ABSTRACT
The origins of the two projects were linked, since CueTen was funded as a result of the Scottish Office initiative that led to the establishment of Freagarrach. One of the classics of systematic evaluative research on the effectiveness of social work and similar forms of intervention can be read as saying that the content of the theories and methods used by practitioners matters less than the style in which these are delivered in practice; almost, that good practitioners are also good people. This experience, combined with the qualities required if young people are to cope with a programme like CueTen's, suggests a possible way of thinking about the place of such a project in the range of services. In one of the most obvious and important contrasts between its situation and CueTen's, Freagarrach benefited from the outset from being embedded in a local strategy that brought the various agencies concerned with juvenile offending together with a common sense of purpose.
