The idea for this book began while I worked as a consultant-trainer for the protective service unit of a large county social service department. The staff were all very thoughtful, caring and experienced child welfare workers with backgrounds in protective service and foster care for many years, several of them 15 to 20 years or more. They frequently voiced frustration at the repetitive work they were doing that seemed to have very little impact on the clients they served. As a member of the treatment team, I went out with the 24-hour crisis unit whose job it was to respond to emergency phone calls in the middle of the night. I have supervised and consulted for hundreds of cases as well as treated them myself.

Insoo Kim Berg
Brief Family Therapy Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 1991

Insoo Kim Berg's work will change practice and will open new solutions for child protection workers who have become dissatisfied with a monitoring role and are searching for ways to develop co-operation with their clients as a basis for building safety for children.

Evan George
Brief Therapy Practice, London, April 1991