Intensive family casework with 'problem families': past and present

In the United Kingdom during the Second World War, poor, working-class mothers and children evacuated as a result of the Blitz were subject to an intensive form of family casework delivered by Pacifist Service Units (later renamed Family Service Units). Some 60 years later, the New Labour Government championed the establishment of Family Intervention Projects to deal with a small number of families deemed to be the cause of anti-social behaviour. Each of these services emerged from very different social and economic contexts, yet this article seeks to demonstrate the continuities between the two forms of intervention that both have as their primary target the ‘problem family’. In so doing, this article raises new questions and ideas that are relevant to current debates about the role of intensive casework in the governance of the family.