Advice, Guidance and Assistance
A Study of seven Family Advice Centres
- Author:
Leissner, K. A. M.
Herdman, E. V. Davies Longman, ?3.00
We have come to expect a high degree of professionalism and, even more important, applicability, in the studies produced over the years by the National Children’s Bureau. This book (following on a pilot study by Leissner) is no exception. Any review is therefore difficult to write, since the book should be read in its entirety by all concerned.
The concept of ‘Family Advice Centres’, though not strictly new, was given the official seal of approval in the world of work with children and their families by the Children and Young Persons Act of 1963.
The present study, financed by the Home Office, the Rowntree Trust and the Van Leer Foundation, started with no clearcut hypothesis but the general assumption that such centres ‘can make a valuable contribution to helping people who find it difficult to make use of the existing services for a variety of reasons’?about which they hoped to discover more.
For this purpose seven centres of four differing types were studied. Their staffing, administration, number of referrals and contacts with clients and other agencies and the types of problems presented are clearly set out.
The study goes further than the ‘pilot’ published in 1967, both in defining the objectives of FACs and delineating the goals and concepts of the services provided. It is not surprising that one significant factor determining the use to which the centres were put was their relative proximity to what the authors call ‘the client community’. But in studying this factor they are also able to draw valuable conclusions about the possibility of carrying out the other defined objectives?particularly of providing services to the community, and a community work service as such.
This study was completed, but not published, before the reorganisation of social* services departments. Although it was set up under the auspices of one of the personal social services (the children’s service) it has perhaps even more relevance to the new united services. Certainly its conclusions will affect the thinking of the Working Party set up by MIND/NAMH to consider an experimental Mental Health Advice Centre.
Bridget E. Fann
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