Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
two - Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. (Judt, 2010: 1–2)
Introduction
Current policy responses to the economic crisis are mobilising social forces, including social work, in a divisive and authoritarian project against those most vulnerable. In the field of child protection, as indeed in other areas of welfare, the roots of current policies are to be found in those of previous New Labour administrations, but the trends pre-date them. From the late 1970s onwards, the doctrines of Reagan and Thatcher became dominant, promoting the virtues of letting the market rule in a triumph of neoliberalism. Although we recognise the term neoliberal is not a satisfactory one, as it is reductive, lumping together too many things, sacrificing attention to internal complexities and lacking in geo-historical specificity, we agree with Hall (2011) that there are enough common features to warrant using it.
Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade. The role of the state is to create and preserve an institutional framework appropriate to such practices. (Harvey, 2005: 2)
Across a range of countries, deregulation, privatisation and withdrawal of the state from many areas of social provision became common, transcending welfare regime typologies and encompassing states established after the collapse of the Soviet Union through to social democracies such as Sweden and New Zealand. A common feature across diverse systems was a rise in inequalities. In this context, it is important to note that from the late 19th century until the 1970s, the advanced societies of the West were becoming more equal. However, as Judt (2010: 13) noted, over the past 30 years ‘we have thrown all this away’. This was not accidental, it was part of a determined political project.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Re-imagining Child ProtectionTowards Humane Social Work with Families, pp. 19 - 36Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2014