In this groundbreaking book, the authors show how the cycle of educational alienation can be broken, to enable parents and schools to work together to contribute to children's educational, social and emotional well-being. They illustrate this by exploring a highly successful initiative in a school with severe socioeconomic disadvantages, which, in conjunction with a school-based social work service, developed an effective family-teacher-community alliance. They demonstrate the substantial improvements that such a multiprofessional approach can bring about in reducing truancy, delinquency and exclusion and helping children to become positive, fulfilled and included members of their schools and communities. This book is divided into two parts. Part One, Setting the Scene, contains the following chapters: (1) Social Exclusion; (2) The Cycle of Educational Alienation: The Evidence; (3) "Drink, Drugs & Sex": Media Perception versus Objective Reality; (4) A School-Based Solution: Reaching the "Disaffected"; (5) Being Part of the Solution: The Family Context. Outcomes; (6) Comparing the Project and Control Schools; and (7) Teachers as Consumers. Part Two, Meeting the Needs, contains: (8) Maintaining/Reaching Disaffected Pupils in Mainstream Schools; (9) Special Vulnerable Groups: Education and Social Inclusion; (10) Attendance and Truancy; (11) All Our Children; (12) Practical Development for Mainstream Schools; (13) Interagency Liaison; and (14) A Vision for Children. A bibliography; and an index are also included.