Social Work Now, Issue 30, pages 20-26.
Every social worker knows that a large number of families come to the notice of Child, Youth and Family whose functioning is affected by alcohol, drugs, mental health problems and/or family violence. In order to efficiently meet these clients’ needs, and to put forward robust arguments for better resourcing, the incidence of these issues needs to be quantified. This was initially the simple premise behind this piece of basic research. As the work progressed, certain patterns emerged and prompted a widening of the enquiry and the presentation of the data to include past and present family problems, the relationships between family problems and notification types, and the family structure.