Family Support and Family Centre Services

Issues, Research and Evaluation in the UK, USA and Hong Kong

Andrew Pithouse, Sarah Lindsell, Monit Cheung

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138310858
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429860003
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Published in 1998, the aim of this book is to identify and explore key themes and issues around the realm of welfare practice in child and family social work - that is, family centre services and related community-based types of provision. The text addresses the impact and effectiveness of family centres in supporting children, families and communities. Emphasis is placed on community based supportive/preventive family services and those that provide a closed access and therapeutic service aimed at families referred by social workers where children are at risk of abuse. Throughout, the focus is on best practice exemplified by research findings of family centre impacts and outcomes in the UK, the USA and Hong Kong.

1. Welfare and family in the UK

Family centres and those who use them and work in them live in the 'world' with the rest of us and any attempt to describe and analyse this relatively new welfare practice in the UK must commence with some account of the social context in which such centres operate. To this end we wish to outline some key themes around the 'family' that will help us address four important questions - what is happening to welfare, what is happening to families, why might people need family centres and what justifies our providing these services?

Citizen and family: welfare and change

Family centres have emerged at a time of unprecedented change in the institutional structures of welfare in late twentieth century Britain. The family and community that today's middle aged parents grew up in is not simply distanced through time and nostalgic distortion but has changed, as society has, through a re-ordering of global and local economic and social relationships over the last thirty years. The post war expansion in world trade, the globalisation of capital and labour markets and the alignment (and realignment) of national economies to world markets and pressures have led, in the UK, to the re-structuring of the relationship between state and citizen, particularly during the 1980s and early 1990s (Dominelli and Hoogvelt 1996). This has occurred notably in the unceasing attempts by the state to reduce its costly commitments to welfare by passing these on to the citizen who, instructed by both rhetoric and necessity, is expected to seek some protection against calamity for self and family by responsible foresight and prudent investment in market alternatives to collective provision.

The new social and welfare order of Britain in late modernity is now indelibly marked by a gradual application by successive Conservative governments of a radical market liberalism as the appropriate and desired political treatment for Britain's failure to thrive in a new competitive world economy. Conservative policy in the 1980s and early 1990s deemed it essential to reconstruct the compact between citizen and state away from universal welfare via large agencies of public administration and away from colleetivist sentiments and assumptions about the state as provider of welfare - other than the last resort for the means tested needy. Similarly, the post war corporatist institutions of labour, business and state, the public utilities, together with the vested interests of public sector (and some private) professions were dismantled, privatised or denied by government during the 1980s and much of the 1990s. In their place, deregulation, marketisation and the ethic of self reliance and family responsibility were promoted as the means to secure a new entrepreneurial leaner fitter Britain capable of sustained economic growth in the European and world market (see Gladstone 1995).

Such far reaching changes were not to be realised within the old notion of state as social engineer and manager/fixer of class interests and conflict. Instead, the state could, through a slow process of rigorous financial control and legislation, abandon collectivist welfare traditions and introduce a new order of welfare pluralism and self-help as the leitmotif of a much vaunted low taxation home-owning democracy. Such an approach would it was thought, stir the sleeping giant of individual self-interest - dulled by dependency on what was viewed as the failed public agencies of redistribution - and encourage a new energy for participation in the market, for risk taking, for commercialism, for property owning and for family responsibility.

As we approach the next millennium, the social democratic citizen envisaged by Marshall (1950) as the central figure of an evolving welfare state come to maturity in post war Britain seems now to represent more an historic moment of hope and reconstruction than the birth of a deep rooted and lasting institution. While the aims of citizenship in mid century Britain were never realised in respect of equal access to social and economic opportunities (Pierson 1991) the notion of citizen as a moral category in the sense of the individual being seen (at least in abstract) as deserving by dint of equal worth as any other member of society remained a powerful idea. But if citizenship as substantive rights and obligations in democratic welfare capitalism has never achieved the status of a social contract in Britain and continues to be a contested arena over entitlements reflecting underlying social antagonisms and inequalities (see Dahrendorf in Bulmer and Rees 1996, p. 45) then so too has the symbolic nature of the deserving citizen become attenuated and challenged. The idea that individuals should take greater personal responsibility for their own needs and that the state should provide welfare only for the eligible poor has been a reforming principle of much Conservative government policy (see Secretaries of State 1997, p. 8). The restoration of self-reliance and minimal state intervention as a central ethic of the new welfare order was prefigured clearly in a speech by Margaret Thatcher shortly before coming to power as Prime Minister in 1979.

