111 FIVE empowering This chapter examines how consultancy can empower people. We begin by discussing how people may be empowered. Following this, we examine how the consultants gather and use information pertaining to the consultancy. Lastly, we dip into a consultant’s notebook to explore how consultants work in different domains of public services organisations. What empowerment entails We saw in the definition of empowerment in Chapter Four that it refers both to the capacity of people to take control of their lives and to the process by which they do
This innovative and timely book examines the nature and meaning of ‘empowerment’ in child welfare and protection, using the family group conference (FGC) approach to decision making as an example. In response to the growing clamour for ‘evidence-based practice’, the book addresses the central question of how the idea of empowerment can be operationalised and evaluated.
One of the aims of FGCs is to empower children and their families by enabling them more effectively to participate in the decision-making process and by affording them greater control over the outcomes of that process. Empowering practice? critically assesses the available evidence on the empowerment potential of FGCs and examines the implications of the approach for professionals, their agencies and the children and families involved.
Empowering practice? is essential reading for academics and professionals working in a wide range of health, education and social care areas.
87 Part Four: Empowerment The chapters in this section concentrate on using money in ways that empower individuals directly. They emphasise the need to listen carefully to, and value, the views of the recipients of money, responding to the particular requirements of diverse community cultures. The first chapter here expresses the view of someone living on a low income. The chapters that then follow suggest approaches that may help empower people within modern-day financial, economic and social systems. Moraene Roberts describes, from the viewpoint of
The current economic crisis with its gloomy implications for lost generations leaves many disadvantaged young people with ever-diminishing opportunities. The Youth Empowerment Partnership Programme (YEPP) is a fully evaluated on-going international programme focused on disadvantaged areas in eight European countries. It aims to empower young people and the communities in which they live by making them central to new decisionmaking processes involving partnerships between public, private and independent sectors.
This book provides the theoretical context for the programme, gives a full account of the process and outcomes of over 10 years of joint effort in its unique development and research process and reflects on the lessons learnt for future policy. It will appeal to practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and decision-makers in foundations.
155 EIGHT Empowering outcomes? Introduction Chapter Six has established that the FGC process generally appears very enabling of family participation and represents, potentially at least, a means for greater partnership between the family members and the professionals. Effective participation in the process of decision making, however, is only one of the preconditions of user empowerment. No matter how potentially enabling the process, and accepting that this may itself be viewed as an “immediate output” (Hudson et al, 1996, p 15), the FGC will not serve to
113 6 Contradictory dynamics of empowerment in social innovation initiatives Stijn Oosterlynck, Andreas Novy, Bernhard Leubolt and Carla Weinzierl Introduction The notions of social innovation and empowerment have a rather similar history, at least over the past half a century. Whereas the first regular use of the notion of social innovation can be traced back to the period of utopian socialism in the late nineteenth century (Godin, 2012), interest in social innovation experienced a revival in the 1960s and 1970s (see Chapter 2), nurtured by the same
7 ONE The dilemmas of empowerment Introduction Fundamentally, [the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act] is a change of statute law that incorporates procedures for empowering the families ... of ‘at risk’ children, to be able to work out and implement their own plans for the enhancement of the welfare of their own children. (Wilcox et al, 1991, p 1) As the above quotation indicates, one of the explicit aims of the legislation behind the New Zealand family group conference (FGC) is the ‘empowerment’ of families within the childcare decision
115 SIX Empowerment in process? Introduction It is important to be clear about what is not partnership. It is not equal power and it never can be, but it is about empowerment, about families having sufficient information to be able to understand and contribute to planning and have some influence over the outcome. (Jackson, 1994, p 15) As we have seen, the proponents of the FGC model claim that it provides a much better basis than traditional meetings for embodying the spirit of partnership between professionals and families implicit in the 1989 Children Act
119 SEVEN Justice and empowerment Joanna Richardson and Andrew Ryder introduction This chapter examines the notions of ‘justice’ and ‘empowerment’ as they relate to Gypsies and Travellers. It aims to provide a theoretical basis on which to understand the ideas. In a time when the Conservative-led Coalition Government aims to empower everyone to take part in a ‘Big Society’ (as discussed in Chapter One, this volume), it is important to assess the extent to which Gypsies and Travellers will be included in this aim. Theories of power will provide a framework
