection, however, is howvibrant, responsive, emancipatory and therapeutic in the broadest sense family centres can be. ChrisWarren-Adamson, whose connections with the familycentre movement go back into the 1970s, hasremained true to the cause and makes a very cogentcase here for ‘centre-based practice’, and especially for the integrated centre as a local resource centreproviding a range of people and facilities to be usedflexibly by local communities. This is in some sensesa very inclusive concept, encompassing educational,residential and other types of resource, but at the sametime quite a tight model, based upon a mixture of

emancipatory ideology and European notions ofsocial education. The model also has roots in oldertraditions of the ‘mission’, the ‘settlement’ and ofbroader based philanthropy, while early versionsincluded Family Service Units among others.

The book is introduced by Warren-Adamson,setting the historical and social context and outliningthe case for the family-centred approach. The mainbody of the text has 14 chapters offering examples andvariations on the theme from around the world,including France, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland andthe US, as well as several from the UK. Some of thesechapters do remain somewhat descriptive, althoughthis is not to undervalue them, since it is always valu-able to have coherent descriptions of models of goodpractice. Some other chapters, however, bring addedvalue to these descriptions by establishing connec-tions with a broader theoretical and/or politicalagenda, or by demonstrating links with other servicessuch as mental health and youth justice. Some chap-ters also include helpful case studies of how particu-lar children, families and neighbourhoods have beenhelped by a centre-based approach. It is especiallyvaluable in the penultimate chapter to have the first-hand accounts, transcribed from interviews, of anumber of users and others involved in a family centrein Ireland. These powerful voices confirmed to meagain how close the emancipatory and the therapeu-tic agendas are in family-centred practice, but alsohow distinct each of these is from the ‘detection andassessment’ roles which many UK family centres havefound increasingly expected of them. The biggestchallenge is how to tie all of these agendas togetherinto genuinely integrated practice, which is what someof the centres described in this collection appear tohave achieved.

There is still further to go. For example, it wouldhave been good to have included chapters here explic-itly on the skills and knowledge needed by practi-tioners and managers in these settings. My own viewis that centre-based practice relates much more toother forms of group care including residential care(as well as to youth and community work) than it doesto some forms of office-based social work practice.The skills required include the ability to work in apublic or semi-public arena with and between groupsand groupings, and yet still to sustain supportive rela-tionships with vulnerable and sometimes desperateand oppressed individuals and families. This requiresa very different approach to teamwork, networkingand boundary management from that found in someoffice-based settings, and here Malcolm Payne’s

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(2000) concept of ‘Open Teamwork’ would be espe-cially helpful.

The book concludes with Warren-Adamson’s pas-sionate proposal for the family centre to be viewed as‘the authentic site for ecological practice’, includinghis thoughts on the implications for the social workeducation curriculum. Not just the curriculum, Iwould add, but the whole teaching and learning par-adigm – but that’s another battle! I recommend thisbook warmly and unreservedly, and hope it finds its way into every family centre and social workdepartment.

Adrian WardSenior Lecturer in Social WorkUniversity of East Anglia

Reference

Payne, M. (2000) Teamwork in Multiprofessional Care. Macmil-

lan, Basingstoke.

Building the Future: Social Work withChildren, Young People and their Families

Neil ThompsonRussell House Publishing, Lyme Regis, 2002, 147 pp.

£14.95. ISBN 1 903855 13 6

In the UK, the introduction of the Post QualifyingAward in Child Care was a welcome move intendedto bolster and strengthen the knowledge and skills ofchild care social work staff. But similar to other of theNew Labour government initiatives its introductionwas precipitate, resulting in hurried developmentwork for higher education institutions and localauthority course providers. So the publication of Pro-fessor Neil Thompson’s book, intended as a basic text-book to underpin the Post Qualifying Award in ChildCare, is a positive contribution to the limited range ofsource and training materials specifically designed forstudy at PQ level.

In providing a platform for post qualifying studiesthe book sets out to provide essential areas of knowl-edge in the five arenas of direct work with childrenand young people, working with families, networking,law and policy, and professional development. Theintention is that these core areas will meet the learn-ing outcomes for the Post Qualifying Award in ChildCare. Interwoven through the main chapters are thelaudable core themes of reflective practice, profes-

sionalism, child-centred practice, partnership andcritical reflection. I concur with Professor NigelParton’s comment in his preface that ‘a major strengthof the book is the way it locates itself in a set of principles and themes which encourage critical andreflective practice . . . likely to extend and challengecandidates’. It is disappointing, however, that evi-dence-based practice is omitted as a core theme, beinghighlighted only in the chapter ‘Direct work with chil-dren and young people’. The opportunity to empha-size evidence-based practice at PQ level, in order toencourage candidates to ground their practice in well-tested approaches, could have been betterexploited.

