Boys’ Stories of Their Time in a Residential School ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’

This book provides rich insights into the pre and post care experiences of boys who were pupils in a residential school where the author worked over the course of the 1980s. It describes the boys’ trajectories through life, as well as detailing the rhythms, rituals, routines, and relationships that existed in the school. While the focus is on the (former) boys’ experiences, these are augmented by interview material from staff members, including religious Brothers, who worked in the school. Together, these different perspectives provide unique insights into an area of social work history that is ill-served by existing accounts, making the book required reading for all scholars and students of social work; social and oral history; narrative sociology; criminology and desistance and social policy.

1. Introduction, 2. The List D Schools and St Roch’s, 3. The role of the De La Salle Brothers in the approved and List D Schools, 4. Positioning myself in St Roch’s, 5. The backgrounds of the St Roch’s boys, 6. Education in its widest sense, 7. A sense of care, 8. Discipline and abuse, 9. Moving on and looking back, 10. The age of mistrust: Changing patterns of care and upbringing in neoliberalism, 11. Making sense of the narrative gap, 12. Epilogue: Looking back with sadness and not a little anger

Mark Smith is Professor of Social Work at the University of Dundee, Scotland. Prior to that he worked at the University of Strathclyde, where he set up the first Master's programme in Residential Child Care in the UK, and at the University of Edinburgh, where, latterly, he served as Head of Social Work. Before entering academia, he worked in and managed residential care establishments for almost 20 years. He has published widely on residential child care and on social work more generally. He and his family maintain direct involvement in child care through fostering.