Severe Learning Disabilities and Challenging Behaviours: Designing high quality services

This is a timely book. The question of how to help people with challenging behaviour -and how to design and manage services so that staff, families and users feel that what should be done is being done - is at the top of the agenda. Failure to deal com­ petently with the issue results in disaffection, poor quality ser­ vices and a less than optimal quality of life for service users. Moreover, the credibility of services for all people with learning disabilities is intimately connected with how we cope with chal­ lenging behaviour, a point made recently by a Department of Health Working Group chaired by Jim Mansell (Department of Health, 1993). The book is welcome because it draws together what is known about the important questions from a British perspective, although, of course, most of the underlying issues have world­ wide relevance. The contributors, while all having a good deal of experience and authority, do not put forward simple portrayals of the problems, nor glib solutions, and this is one of the book's major strengths. Clarity in the field of challenging behaviour is sometimes elu­ sive. What is presented here forces the reader to confront argu­ ments in a rational and logical fashion.