The Silent Crisis: the Impact of Poverty on Children in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.
	(October 2000.) Richard Carter. London,The European Children's Trust. 59 pages. The Executive Summary to this report highlights three crucial strategic issues: 1. Poverty is not just a question of the lack of material possessions but has very severe social consequences 2. These consequences impact especially on the family 3. Western governments have failed to recognise the seriousness of the problem. The reader is reminded that what is often termed a 'transition' from the ideals of socialism to a market economy is in fact a massive economic recession in which poverty has increased tenfold since 1989. 40% of the population of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including at least 50 million children, are suffering from poverty. I suspect that these figures seriously understate the extremes of poverty experienced by poorer countries in the region. This report draws on current development data from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme to provide a contemporary analysis and evaluation of the situation facing much of the population. The practice experiences of the social workers and in-house staff working for the European Children's Trust illustrate the daily reality of work with families in the region. A series of case studies underpin the statistical data, which in combination paint a bleak picture. The author suggests that 'it is not tolerable to wait until the World Bank's new strategy has reduced poverty to acceptable limits' [p.38] He advocates a 'development-based approach' that builds on each country's own capacity for regeneration. The report is well structured, setting out the arguments in easily accessible sections. A very useful bibliography demonstrates an effective appraisal of a range of recent research. Readers who have seen anything of the newsreel footage of disabled children in institutions in Romania will recognise that any report on work in this region is not going to make for easy reading. From among the uncomfortable material a model of social work practice emerges. This model has the potential for a more dynamic approach to social work with poor families in much of the European Union than is current in the more conventional 'deficit' models of contemporary practice prevalent within Anglo-Saxon traditions. Contact: The European Children's Trust, 64 Queen street, London EC4R 1HA. Tel: 020 7248 2424 Email: ect@eur-child-trust.org.uk Website: www.everychild.org.uk
	D.C.

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