133 SEVEN Parental and family support services Introduction This chapter examines developments in parental and family support services from 1997 to 2010. Informal family support refers to the multiple ways people care for one another and provide support for family roles (ie by providing emotional, practical, financial, advisory or childcare support). Informal social support within families and social networks builds social bonds and capital and is associated with practical and emotional support for parents and parental and child well-being, particularly
not need to be licensed on the same terms. ‘Neither a professional nor a friend’: the liminal spaces of parents and volunteers in family support Jenny Fisher,1 j.fisher@mmu.ac.uk Rebecca Lawthom, r.lawthom@mmu.ac.uk Zinnia Mitchell-Smith, z.mitchell-smith@mmu.ac.uk Teresa O’Neill, t.oneill@mmu.ac.uk Hugh McLaughlin, h.mclaughlin@mmu.ac.uk Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Home-Start is a family support charity whose delivery model is a national and global example of how targeted volunteer support can benefit parents, carers and children experiencing
263 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE European perspectives on parenting and family support Janet Boddy Support for parents and families has been a key aspect of policy across government departments in most European countries over recent years. The policy drivers for this emphasis also have some commonalities across countries, including concern with agendas of social inclusion (eg Hantrais, 2004). But there are also important differences between countries in the position of parental support relative to wider policy frameworks for children and families, and beyond that, to
35 TWO Family support and the coalition: retrenchment, refocusing and restructuring Harriet Churchill introduction The scope and make-up of welfare state support for families with children are controversial social policy issues in the British context. However, under the former Labour government, concerns about childhood disadvantage and family functioning moved up the policy agenda. In turn, Labour invested in more universal and targeted family support provision and extended state intervention in childhood and child- rearing. Economic austerity measures
293© The Policy Press • 2012 • ISSN 2046 7435 ar tic le 1 Families, Relationships and Societies • vol 1 • no 3 • 2012 • 293-309 http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204674312X656248 Key words neoliberalism • family support • moral agency Moral agency in everyday safeguarding work: reclaiming hope in the ‘small stories’ of family support: some lessons from John Dewey Karen Broadhurst This article engages with international concerns about the negative impact of an expanding neoliberal project on the professional values of social work. Examining theoretical debates about
167 NINE Engaging fathers with family support services: using conversation analysis Jon Symonds Introduction Working with fathers represents a classic tension in social work practice. On the one hand, social work is predicated on the basis that parents, including fathers, have the capacity for growth and to improve their own and their children’s lives. On the other hand, social workers are required to identify when a parent presents a risk to the child and should no longer be caring for them. Given that most social work continues to be with mothers
191 TEN The role of work-family support factors in helping individuals achieve work-family balance in India Sarlaksha Ganesh and M.P. Ganesh Introduction Work and family are the two primary spheres in most people’s lives, which makes it necessary to balance both. The two should complement each other in ways that help people to perform well in both. Due to recent developments in both spheres this has become an increasingly difficult task to achieve in India. This is evidenced by recent findings from the Randstad Workmonitor Survey (2015) which found that
writing about France but the implication of Donzelot’s thesis had relevance for other country contexts. More importantly, it was prophetic in its forewarning of neoliberal states’ desire to reduce spending to remedy class inequalities and to provide unconditional family support in favour of adopting standardised, targeted family interventions such as the ones identified in this chapter, which are aimed at improving the moral character and functioning of ‘problem’ or ‘troubled’ families. Donzelot’s legacy has been recognised in the field of parenting culture studies
The recent radical cutbacks of the welfare state in the UK have meant that poverty and income management continue to be of great importance for intellectual, public and policy discourse. Written by leading authors in the field, the central interest of this innovative book is the role and significance of family in a context of poverty and low-income. Based on a micro-level study carried out in 2011 and 2012 with 51 families in Northern Ireland, it offers new empirical evidence and a theorisation of the relationship between family life and poverty. Different chapters explore parenting, the management of money, family support and local engagement. By revealing the ordinary and extraordinary practices involved in constructing and managing family and relationships in circumstances of low incomes, the book will appeal to a wide readership, including policy makers.
Coming to Care offers an original contribution to the understanding of care and care work in children’s services in Britain in the early twenty first century. It provides fascinating insights into the factors that influence why people enter and leave care work, their motivations and the intersection of their work with their family lives.
Focusing on four diverse groups of workers - residential social workers, foster carers, family support workers and community childminders - who take on the care of vulnerable children and young people in the context of relatively low levels of qualifications, the book examines their life course as care workers. It explores: the range of factors that attract people into care work, including the biographical circumstances and the serendipitous factors that propel them into the work; their understandings of and commitment to the work; and how their identities as care workers are created and sustained.
The book is highly relevant to current policy debates about the development of children’s services and reforming the childcare workforce and offers a range of practical recommendations. It should provide interesting reading to policy makers and service providers, as well as academics and students in the childcare and social care fields.
