First published in 1975, Daily Experience in Residential Life, based on questionnaires completed by students during their residential placements, breaks new ground with fresh implications for social work training and practice. The author first examines daily life experiences of children in a wide range of residential provision, with particular reference to methods of handling uncooperative children; second, to consider effective ways of enabling caregivers to provide helpful, rather than neutral or even punitive, daily treatment. Her findings suggest that children with similar needs differ greatly in the quality of care they receive and that variations, particularly in methods of discipline and control, depend less upon theoretical principles than upon their caregivers’ immediate pressures in practice. Therefore, her major recommendation (also applicable to children in foster-care, day school or at risk in their own homes, and to dependent adults either at home or in institutional care) is that the caregivers themselves require appropriate ongoing experience of professional support in their very difficult task.
