I cannot think of another book about child and youth care practice that remains in print after 50 years. Yet, this is the case of the classic text The other 23 hours. It was written by Al Triecshman, the founder and Director of the Walker Home and School in Massachusetts, along with two young staff members, Jim Whittaker and Larry Brendtro. The book sets out in practical detail how the use of 24/7 daily living environment (or milieu) of a residential programme is the most effective way of treating children and young people with emotional and behavioural issues, rather than the therapeutic hour, as delivered by a clinician in a professional suite.

While Al is no longer with us, Jim and Larry continue to write and circle the globe with this message. If the present push to create a new generation of therapeutic residential care programmes is to succeed, this is a message which needs to be widely heard and endorsed.

This book has been read by many and continues to inspire generations of child and youth care workers, teachers, social workers, psychologists and others who find themselves in daily encounters, in a range of group care settings, with a population of children and young people who are seeking to change their dysfunctional behaviours.

In an era where residential programmes, at least in the western world, continue to be viewed by some as unnecessary and even harmful, it is good to know that the content of The other 23 hours continues to have high relevance.

As if to celebrate the anniversary of the publication of The other 23 hours, Bath and Seita have presented us with a gem of a book, The three pillars of transforming care, which is about trauma and resiliency in the other 23 hours. This is a book that sits comfortably alongside The other 23 hours while carefully drawing on knowledge from neuroscience to update the skills of child and youth care workers in group care programmes.

The first three chapters of this book cautiously lay out what we know about brain development and the impact of adversity and trauma. This is the highly technical part of the book that is not an easy read, but is the necessary theoretical base for what is to follow. The next three chapters are magic. The concentration in these chapters is on the importance of what the authors describe as the three pillars of effective practice with traumatised children and young people namely, safety, communication and coping skills. Importantly, unlike the first three chapters of this book, the authors have made an exceptional attempt to explain this content in as simple a way as possible without ignoring the underlying theoretical constructs. They have done this so as to make the content available to direct service staff in child and youth care programmes.

Taken together, these two books offer therapeutic residential care programmes an imaginative, practical and theoretical roadmap for programme design and staff training. If the content of these two books is embraced, the cry that residential programmes have no sound theoretical base is clearly no longer true.