In juxtaposition to the sizeable literature on workfare, there is a significant gap of research on the Learning, Earning, and Parenting (LEAP) policy of Ontario Works, a workfare program for teen parents in Canada. The purpose of this article is to discuss a qualitative study exploring the adequacy and efficacy of the program. Findings indicate that while some amendments are necessary for LEAP specifically, significant modifications are needed to the overall workfare policy. A paradigmatic shift in the characterisation of workfare recipients is also necessary to extricate mothers from the cycle of poverty associated with social assistance access.

The question of how best to account for the multidimensional character of welfare states has become an integral part of discussions on the so-called dependent variable problem within comparative welfare state research. In this paper, we discuss challenges from an attempt to capture productive and protective welfare state dimensions by means of several methodological techniques, namely Z-score standardisation, cluster analysis, factor analysis and fuzzy-set ideal type analysis. While we illustrate that a decision to use any one of these techniques has a substantial bearing on the produced findings, we specifically argue that fuzzy-set ideal type analysis offers considerable advantages over more traditional, statistically rooted approaches. This is particularly true if the observed dimensions are conceptually distinct and ‘antithetical’.

Britain has entered a new era of super-diversity and many regions of the UK are experiencing the arrival of new communities. Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs) have developed following the arrival of new asylum seeking and refugee communities, and have been charged with the role of supporting the integration of these newcomers. However, there is much evidence to suggest that they are functioning only with individuals rather than working with institutions to transform systems and ensure welfare provision is adapted to account for diverse needs. This paper looks at the role of RCOs in attempting transformation and, using data collected through survey, interviews, and participatory action research, examines the extent to which RCOs are able to engage with the public and wider voluntary sector, to ensure that refugees' welfare needs can be met. It finds that in addition to the much-researched functional barriers to transformation, there are major institutional barriers to engagement. Institutions have failed to adapt their systems to enable representation of new communities instead expecting RCOs to build their own capacity to communicate. The paper ends by offering some ideas around resourcing RCOs to be represented and developing the capacity of institutions to adapt to new diversity.

This article sets out to critically explore the expanding and contested vocabulary of ‘responsible citizenship’ as it relates to homeless people in a small market town in rural Dorset. Taking as its reference point the controversial decision to introduce a payment system for hot food at a day-centre for rough sleepers, I offer a concrete illustration of how the desire to cultivate ‘active’ and ‘responsible’ citizens is experienced and perceived by people who are affected by homelessness and other dimensions of ‘deep’ social exclusion. My concern here is to show that the logic of ‘responsibilisation’, which I suggest aims to ensure that difficult and troublesome individuals are made to accept prevailing social norms, draws its sustenance from a more fundamental concern with refashioning the meaning of contemporary citizenship. In so doing, I focus on the particular problems with this approach, using an alternative approach that argues that the problems and vulnerabilities associated with entrenched and chronic homelessness remain a significant obstacle to social inclusion and meaningful participation in community life.

Participatory evaluation gives primacy to the experience of people affected by the policy. How realistic is it for researchers to persuade government of its benefits, given the gap between participatory policy theory and government evaluation practice? We apply this question to the Resident Support Program evaluation. The program coordinates support for people living in boarding houses and hostels in Queensland, Australia. We found that a participatory, longitudinal, formative evaluation process facilitated service user contribution to research outcomes, service experiences and policy implementation. In addition, the values position of participatory research can contribute to managing interest conflict in policy implementation.

At any time any person faces a possibility of suffering harm from another, and the broad criminal justice framework aims to provide a general level of protection from such harms to the whole population. However, possibilities of abuse, exploitation or neglect are conceptualised as more likely for certain people. These include those in intimate partner relationships, or those whose level of dependency on others is greater as a result of life stage or impairment. Specific legal and policy measures aim to address potential harm in such situations, and are proliferating.

This paper explores the concepts of adversity, risk, vulnerability and resilience in the context of child protection systems with the aim of contributing to the debate about the ways in which risk of ‘harm’ and ‘abuse’ are conceptualised at different stages of the lifespan and in relation to different groups of people. The recent developments in the policy and legislative framework for state intervention on behalf of children in the UK are described and linked with an exploration of the underlying assumptions about abuse and neglect. Concepts of adversity, risk, vulnerability and resilience and the ways in which the complexity of the routes and pathways to ‘harm’ pose a challenge to the current UK state protective system are discussed.

Based on qualitative research completed in the United States on pathways into and out of commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), this article focuses on themes of harm, resilience and survival-focused coping by prostituted teens and makes recommendations for policy and practice. The research on which it is based takes a life-course perspective on pathways into and out of CSEC. Analyses of the narratives of homeless, runaway and sexually victimised (prostituted and trafficked) teens suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of both harm and survival that has important implications for practice and policy communities responding to human trafficking within and across borders.

Two recent studies of elder abuse in the UK are located in current policy contexts of adult safeguarding. After describing the studies, the discussion draws out their central messages and identifies the challenges that the studies present to recent policy debates and innovations. These relate to the need to properly integrate both wider older people's issues and issues of racism and ethnicity within developments in adult safeguarding policy as well as social care services as the personalisation agenda advances.

This paper reports on a study in which unique access to three locked psycho-geriatric wards of a hospital allowed ethnographic exploration into everyday social worlds of fourteen people with dementia. Findings indicate abusive practice in the wards and show that participants in receipt of such practice responded with self-defence and resistance, but ultimately were defeated. In a development of Sabat's (2001) Selfs 1–3 framework, I identify how abusive practice arose due to staffs' inability to recognise different aspects of patients' self. Recommendations for practice include integrating a developed Selfs 1–3 framework into staff training and evaluating its impact on practice.

In this article, drawing on interviews with women and men in same sex relationships who have experienced domestic violence, we explore the ways in which recognition of domestic violence can be hampered by public stories about the phenomenon and practices of love. Public stories construct domestic violence as a gendered, heterosexual phenomenon that is predominantly physical in nature. Victims of domestic violence are also constructed as ‘other’, weak and passive. In addition, we argue that practices of love obfuscate practices of violence; and can also result in victim/survivors constructing themselves as stronger than the perpetrator who needs their care.

The literature is reviewed: (a) comparing models of abuse and protection applied at each stage of the lifespan; and (b) exploring abuse and protection issues with respect to individuals over time. A paucity of comparative and lifespan work in the field of abuse and protection is reported. Within the available literature, different types of knowledge are drawn upon and contrasted definitions of ‘abuse’ and ‘protection’ employed. Accordingly, the most significant findings of the review are in the dissonances and the gaps surrounding the substantive findings. Examples are presented to demonstrate this, while new directions for discussion and research are proposed.

The URL addresses listed here access websites holding an array of electronic resources relevant to the understanding of harm, abuse, agency and resilience across the lifespan. Many websites include links to additional reports, research papers, reviews and other sources of information. Due to the breadth of subject area and limitations on available space, the websites should be regarded as an indicative sample rather than an exhaustive list of relevant information currently available on the internet. Only English language sites have been included. All website addresses were available on 31 July 2009.