Therapeutic intervention, in the sense of providing sensitive helping professional relationships, continues to be at the heart of good social work practice, despite the somewhat case-managerial approach to practice which seems to have developed over the last decade. I have been interested in therapeutic social work practice since beginning my career as a probation officer, and worked with adults with marital difficulties at a time when it was still an accepted part of the probation officer's role to do so. Much more recently I have focused on child therapies, exploring ways of undertaking what has come to be known as ‘direct’ work within a statutory context.

Following a short period as social worker and team manager in a local social services agency, which made me aware of the need for postqualifying training in childcare, I set up a post-qualifying programme in child protection at the University of Hull. As part of this, we introduced a component of non-directive play therapy, and began to develop ways of using this approach in statutory settings. The approach itself is based on Rogerian client-centred therapy with adults, adapted to working with children, and uses play rather than verbal exchange as the principal means of communication.

I moved to a new post in the social work department at the University of York, where, together with my colleague Virginia Ryan, who has the main teaching and supervisory role on the programme, I set up a twoyear, part-time MA/Diploma in non-directive play therapy. When we started the programme, we were uncertain as to how successful it would be in the current climate. It is now in its sixth year, and the fact that it continues to recruit well-qualified and committed social workers (along with others from different professions) seems some evidence of the continuing interest among social workers in therapeutic work with children. I also teach on the University's Master in Social Work course, and am currently involved in a research project on supporting foster placements, funded by the Department of Health, which is looking, among other things, at the provision of therapeutic services to children and young people in foster care.