Reviews : Happy Families Swingbridge Video Norden House, 41 Stowell Street, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 4YB, £45 (or £10 daily hire), 26 minutes
| Date | 01 December 1989 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058903600409 |
| Published date | 01 December 1989 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
186
REVIEWS
Comments, contributions
and
sugges-
tions
to
The
Editor,
Probation
Office,
Whitefriars,
Norwich
NR3
1TN,
Tel
(0603)
624155
Happy
Families
Swingbridge
Video
Norden
House,
41 Stowell
Street,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
NE1
4YB,
£45
(or £10
daily
hire),
26
minutes
Amid
the
gloom
of
current
social
work
practice,
anything
that
calls
itself
’an
anti-poverty
video
package’
causes
the
spirits
to
rise
a
little.
It
follows
a
fic-
tional
Tyneside
family
-
unemployed
father
and
teenage
son,
working
mother
and
single-parent
daughter -
as
they
struggle
to
make
ends
meet.
It
deals
with
the
stresses
on
traditional
family
roles
as
father
struggles
with
the
loss
of
self-esteem
brought
about
by
long-term
unemployment
while
his
wife
exhausts
herself
in
a
low-paid
job,
the
increasingly
inadequate
level
of
benefits
for
the
maintenance
of
even
basic
necessities
and
the
desperation
which
leads
to
the
loan
shark.
While
the
story
itself
raises
a
wealth
of
discussion
material,
it
is
interspersed
from
time
to
time
with
interview
material
featuring
claimants
whose
stories
reinforce
the
message
that
once
you
fall
into
the
poverty
trap
it
is
very
difficult
to
escape.
The
tape
is
well-produced
with
convincing
performances
and
script.
Its
setting
is
traditional,
white
working-
class
but
it
avoids
stereotype,
even
to
the
portrayal
of
benefits
office
staff
as
sympathetic
but
powerless.
It
succeeds
in
its
portrayal
of
change
brought
about
by
poverty;
changes
in
role;
changes
in
expectation
and
changes
in
self-image.
Whether
the
package
as
a
whole
justifies
its
’anti-poverty’
claim
is
less
clear.
Accompanying
the
video
is
a
series
of
information
sheets
about
benefits,
the
credit
industry
and
loan
sharks
and,
finally
about
food
co-ops
and
organising
a
tenants’
rights
group.
These
are
fairly
basic
and
would
pro-
bably
require
considerable
additional
knowledge
to
use
effectively.
Moreover,
generally
they
offer
few
positive
sug-
gestions
for
combatting
long-term
poverty.
Nevertheless,
I
am
sure
that
the
package
could
be used with
groups
of
clients,
perhaps
as
part
of
a
welfare
rights
course
or
as
a
discussion
starter
in
a
less
specific
setting.
Graham
Nicholls
SPO,
Worksop
Probation
as
an
Alternative
to
Custody
Peter
Raynor
Avebury,
1988,
202pp,
£22.50
The
Probation
Service
can
point
to
many
examples
of
innovative
practice
over
the
years
but,
as
the
Audit
Com-
mission
report
has
recently
pointed
out,
their
effectiveness
is
rarely
rigorously
evaluated.
Moreover,
par-
ticularly
in
the
last
decade
during
which
probation
officers
have
been
struggling
to
fill
the
gap
left
by
the
death
of
the
rehabilitative
ideal,
many
of
these
projects
have
a
short
shelf
life
and
have
been
abandoned
by
the
time
the
evaluative
study
is
published.
The
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