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.
73 5 The Road to Empowerment Hazel Blears and David Blunkett Despite all that has been written about the proven value of reconnecting state institutions with the citizens they serve, many people may still remain unconvinced because of their assumptions about the nature of political power. For them, people do not seek out political power to give it away. And once they have got it, they will hold on to it tightly. Far from being ready to engage in cooperative decision making or sharing power with communities, politicians are on this view bound by
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
203 Critical and Radical Social Work • vol 2 • no 2 • 203–16 • © Policy Press 2014 • #CRSW Print ISSN 2049 8608 • Online ISSN 2049 8675 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204986014X13987657343659 article Empowering the people: ‘empowerment’ and the British Journal of Social Work, 1971–99 Kenneth McLaughlin, k.mclaughlin@mmu.ac.uk Manchester Metropolitan University, UK This paper offers a historical and contextual discussion of the concept of empowerment, a term that proliferates in contemporary social work and social policy discourse. First, I discuss the rise of
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
105 FIVE As a mother and a Muslim: maternalism and neoliberal empowerment Muslim women’s groups – people have been trying to set those up for a long time. I worked from the kind of view that Muslim women are really important because they’re mothers… there’s no real other reason for them to be a group of their own (Faz) That women mother in a variety of societies is not as significant as the value attached to mothering in these societies (Mohanty 1988: 26) Introduction The empowering Muslim women initiative comprised three main work streams. The first
75 Critical and Radical Social Work • vol 5 • no 1 • 75–91 • © Policy Press 2017 • #CRSW Print ISSN 2049 8608 • Online ISSN 2049 8675 • https://doi.org/10.1332/204986016X14822509544479 Submission accepted 30 November 2016 • First published online 18 January 2017 article Self-directed Groupwork – social justice through social action and empowerment Jennie Fleming, jennie.fleming@ntu.ac.uk Nottingham Trent University, UK Dave Ward, dward@dmu.ac.uk De Montfort University, UK Self-directed Groupwork and its values and methodology have taken root in a range of
