ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on what happens when workers or organi-sations decide to focus on a particular approach in family work. Working within one particular optimistic approach can assist workers to address some significant challenges in work with individual families. Working within an optimistic approach does not guarantee that workers will avoid such difficulties, but it can help workers to maintain a respectful stance towards the family and to review their work in a way that may open up a. It ensures that their attempts to maximise possibilities for change with families are not undermined by ways of working within the team that contradict the processes on which their work with families is based. This challenges workers to ensure that not only their individual work but their whole service reflects their beliefs about working with families.
