ABSTRACT
Research workers wishing to interview social work clients are immediately confronted with a considerable obstacle: how to gain access to them. In the past, social agencies, in Britain and the United States, have been extremely reluctant to grant researchers direct access to clients, particularly if the researchers are not employees of the agency and are not members, professionally speaking, of the social work community. A study of the responses of those who are not native to Britain is of considerable importance, but is a subject that merits study in its own right. In the early stages of the study, one of the authors spent considerable time with each of the interviewers, going over tape recorded interviews the latter had conducted. By and large the objective was to pinpoint weaknesses in the interviewer's approach and to develop ways of coping with troublesome situations that might arise.
