Introduction

In more recent studies of the effectiveness of social casework there is already a detectable tendency for greater specificity about problems, objectives and methods. In essence, task-centred casework is a method of social work in which clients are helped to carry out problem-alleviating tasks within agreed periods of time. The social worker’s role in task-centred casework is to help the client to identify the problems he is most anxious to resolve, formulate to a modest achievable goal or task, and to help him to achieve it. The method has approximately several phases. The initial phase is that of problem exploration, in which the problems of concern to the client are elicited and clarified, if possible defined in explicit behavioural terms, and ranked in order of importance to the client. At the second stage an agreement is reached with the client on the target problem to be tackled, which is then classified by the worker under one of the eight headings.