Effective Ways of Working with Children and their Families. Edited by Malcolm Hill. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 1999. 304 pp. £15.95. ISBN: 1-85302-619-0.

Children's issues have increasingly made the headlines, be that to do with child abuse, teenage crime, bullying or drug-taking and overdosing. More recently children have also found a place on government agendas, particularly since the UK ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. However, the main responsibilities for children's welfare and development lie with their families, supported by a range of social, education and health services. Professionals working in these services have not only a social care role in relation to children and their families, but also a social control role. Interventions therefore range from support to specific treatment to legal action, including removal of a child from the parental home. This book reviews the state of knowledge about the effectiveness of various forms of interventions with respect to children and their families. It covers a wide spectrum of services and approaches and its contributors are drawn from social work, psychiatry, psychology, education and family mediation. Most contributions have a strong research base, discussing the types of evidence available, noting limitations and pinpointing key findings relevant to practitioners.

The first part of the book deals with more general approaches, such as working with social networks, community-based interventions, family mediation and educational services for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. A well-written chapter on family therapy reviews the evidence for its efficacy by examining various different outcome studies and concludes that there is strong support for the efficacy of family therapy and parent management-training in the treatment of general child conduct disorder, child aggression, eating disorders and global family problems. The second part of the book concentrates on particular kinds of children, such as working with fostered children and their families, children in residential care and therapeutic work with sexually abused children.

This is an impressive book, bringing together many different findings and data. I recommend it for all professionals working with children, families and the larger system.