Van Richmond naar Reid.

With continually renewed editions of her book What is social casework? (eleven printings from 1950 till 1977) Marie Kamphuis followed the developments of social casework in the USA and translated them for the Dutch situation. When she was not longer involved, the gathering of information about developments of social casework in the USA diminished. In regard to one of the models introduced by Kamphuis in the Netherlands, the task-centered casework model, this book continues her efforts. Task-centered casework was one of the new models constructed after the socalled effectiveness crisis that was caused by very disappointing results of the casework-evaluation studies in the sixties and seventies in the USA. The first edition of the book Task-Centered Casework by William Reid and Laura Epstein was published in 1972 and translated in Dutch in 1977. This book is not only about the construction and the development of the task-centered casework model, but also about the previous history of the model – its roots in older models of casework and voluntary charity to the poor in the USA and in the Netherlands. Since its inception in 1972, the TC-model of social work practice has undergone a continuous program of research and development. Research projects were set up in the USA and in England, but also in several other countries. Some of the larger projects are described and an impression is given from other, more limited projects. Research and findings on, for instance, work with time limits, the effectiveness of task work, and the best way to plan for and implement tasks are discussed in the last chapter of the book, and in fact in all preceding chapters. The reason is that the founders and recent developers of the task-centered model valued research-based knowledge more than other kinds of know-ledge. In 2000 Reid published The Task Planner which presents task menu’s for some 130 problems. In selecting tasks priority was given to those whose effectiveness has been supported by research and those that have been used with apparent success in clinical practice. The Task-Centred Book of Marsh and Doel (2005) is based on three main pillars: research, services users’ views and wishes, and practitioner experience. Case studies are spread throughout the book to build on the experiences of practitioners and the people with whom they worked. Reviewing all the presented research the conclusion is that task-centered work makes a combination of evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence. The conclusion is that task-centered work is an important social work method, with apparent roots in former social casework methods and principles and valuing contemporary research as much as the reflected-on experiences of social workers and their clients.