Boys’ Stories of Their Time in a Residential School

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.

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