ABSTRACT
The original material presented in the first edition of this book in 1987 and again in this text stems from research conducted for my PhD. The study involved a period of twelve months observing child care workers in two fieldwork teams in a social services department area office. All members of the teams were interviewed individually on four occasions over the twelve months. Other key members of the setting were also interviewed such as the area office manager and deputy, the office receptionist and area office training officer. A total of seventy-six interviews were audio taped and transcribed. Information from various organisational documents and records were collected but these formed a minor part of the data.
