Children and child welfare sit at the heart of New Labour’s plans for social inclusion - but how does the government view ‘children’ - is it reflecting public opinion, or leading it? How does New Labour perceive ‘child welfare’? What are the motivations behind, and objectives of, current social policy for children? Are the ‘Rights of the Child’ being subsumed under ‘duties and responsibilities’? This revisionist account provides critical answers to these questions within a historical framework and from a child-centred perspective.
The book not only offers a provocative account of contemporary policies and the ideological thrust behind them, but also provides an informed historical perspective on the evolution of child welfare during the last century.
1 Child welfare: ways of seeing ONE Child welfare: ways of seeing As a ‘way of seeing’, I would like to propose what I call three guiding dualisms – mind/body, victim/threat, normal/abnormal – in order to provide a compass with which measurements of a kind may be taken to help navigate a way through the various currents of social policy in search of attitudes, practices, goals, and perceptions of children (as people) and of childhood (as a structural form). Furthermore, I suggest that these dualisms have tended to encapsulate children in an entity of investment
This book offers an analysis and summary of the uses, abuses and limitations of attachment theory in contemporary child welfare practice.
Analysing the primary science and drawing on the authors’ original empirical work, the book shows how attachment theory can distort and influence decision-making. It argues that the dominant view of attachment theory may promote a problematic diagnostic mindset, whilst undervaluing the enduring relationships between children and adults.
The book concludes that attachment theory can still play an important role in child welfare practice, but the balance of the research agenda needs a radical shift towards a sophisticated understanding of the realities of human experience to inform ethical practice.
5 ONE Child, welfare, agency A new word is like a fresh seed sewn on the ground of the discussion. Ludwig Wittgenstein Jennifer Jennifer is a 16-year-old girl who, since the age of two, has lived in children’s homes and foster families. She has little agency and has problems maintaining relationships with other people. Whenever they come close, she pulls away. Although she was convinced that her last foster parents would always look after her, she felt she could not carry on living with the family, as she could not deal with its open character based on
311 Critical and Radical Social Work • vol 6 • no 3 • 311–27 • © Policy Press 2018 Print ISSN 2049 8608 • Online ISSN 2049 8675 • https://doi.org/10.1332/204986018X15388225078517 Accepted for publication 24 July 2018 • First published online 20 October 2018 article Neoliberalism, ‘race’ and child welfare Derek Kirton, d.kirton@kent.ac.uk University of Kent, UK This article explores the significance of ‘race’ and ethnicity in the relationship between neoliberalism and child welfare in the UK, arguing that this has been somewhat marginal in both policy and
Introduction There are circumstances in which the public authorities have the right and obligation to intervene in the autonomy of the family, an otherwise highly respected unit in democratic societies. These circumstances include situations when children need to be protected from their parents’ failure of care. Child welfare systems have a variety of ways of protecting children: they give support, guidance and services to parents and children, and, as a last resort, they separate children from their parents’ care and take them into public care. Separation
87 Child welfare in a period of economic and political crises THREE Child welfare in a period of economic and political crises, 1918-45 Nutrition The most accessible source for the history of school child health during the period 1918-45 are the annual reports of the School Medical Service and the Ministry of Health, all of which were optimistic in their recording of mortality and morbidity statistics, as were the majority of local reports submitted by MOHs. In his report for 1932, for example, Newman (who was both CMO to the Board of Education and, from 1920
5 two social exclusion, child welfare and well-being introduction In this book we consider policies implemented by different New Labour governments that were intended to address the ‘problem’ of social exclusion among children and young people. In particular, we consider the experiences of the Children’s Fund in this regard. So, what is ‘social exclusion’ and how does it affect children and young people? The adoption of a social exclusion perspective by New Labour in its early years of government reflected the aspirations for social change of a new
29 three Contemporary issues for preventative child welfare introduction Social exclusion is a comparatively recent way of understanding the needs and experiences of children who are in various ways disadvantaged and, as we have seen, it is a perspective that has generated considerable controversy. However, the history of child and family policies demonstrates that controversy about the basis on which interventions and support should be provided is not new and has accompanied most attempts to develop policy and practice concerned with children’s welfare
205 New Labour and child welfare SIX New Labour and child welfare: panopticism in the service of communitarianism Investing in children and young people is critical. (DWP, 2001, p 1) Introduction: the Third Way The purpose of this introduction is to provide a general, but hopefully informative, overview of New Labour’s social, economic and political philosophy, for only then is it possible to understand what the government means when it talks about child welfare. In fact, as will be shown, it rarely mentions ‘child welfare’ as such, much preferring to speak in
