Book Review: C. Hayden, Children in Trouble: The Role of Families, Schools and Communities, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, £19.99 Pb, ISBN 978—1-4039—9486—8
| DOI | 10.1177/14732254080080020702 |
| Author | Hannah Smithson |
| Published date | 01 August 2008 |
| Date | 01 August 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
180 Youth Justice 8(2)
C. Hayden, Children in Trouble: The Role of Families, Schools and Communities,
Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, £19.99 Pb, ISBN 978–1-4039–9486–8.
Reviewed by: Dr Hannah Smithson, Applied Criminology Centre, University of
Huddersfi eld, UK.
Given the current political and media obsession with ‘children in trouble’ in the UK and elsewhere,
a text which attempts to bring together an updated and comprehensive review of the research in this
area is very timely.
The fi rst chapter on historical contexts provides an interesting insight into the development of
our ideas about children in trouble from a welfare versus justice perspective. The second, on con-
temporary perspectives pays particular attention to crime, disorder and youth justice from 1997
onwards. This chapter provides some interesting perspectives around children as threats and victims,
children’s rights and the contradictory messages demonstrated in recent legislation and policy. The
chapter also addresses the ever present concern regarding anti-social behaviour (ASB) and the raft
of sanctions introduced to tackle the ‘problem’. In the third chapter, the section on youth crime
and victimization is particularly detailed and uses a variety of sources (offi cial fi gures and self report
studies) to demonstrate the extent of young people’s involvement in offending behaviour and the
type of behaviours they become involved in. It is important that this chapter rightly draws attention
to the notion of young people as victims as well as offenders. This serves to further highlight the
contradictory messages found in contemporary legislation (as described in Chapter 2).
Whilst it is acknowledged that the fi rst three chapters do offer valuable insights into the devel-
opment of our ideas about children in trouble, these early chapters suffer from the problem that the
subject matter is that of a congested fi eld and a text needs to offer something exceptional to stand
out from the crowd. In bringing together much of the material that has been reviewed in other
books these fi rst three chapters are timely but unchallenging.
Chapter 4 focuses on ‘Families and Children in Trouble’ and offers fi ndings from some original
research. The fi rst part of the chapter reviews the already well-established research concerning the
effect of families and parenting on the behaviour of children. The chapter then comes into its own
when reviewing original research around families. It is approached in a well-structured way as it
explores three different approaches to the issue: preventative (Sure Start); dealing with already
existing problems (family group conferencing – FGCs) and problematic circumstances (out-of-area
placements).
Chapter 5, ‘Children in Trouble at School’, is one of the more interesting chapters. It provides
the fi ndings from two original pieces of research. The fi rst is an early intervention programme
evaluating a service called the ‘Joint School and Family Support Team’ (JSFST). The second is an
evaluation of a programme called ‘Team-Teach’. Although very different programmes, the author
provides a thorough and critical review of each and the conclusions will be invaluable to any student
or practitioner interested in children’s schooling.
The next chapter, ‘Children in Trouble in the Community’, focuses in the main on young
people and anti-social behaviour. Although the chapter does provide an overview of three small-scale
original studies, it again suffers from offering ‘nothing new’. Furthermore, the extent to which the
chapter actually focuses on children and the community could be questioned, as much of the analysis
provided might have been usefully presented in earlier chapters on the role of families and schools.
Chapter 7 addresses the ‘what works debate’. Although it discusses the various approaches to
assessing the methodological rigour of ‘evidence based’ policy, such as systematic reviews and meta-
analysis, it is not clear how the author selects and reviews the research summarized in this chapter.
Thus, one cannot be certain that she has answered the question set in the title – ‘What Works with
Children in Trouble?’
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