The sense of being self-reliant, of playing a role within the family, of owning one's property, of paying one's own way, are all part of the spiritual ballast which maintains responsible citizenship ... (Lister 1990, p.15).

While politically the 1980s was a Thatchente decade dedicated in large part to reducing the size and activities of the state in order to pursue the goal of market liberalism and economic freedoms, the view of the welfare state as an impediment to progress was by no means held only by the political right. Those on the left and centre of UK politics, while not in accord with government policies that sought to commodity state welfare and 'consumerise' the citizen via the infusion of business practices, competition and privatisation into public services, were also concerned that Britain's post war welfare state was outmoded and inhibiting. For example, the Commission on Social Justice established in 1992 by John Smith, (then) leader of the Labour Party, took as part of its remit a critical review of Britain's welfare state and its relation to economic and social renewal. The Report of the Commission (1994, p. 223) argues forcefully that welfare no longer addresses the needs of modern Britain, and it asserts the requirement for an intelligent welfare state which is active throughout people's lives, helping them to negotiate permanent change in the economy and the consequences of this within families. The Report calls for a system that does more than patch up the welfare safety net - a system that will turn welfare into a springboard which promotes economic opportunity and social justice.

The modernising strictures and ideals within the Report of the Commission on Social Justice have reinvigorated the notion of a universal citizen worthy by dint of membership alone (but with clear expectations of a reciprocating self-help in return for welfare). While this important review has informed a national debate, albeit within a relatively narrow political and social policy constituency, the future for welfare is far from certain. There can be no safe assumption of any political party in the foreseeable future inflating public welfare expenditure beyond the limits of economic growth or efficiency savings. Indeed, 'The End of the Welfare State' was the banner headline of the Guardian on May 8th 1996, where it was announced that both major political parties in the UK were now in some accord that the welfare state must undergo fundamental transformation in order to adapt to demographic, family and workforce changes. In this future, it is likely that greater responsibility on the part of the citizen for self help will be assumed, particularly through the involvement of private insurance schemes. The arrival of a New Labour Government in May 1997 has of course brought with it the anticipation of a sea change with its promise of wide ranging reform of welfare and a 'new deal' for the citizen as a valued and inclusive member of society. However, at the time of completing this book the new government's strong commitment to financial prudence and low inflation will likely make welfare expansion in their priority areas of education, health and unemployment a slow and modest process within a first administration. Also, it is not yet clear if New Labour will do more than tackle the inefficiencies of a system they view as poorly targeted and demotivating. Nor is it clear that they will attempt this through some philosophy that differs significantly from that of the previous Conservative government. The work ethic, greater selectivity, and a minimum safety net for those in proven need are likely to remain as before, the key principles that will inform the modernisation of UK welfare (see Young 1998).

The notion of citizen, either as (yesterday's) worthy member of the collective or (the new) self-actualising self-helping individual that now appeals to the middle ground of British politics, may not easily chime with the experience of marginalised groups and communities who may perceive little or no positive significance to 'being a citizen' in 'society'. Here, the problems of neighbourhoods that have suffered severe deterioration through economic decline, joblessness, family disruption, discrimination, the loss of informal and formal support mechanisms and where there has been a dramatic rise in lone parent households is prominently visible in US urban areas (Wilson 1996, p. 225) and to a lesser but growing extent in British inner cities. Hence our interest in the US experience of family support services and the lessons we may learn.

