“I don't know how they manage,” is the usual middle class response to being told of the incomes of people dependent on pensions and low wages. Genuine concern is tempered by the knowledge that in some way ‘they’ do manage. There is no apparent starvation, few reports of malnutrition. There are no people begging in the streets or living in packing cases, except of course the aborigines, who have always been seen as exceptions.

In this article it is intended to describe the activities of a pressure group which was formed with the explicit objective of influencing the course of events in Victoria in relation to the development of child abuse policies and programmes. In the course of this it will be necessary to present something of the recent history of these developments, the place of such policies in the wider policies relating to child welfare, the reasons why it was thought necessary to establish a pressure group and the directions of the pressurising activity. It is also argued that pressure group activity is a necessary and legitimate part of social work activity and can be undertaken whilst recognising the limitations of such an approach in a liberal-welfare, or to give it a shorter name — a conservative economy. This part of the article will be dealt with first.

Preterm birth is a crisis for both baby and family. The long term outcome for both will be greatly influenced by the families’ ability to move from the grief and impotence associated with the loss of expected full-term parenthood through to active involvement as a preterm parent and eventual acceptance of parenthood.

The families' experience of the crisis is described for both normal and special situations. The implications for staff and family of more active participation of the family are discussed and some methods of involving the family are described.

The Mums' Chums Project is the result of concern, enquiry, thought and preparation to test a preventive method aimed at reducing the incidence of Child Maltreatment.

The Family Service Centre, a voluntary social work agency attached to the University of Western Australia first opened its doors to clients on the 16th May 1977.

The idea of establishing a broadbased family centre attached to the Social Work Department at U.W.A. was first mooted in 1974 in the Department's Triennium Submission for 1976-78 to the Australian Universities Commission and still remains a novelty in the Australian social work education scene. The sixth A.U.C. Report, in fact, expressed considerable interest in the idea by stating that "it might support a contribution to the academic staffing of such a development on the same basis as a University teaching hospital". Unfortunately, the lapse of this Report for political reasons, meant that this and other proposals contained in it were either shelved, lapsed or had to be reactivated within a different policy framework.