ABSTRACT
The applicability of task-centred casework to the project clients can be described in terms of the numbers of them who completed the different stages in the model. The classification reflects the views of the social workers recording the application, and the way the clients chose to present themselves. Seventeen cases could be classified under the heading of ‘social control’. What these cases had in common, and what makes them interesting from the point of view of task-centred casework, is that none of them involved clients who had come voluntarily to the social services. In certain cases the task-centred model encourages the worker to be clear that this is happening and to ask whether the outcome is likely to justify the effort. The majority of clients who reached agreement on the problem in the first two interviews continued to see the social worker, whereas the majority of those who did not discontinued contact.