In late 1990s Britain, we find ourselves in a society uneasy about itself, divided much more sharply by wealth and opportunity, not confident that economic success is yet within reach, yet aware of the social costs of politically engineered institutional change that have helped create marked income inequality and a sizeable 'underclass' made up largely of long-term unemployed, those on insecure low incomes, pensioners and single parents (Atkinson 1996). Whether these citizens are unwillingly trapped in poverty or have somehow become idly dependent on a benefits culture (see Marsland 1996) remains part of a heated political debate that has yet to be translated into determined and effective strategies to tackle want. Those more comfortably off have yet to register any vociferous resentment towards government about the predicament of those less fortunate. Whether the arrival of the New Labour government will also lead to the emergence of a new liberal establishment of articulate and influential opinion-formers that can help win widespread support for a return to (the social democratic) basics of a more caring (and more costly) civil community is yet to be seen. Indeed, a certain moral weariness or compassion fatigue among the concerned but insecure middle classes for the 'have nots' appears more likely to have combined with their own anxieties over employment and a need to secure private welfare once provided by the state. A retreat by the insecure 'haves' into the laager of home and family and/or a search for 'lifestyle' identities and interests that take precedence over any sense of communal obligation would seem not untypical of the response of many to the social and political problems that characterise the closing decades of the century (see Giddens 1991). And this despite the Thatcherite assumption that the new ethic of self reliance and market freedoms in the 1980s would promote greater citizen participation in the community (McCarthy 1989, p. 43). Instead, the family, as ever, remains the main locus of support for its members rather than any new communal solidarities yet to emerge from the storm of economic and social change in the UK over the last two decades.

Within this watershed of change where individualism and self reliance have drawn the boundaries of altruism more closely around the immediacy of home and significant others, lies the private world of the family (see Jordan et al. 1994). The private family, largely invisible to all but its closest participants is the outcome of emotional and material resources and processes that make it unique to that primary group. Yet it is also a public and much politicised phenomenon. It is public in that it is a common-sense and theoretical topic of scrutiny for lay and professional opinion. It is also politicised in the sense that functions which define family relationships, identities, and meanings invite competing viewpoints (see Morgan 1996). This is particularly so in a climate of social change as witnessed in recent decades and in which the family has been at various times diagnosed as in dangerous decline or denounced as the source of exploitation and oppression. Such well worn themes are not discussed here. Nor do we engage with current perspectives in family sociology in the UK or family studies in the US which seek to re-conceptualise the family around household membership, domestic practices, inequality, obligations and rights, family citizenship and so forth. Such issues are the subject of a large and well debated literature (see Bernardes 1997, pp. 62-3). We recognise the importance of this field, its different discourses and the implications of these for the way we conceive of our subject matter in this text. However, our focus here is necessarily narrowed around what families need to sustain positive, caring, open and equitable relationships where parents and other adult carers take pride in their family building achievements and where children can flourish in a climate of love and attachment. In this regard we are concerned with families who need help to realise these deceptively straightforward ambitions.

It is of course one thing to say families need help. Most of us know that families are under considerable economic pressure in a world of employment insecurity, costly housing, constraint over welfare expenditure and increasing demands on family budgets for bringing up children and young people (see Levitas 1996, p. 14). Most of us know that the family has been shaped if not shaken by a fast changing world where individualism, secularism and cultural pluralism seem to undermine old certainties and solidarities. But still the question, why help families? Why not let filial obligation and kinship support make their adjustments to the world as ever? (see Finch and Mason 1990). The answer in our view is simple: families are not just a refraction of social forces, or a society in microcosm, rather the family is both produced by and in significant measure re-produces the social world. Family life begets crucial social outcomes. It helps create the 'others' with whom we construct our private and public worlds. While this may seem absurdly self-evident it should not be dismissed too quickly. For the point is that we cannot hope to live in a decent society, nor can we construct one, unless we have families that recognise and help promote the virtues of civic commitment, tolerance, communal cohesion and a sense of moral obligation to others despite our diverse and conflicting interests. (And despite the institutional limits set by an avowedly non-interventionist state which for the remainder of the 1990s is likely to constrain the options available to a Labour administr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on the Authors
• Introduction
• 1. Welfare and family in the UK
• 2. The open access family centre: a case study
• 3. The specialist referred family centre: issues of protection and prevention
• 4. Supporting families in need: the early years centre
• 5. Family service centres in the United States: history and development
• 6. Family service centres in the United States: developing a framework for outcome measures
• 7. Family service centres in Hong Kong
• 8. Family services: key issues in evaluation