Family Centres and their International Role in Social Action

Social Work as Informal Education

This title was first published in 2001: Family centre practice is one of the success stories of the past twenty years. As well as contributing creative ideas to centre practice this important edited collection highlights the role of practitioners as developmental or informal educationalists. International contributors challenge care management in child protection as the dominant discourse in child care social work and instead advance integrated practice in the internationally developing role of family centres as a more authentic and hopeful practice for children and families. The contributors outline ways of avoiding reductionism - social work reduced to a protective and assessment role - and show how socially inclusive practice can be sustained with very marginalized families. The book argues that there is a need for the social work training curriculum to emphasize social work's debt to social and informal education, and concludes with a call for an international forum of family centre practice.