Struggles and Silences: Young People and the ‘Troubled Families Programme’

Wenham, Aniela

doi:10.1017/s1474746416000464

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(15 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, although family consent was needed to undertake an assessment unless it was a safeguarding case, in practice this tended to translate into parents' or carers' consent. While some practitioners sought and recorded the views of young people, there were no formal or consistent procedures for doing this, and in many cases opportunities were missed to give children and young people the voice that allows them to determine their own interventions and align them to their needs more effectively (Tucker, Trotman, & Martyn, 2015;Wenham, 2016). In addition, schools' tendency to focus on the individual child, rather than the family, proved difficult to shift in some cases and underlined the fact that ambitious programmes of this kind need to be given time to embed and gradually change ways of working.…”

Section: Building Relationships With Families and Involving Them In Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerable Children, Young People, and Families: Policy, Practice, and Social Justice in England and Scotland

Jopling

Vincent

2020

Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This chapter begins by highlighting the rise of vulnerability as a term in social policy, and the three-level approach that is used to examine it. The first level is definitional, examining the possibility of defining vulnerability and vulnerabilities through a consideration of relevant literature and a number of recent policy documents. The second looks at how policy developments in Scotland and England have diverged, particularly since 2010, and how vulnerability has become more central to education policy in England. The third level focuses on practice, presenting research undertaken by authors into a programme developed to support vulnerable children, young people, and families in Northern England as a case study exemplifying some of the factors affecting the effectiveness of

show abstract

Section: Building Relationships With Families and Involving Them In Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vulnerable Children, Young People, and Families: Policy, Practice, and Social Justice in England and Scotland

Jopling

Vincent

2020

Handbook on Promoting Social Justice in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nunn and Tepe-Belfrage (2017) report interviews with programme managers which emphasised consistencies between national disciplinary discourse and the assumptions present among managers implementing the programme. Wenham’s (2017) study of families in the TFP also emphasised the causes of these troubles as being related to poverty and disadvantage but, contrary to the policy discourse of this leading to troubling behaviour, she stresses how this often resulted in a failure to cope and mental illness. She shows that parents and young people sometimes greatly appreciated the supportive efforts of key workers to help them cope with periods of difficulty associated with bereavement, drug or alcohol abuse.…”

Section: Findings: Implementing the Troubled Families Programmementioning

confidence: 99%

Contingent coping? Renegotiating ‘fast’ disciplinary social policy at street level: Implementing the UK Troubled Families Programme

Hargreaves

Hodgson

Mohamed

et al. 2018

Critical Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper reports on a study of local implementation in the UK Troubled Families Programme (TFP). Exploring the experiences of 12 families, the policies of local bureaucrats, and a critical reading of the literature, we argue that the local case represented an attempt to partially renegotiate disciplinary elements of the national programme and to recognise that the families were affected by structural poverty and inequality. Locating the TFP in the literature on disciplinary social policy, multi-scale 'Fast Policy' and the potential for local subversion through the agency of frontline workers, we suggest that that local attempts to renegotiate programme priorities were partially successful. These attempts were characteristic of 'contingent coping' in terms both of institutional processes and outcomes for the families involved. The evidence reported is significant and timely in the context of the expanded and relaunched TFP and this shapes our commentary on the recently published Improving Lives strategy.

show abstract

“…As a group, young people are disproportionately affected by rising inequalities and increased social risks, including elevated rates of unemployment and destitution (Antonucci et al, 2014;Fitzpatrick et al, 2016;Bessant et al, 2017), but they are also subject to national and international commitments to promote their wellbeing (for example, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989; 'Every Child Matters', UK Government, 2003). In normative terms, 'youths' are simultaneously portrayed as passive 'dependents' who have minimal agency and need supervision and protection, and 'deviant' actors capable of engaging in 'troublesome' transgressive behaviour (Wenham, 2016;Collins and Mead, 2020). This tension is exemplified by discourses that address a near-identical population as 'children in need' in social work departments and 'young offenders' in the criminal justice system (Goldson, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incoherent and Indefensible? A Normative Analysis of Young People’s Position in England’s Welfare and Homelessness Systems

Colliver

2023

J. Soc. Pol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Young people experience different treatment compared to older adults in the English welfare and homelessness systems, encountering varying levels of protection and disadvantage. This paper uses a value-pluralist perspective to explore the normative rationales for and the ethical defensibility of these policy differences. Evidence from 38 key informant interviews suggests that the English homelessness system is shifting towards a vulnerability-oriented response to young people. But an inconsistent value framework within the welfare system systematically disadvantages them without offering a corresponding degree of protection. As such, these closely-connected areas of social policy pull in opposing directions. Although individual positions targeting young people may (to greater and lesser extents) be justifiable, this disparity in values creates an incoherent and indefensible welfare policy landscape for this group.

show abstract

Struggles and Silences: Young People and the ‘Troubled Families Programme’

Abstract: Despite 'troubled lives' increasingly coming under the gaze of (powerful)

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

Vulnerable Children, Young People, and Families: Policy, Practice, and Social Justice in England and Scotland

Vulnerable Children, Young People, and Families: Policy, Practice, and Social Justice in England and Scotland

Contingent coping? Renegotiating ‘fast’ disciplinary social policy at street level: Implementing the UK Troubled Families Programme

Incoherent and Indefensible? A Normative Analysis of Young People’s Position in England’s Welfare and Homelessness Systems

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About