In many ways this is a very practical book.The textis interlaced with relevant, appropriate, thought-provoking exercises. Its strength is that it is useful notonly to candidates but also to their trainers and tutorsin providing helpful and challenging activities topromote reflection and criticality. Each chapter con-cludes with a range of tasks: points to ponder whichpromote reflective practice; discussion topics whichare explicitly linked to the PQ practice requirementswith suggested activities to enhance practice; aresource guide which signposts candidates to furtherreading and identifies and lists key texts to promoteand deepen their knowledge of that area.

This is not to say that the book emphasizes practi-cal tasks to the exclusion of the consideration oftheory. As reflected in the above summary of its con-tents the book covers a breadth of knowledge relevantfor child care practitioners. The chapter that consid-ers direct work with children fills an important gap in practitioners’ knowledge base. The extension ofknowledge of child development to encompass ado-lescence is particularly appreciated. The emphasis onmulti-disciplinary working in the chapter entitled‘Networking’ is timely, but there might have been abroader consideration of aligned service delivery anddecision-making. The concluding chapter which pro-motes continuous professional development and the-ories of reflective practice is strong and offers someconcrete ideas for the integration of life-long learninginto practice based agencies.

This book is to be welcomed, as it was badlyneeded. It has certainly achieved the aim of bridgingthe gap between qualifying and post qualifyingstudies. I would recommend it as a basic textbook forthose social workers progressing to study at PQ levelas well as their trainers and mentors. It is particularlyvaluable for those candidates currently required toundertake PQ1 courses. It would have been somewhat

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ambitious, as Professor Thompson acknowledges, toprovide all of the knowledge base required for the PostQualifying Award in Child Care, but it does presenta sound foundation on which to build studies at PQlevel. It has already been adopted for all studentsundertaking PQ programmes within NottinghamTrent University Post Qualifying partnership.

Anne JenkinsPrincipal Lecturer in Social Work and Manager of PQCoursesNottingham Trent University

The Russell House Companion to LeavingCare

Ann Wheal (ed.)Russell House Publishers, Lyme Regis, 2002, 211 pp.

£19.95. ISBN 1 903855 11 X

This book offers a comprehensive and absorbing viewof the recent implementation of the Children(Leaving Care) Act 2000. The subject matter,although a specialism, covers a vast range of areaswhich are affected by this legislation. The book isdivided into three sections and although the targetgroup appears to be professionals working with youngpeople leaving care, there is much to interest otherreaders.

Section 1 deals with the wider context of the Actand sets out, very clearly, the legislative frameworkwhilst paying attention to the historical context andthe wider international perspective on leaving care.The history of child care legislation, with relevantpolitical pitfalls and improvements, is pertinently por-trayed to aid a deeper understanding of present-daypractice and its place in social care. History and pol-itics are linked with issues of cultural and interna-tional practice, helping to assist the reader to reflecton the way forward.The section seeks to draw out therealities of being ‘in care’ and uses the involvement ofcare leavers in the chapters to illustrate the widerimportance of their participation.

Section 2 examines the Act and its implications forpractice, drawing again on the voices of actual youngpeople. Each chapter in this section clearly describesa different aspect of the care system and care leavers’experiences, but the overriding theme is the youngpeople being actively involved and consulted through-out.The chapters interlock in subject matter, with for-mulations for good practice and reinforcement thatpractice should be ‘child centred’, by empowering

young people to be in control of their own lives.Another common theme running throughout is theneed for professionals to be ‘good enough parents’,and the book challenges often deep-rooted notionssuch as leaving young people to their own measuresonce a certain age has been reached. Professionals arealso challenged to perceive co-labourers such asmentors and carers (in foster homes or supportedlodgings) as colleagues and not employees.

The third section looks at a number of specificissues and expounds sensitive areas of working. Chap-ters on ‘Unaccompanied Young Asylum Seekers’ and‘Young People with Mental Health Issues’ are usefulin that legislation is looked at as well as the specialneeds of children in these situations. Each chapterpoints the way to resources and how they might beaccessed, making the book a very practical tool.Another emphasis is on education, employment andtraining and how these should be accessed by and for young people. The final chapter is appropriatelyabout the Connexions service, seen by the UK government as the way forward and still new in itsimplementation.

This book offers insight into young people withinthe care system and considers every aspect of theirlives. Consideration is given to how young people areaffected by legislation, political ideology, professionalattitudes and ways of working. The book offers thereader much for reflection, and as the ideas come tothe fore it also offers hope. Hope lies in ideologicalbarriers being broken down and old ways of workingbeing diminished, and looks forward to young peoplein care as being active, productive, creative membersof society. As parents aspire to the needs of their ownchildren, so children in care will receive the sameopportunities for education, training, employmentand settled independent futures with supporting net-works in established communities.

