An experimental evaluation of school social work

The main results of the Central Lancashire Family and Community Project are reported. The project extended from 1965 to 1973 and attempted to determine experimentally the value of social work undertaken in secondary schools. Significant reductions in juvenile maladjustment and misbehaviour, both short- and long-term, were achieved. While children sent to court showed some behavioural improvement, this was accompanied by a deterioration in measures of adjustment; whereas treatment of a matched sample by school social workers was associated with sustained improvement both in behaviour and in test measures of social adjustment. The school setting was shown to have impeded the workers in a variety of ways: teachers' judgements of what were suitable cases to refer were biassed towards certain kinds of behaviour, and the teachers expected the social workers to achieve unrealistically rapid behavioural improvement. There was also pressure upon the workers to over-identify with the school, its ethos and its staff, and to become too generously involved in school activities, which interfered with their relationships with the children and the time available for social work — especially home visiting. These handicaps, however, were more than offset by the advantages of the school setting in aiding the identification of needy cases at an early stage in the development of their problems, and in undertaking sustained, beneficial casework Furthermore, there were indications that the presence of the worker in itself tended to change the ethos of the school.     

The Management of Risk and the Design of Good Lives

In this paper, I attempt to integrate the risk-nesd and good lives models of offender rehabilitation. I set out to show how it is possible to capitalise on the strengths of the risk management perspecwve by locating or embedding it within a more constructive, strength based capabilities approach – what I have called the good lives model of offender rehabilitation. In the good lives model risk factors are viewed as obstacles that erode individuals' capacity to live more fulfilling lives. Thus the therapeutic focus is on implementing offender's good lives conceptualisation rather than simply managing risk, although risk is not neglected. First, I briefly outline the risk-need and good lives models and then discuss how they might be integrated. Second, I consider a clinical example, demonstrating in some detail how a good lives perspective impacts on assessment and treatment. Finally, I conclude with a few comments on the clinical and policy implications of this integrated approach.