The emergence of radical social work in the 1970s was immersed in a clear social and class based analysis of poverty and inequality and their stunting impact on children and families. It came out of a period of growing working class militancy and its perspectives placed the capitalist system at the centre of social ills. The impact of Thatcherism, of aggressive marketisation, that has accelerated under New Labour, threatens to turn social work into a profession marred by target setting, defensiveness and obsession with the bottom line. This book seeks to provide a useful antidote to these trends and to stimulate a more progressive debate about the future of social work.