Elaine Batty

Conceptualising the Contexts, Mechanisms and Outcomes of Intensive Family Intervention Projects

Intensive family intervention projects have become an increasingly prominent mechanism within anti-social behaviour and social policy programmes in the UK and are supported, in principle, by the new coalition government. They have also been the subject of considerable academic controversy within the evaluative and critical literature. This article attempts to inform continuing debates about the purpose and effects of these projects by conceptualising the contexts within which interactions between projects and families occur; classifying the component aspects of roles and support provided; and presenting a three-part typology of potential outcomes from project interventions.

Gamers or victims of the system? Welfare reform, cynical manipulation and vulnerability

New mechanisms of conditionality enacted through current reforms of the UK welfare system are framed within contested narratives about the characteristics, rationalities and conduct of welfare users. In the problem figuration of welfare reform the orientations and conduct of welfare recipients have been conceptualised and depicted across a spectrum ranging from cynical manipulators gaming the system and subverting the original ethos of the welfare state to vulnerable individuals experiencing compounded disadvantage. This paper aims to strengthen the conceptualisation of cynical manipulation and vulnerability and to empirically investigate how narratives of these ideas are deployed by key stakeholders in the welfare system and the extent to which manipulation or vulnerability are present in the orientations and conduct of individuals in receipt of welfare support.

Intensive Family Intervention and the Problem Figuration of ‘Troubled Families’

This article examines how intensive family interventions in England since 1997, including the Coalition governments Troubled Families programme, are situated in a contemporary problem figuration of ‘anti-social’ or ‘troubled’ families that frames and justifies the utilisation of different models of intensive family intervention. The article explores how techniques of classification and estimation, combined with the controversial use of ‘research’ evidence in policy making, are situated within a ‘rational fiction’ that constructs ‘anti-social’ families in particular ways. The article illustrates how this problem figuration has evolved during the New Labour and Coalition administrations in England, identifying their similarities and differences. It then presents findings from a study of intensive family intervention strategies and mechanisms in a large English city to illustrate how this national level discourse and policy framework relates to developing localised practice, and the tensions and ambiguities that arise.

Talking ‘bout poor folks (thinking ‘bout my folks): perspectives on comparative poverty in working class households

Abstract This paper explores concepts and narratives of comparative poverty articulated by residents of six working class neighbourhoods in Britain and examines how individuals’ assessments of self were influenced by comparisons to other social groups. The paper presents empirical findings to suggest the need for more nuanced sociological and policy understandings of working class experience and alternative explanations for quiescence with inequality. Our findings suggest disconnections between research emphasising relative deprivation and stigmatisation, a drive to evaluate economic status and the centrality of a comparative relational framework for perceptions of poverty; and the actual lens’ through which many working class individuals conceptualise their circumstances. The denial of a social comparative paradigm was generated by circumstances being doxic (or taken for granted), the rejection of a ‘poverty’ label, the importance of self-trajectories and the ambivalent and nuanced relationships between material wealth, happiness and moral worth. However, a limited comparative gaze upon more affluent groups was contrasted with strong narratives of respectability and legitimacy juxtaposed with those groups deemed not to adhere to these working class values. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for housing policy.

Learning and soft outcomes: evidence from intensive intervention projects

Over the last decade there has been a clear focus on tackling disadvantage and transforming lives. A plethora of programmes such as Family Intervention Projects, Think Families Pathfinders and Intensive Intervention Projects have focussed on families meeting centrally determined quantifiable outcomes and have used this as a factor to judge the success or otherwise of intervention programmes. However, little attention, or indeed value, has been given to the learning that young people experience throughout the intervention period. The article argues that learning is a crucial component of intervention projects. Qualitative evidence from a longitudinal study is used to explore young people’s engagement with an Intensive Intervention programme. Using individual experiences, evidence suggests that continuous learning during engagement with Intensive Intervention Projects can lead to soft outcomes which enable future positive change in the lives of individuals.

Addressing educational disadvantage in deprived communities: evidence from the New Deal for Communities Programme in England

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) Programme is one of the most intensive area-based initiatives (ABIs) launched in England. Between 1998 and 2010, 39 NDC Partnerships were charged with improving conditions in relation to six outcomes within deprived neighbourhoods, each accommodating around 9800 people. This paper outlines the approaches taken by NDCs to improve educational outcomes. Change is explored within three themes: change within NDC areas; change relative to other benchmarks; and modelling change. Education saw the least change of all six outcomes adopted by the NDC Programme. Unique to this outcome, spending more on education was associated with less change. Spend may have been better directed at supporting younger children and their parents combined with targeted out of school programmes of support for specific NDC cohorts.

Street-level practice and the co-production of third sector-led employability services

Policymakers have promised a personalised approach to improving the employability of disadvantaged groups. The evidence suggests that contracted-out activation programmes in the UK and some other welfare states have instead sometimes delivered a standardised ‘work-first’ model. An alternative approach is exemplified in local employability services targeting lone parents in Scotland, led by third sector–public sector partnerships. Our research on these services suggests a link between programme governance (defined by flexible funding and collaborative partnership working) and effective street-level practice (where caseworkers and users co-produce services to empower parents). The article concludes by identifying lessons for the coproduction of future employability services.