The most striking finding was the high level of confrontation and the low level of listening shown by social workers. Differences in the prompts provided and the ratings scales used make comparisons with other studies impossible. Nonetheless, the scores were clearly very low, with ‘obstructing’ and ‘imposing own agenda’ being the most common responses. The levels of empathy do not generally approach the level identified by Carkhuff (1969) and other counselling texts as the basic level for helpful interaction; indeed level 1—which was found for half of all answers—may be considered to be actively unhelpful. Responses showed little evidence of attempting to take seriously or empathise with the parent’s point of view.