Family Support

John Canavan is a full-time researcher with the department of political science and sociology at the National University of Ireland in Galway. His work over the past five years has focused on evaluating health and education service interventions targeting disadvantaged young people. He has recently been involved in the development of self-evaluation systems with regional health authority social work teams. Pat Dolan is regional coordinator of the Adolescent and Family Support Services at the Western Health Board in Galway, Ireland. He worked for many years as a practitioner in the child care field and has recently been engaged in important research into social network maps and their use as a tool in working with vulnerable teenagers and their families. John Pinkerton is Senior Lecturer in Social Work/Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Child Care Research at Queen's University, Belfast in Northern Ireland. His particular research interest is community-based social work as the meeting point for state and civil society. He has published widely in the fields of child care and social work.

Practitioners and policy-makers, across a wide spectrum of agencies responsible for providing child protection and family support services, will welcome this new contribution to the field of child care. The book helps to consolidate our current knowledge and identify the common themes necessary to develop family support as an integral part of mainstream and specialist services in the future.

• Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Family Support: Issues and Prospects, Robbie Gilligan, Trinity College, Dublin. 2. Communities, Family Support and Social Change, Graham Crow and Graham Allan, University of Southampton. 3. Social Pedagogical Family Help in Germany: New Wine in Old Vessels or New Vessels for Old Wine?, Joachim Wieler, Fachhochschule Erfurt, Germany. 4. Children in Control: Helping Parents Restore the Balance, Martin Herbert, University of Exeter. 5. Social Support Principles for Strengthening Families: Messages from America, Carolyn E. Cutrona, Iowa State University. 6. Refocusing Project Work with Adolescents Towards a Family Support Paradigm, John Canavan, National University of Ireland, Galway and Pat Dolan, Western Health Board, Galway. 7. Drug Prevention: Turning Towards Family Support, Saoirse Nic Ghabbainn, National University of Ireland, Galway and Fiona Walshe, Western Health Board, Galway. 8. Developing Reciprocal Support Among Families, Communities and Schools: The Irish Experience, Sandra Ryan, University College Cork. 9. Creating Municipal Structures for Family Support in a Danish City, Peter Steen Jensen, City Planning Department, Odense, Denmark. 10. Emerging Agendas for Family Support, John Pinkerton, The Queens University of Belfast. References. Index.