Helping Families in Family Centres

Adrian Ward works is the Programme Director of the qualifying MA in Social Work at the Tavistock Centre, London. His background is in residential child care and he has written extensively about residential care, group care and therapeutic approaches to social work, and co-edited several books in this field; he was editor of the journal Therapeutic Communities from 1999 to 2005.

• Introduction, Linnet McMahon, University of Reading and Adrian Ward, University of East Anglia. Part 1. 1. Theory for practice in therapeutic family centres, Adrian Ward, University of East Anglia 2. Understanding parent-child relationships: Attachment and the inner world, Linnet McMahon, University of Reading. 3. Assessment and implications for intervention using an attachment perspective, Steve Farnfield, University of Reading. 4. Working therapeutically with children and parents in family centres, Linnet McMahon, University of Reading and Viv Dacre, formerly of Castlefield Family Centre. Part 2. 5. Therapeutic work, play and play therapy with children in family centres, Linnet McMahon, with case studies by Rosemary Lilley, Greenham House Family Units, and Denise Ledger. 6. A systemic approach to working with black families: Experiences in family service units, Yvonne Bailey Smith, Queen's Park Family Service Units. 7. Working with men in family centres, Paul Collett, Guardian ad Litem. 8. `Holding' as a way of enabling change in a statutory family centre, Sarah Musgrave, Gladstone Street Children's Resource Centre. 9. A family centre approach to early therapeutic intervention for young children and their families, Denise Ledger, Family Services Manager.10. Developing and auditing a local family centre feeding to thrive service, Anton Green, Penn Crescent Family Centre, Anne Kyle, Health Visitor and Madeleine St Clair, Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath. 11. Management issues in creating a therapeutic environment, Christine Stones, New Fulford Family Centre. 12. Managing the impact of anxiety on the primary task of a family centre, Rosemary Lilley, Greenham House Family Centre. Part 3. 13. Soft structuring: the NEWPIN way of delivering empowerment, Anne Jenkins Hansen, NEWPIN. Part 4. 14. Transfer of learning: Reflections on a student placement in a family centre, Laraine Beavis, Paediatric Social Worker. Conclusion, Adrian Ward, University of East Anglia and Linnet McMahon, University of Reading. Appendices. Bibliography. Index.

McMahon and Ward offer a spirited defence of therapeutic social work as it is practiced in family centres and which, as the last contributor suggests, can be successfully transferred to other social work settings. This book is bursting with ideas and principles which will be of interested to all those who are concerned with helping children and families.