One strength of this book is the sensitivity withwhich it is written. The authors make no attempt toconceal their own lives and experiences and thisstrengthens their perspectives. Another strength isthat care leavers themselves have contributedthroughout and have been honest in the views abouthow they feel the ‘system’ has looked after them. Aweakness which I am loath to consider is the idealismwith which this book is written. There will still beshortages of staff, there will still be children whorefuse to engage and often these will be the most vul-nerable, and there will still be gaps in inter-agencyworking. With all the good intentions in the worldthere will still be the most severely affected children

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without a service, and these are likely to be those, forexample, with mental health problems. There is noreference to one of the greatest challenges for manyprofessionals, that of young people and substancemisuse. Not wanting to remain entrenched in pes-simism, the aspirations of the authors and the wayforward for many, many young people is that they willno longer (in time) be part of the Youth OffendingTeam, Mental Health Team, and other such institu-tions, but they will be responsible, educated adults ofthe new millennium.The cycle of non-engaging, une-ducated care leavers becoming an ‘underclass’ insociety has to be broken.

Deborah GihawiSocial WorkerCommunity Support Team (Teenagers Leaving Care)Norfolk Social Services

Staying Connected: Managing ContactArrangements in Adoption

Hedi Argent (ed.)BAAF, 2002, 246 pp. £12.95. ISBN 1 903699 12 6

This book is intended for professionals. Hedi Argenthas collected 15 chapters representing the varyingexperience mainly of practitioners, but also of fami-lies and researchers, in relation to maintaining postadoption contact. As an appendix, Sally Sales (whoalso offers a chapter on mediation) has provided asummary of some major research studies from theUSA, Scotland and England in an attempt to positionopen adoption more securely in relation to evidence-based practice, though she warns that such evidencemay not prevail against deep-seated cultural scepti-cism. Since most of the contributors are currentlyengaged in managing contact arrangements, theirwork is based on the assumption that the value ofopen adoption and the importance of maintainingcontact between a child’s birth, foster and adoptivefamilies are well established.The focus is therefore onbuilding a body of knowledge and practice guidelinessufficiently flexible to take account of the huge andcomplex range of experience evinced by the adoptionprocess.

The book’s strengths lie in its varied coverage, firstof child and family situations and second of agencysetting – statutory, independent and voluntary. Theinclusion of case examples throughout, often rich indetail, amounts to a comprehensive dossier of humanneed and agency response through all stages of the

adoptive process, each unique in themselves butembodying principles of wider validity on which thepractitioner may usefully draw.

Elsbeth Neil addresses the specific needs of youngerchildren, Catharine Macaskill does the same for chil-dren with learning difficulties, and Shelagh Beckettmakes a strong case for the importance of continuinglinks with siblings, often curiously neglected in acontext supposedly committed to maintaining signif-icant relationships. Difficult contexts are addressed byAlan Slade, who offers insights into making contactsafe, and Maureen Crank’s discussion of contact withcontesting birth families identifies unhelpful butwidespread false assumptions about adoption. Differ-ing models of indirect letterbox contact come fromSally Sales and Alison Vincent and Alyson Graham.

All the work is contextualized by its legal frame-work. Paula Bell explores the effects on contact ofScottish law while Margaret Bell describes an unusualuse of the law by another Scottish judge to facilitatecontact between a child and terminally ill parents.

David Pitcher explores the particular issues arisingfrom the increasing numbers of children placed inkinship care. Comparisons are made between whiteand black families’ kinship arrangements: the latterhave a long established tradition, but Hilary Gallowayand Fiona Wallace find the same need for sensitive andcase specific levels of local authority support. PaulineHoggan, Aminah Husain Sumpton and Wendy Ellisdescribe their independent agency’s work in manag-ing contact where children are matched for ‘race’, reli-gion and culture: in briefly recounting their agency’shistory and policy changes from the 1970s, whenplacing black and mixed parentage children withwhite parents was considered good practice, theyprovide a timely reminder that we are just as likely toreflect the values of the dominant culture as any othergroup and that today’s received wisdom may be com-pletely rethought tomorrow.

Two short chapters by (anonymous) adoptiveparents describe contact with families in South Amer-ican countries. Both are clear about the importanceof contact and the overall positive effect on theiradopted children: however, the experience of the firstwas relatively smooth while for the second it raisedunsettling questions which are honestly and thought-fully explored. For example, difficult as it was for thefirst family to explain that adoption was partly theresult of grinding poverty, explaining for the secondthat adoption was due not to poverty but to the childbeing unwanted proved even more painful, especiallysince, while staying in the country, the child saw poor

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families keeping and caring for their children. A sim-ilarly mixed and honest picture emerges from PatriciaSwanton’s small survey on the views of children,young people and adopters on their respective expe-rience of contact.

It is impossible to do justice to so complex a fieldbut certain themes emerge: the child’s needs must beparamount – this is not an empty mantra; practition-ers must be armed with the best information avail-able; preparation of all parties at each stage is key; and

flexibility and ability to respond to multifactorialchanging situations are essential.While, paradoxically,the case for contact would in my view have beenstrengthened by a more self-critical approach in somechapters (though not all), within its own parametersthis is a very useful book.

Carol KedwardLecturer in Social Work and Social CareUniversity of Sussex

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Documents

The Russell House Companion to Leaving Care