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What Kind of Trouble? Meeting the Health Needs of ‘Troubled Families’ through Intensive Family Support

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2015

Janet Boddy ,
June Statham ,
Ian Warwick ,
Katie Hollingworth  and
Grace Spencer
Janet Boddy
Affiliation:
School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex E-mail: j.m.boddy@sussex.ac.uk
June Statham
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education E-mail: j.statham@ioe.ac.uk
Ian Warwick
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, UCL Institute of Education E-mail: i.warwick@ioe.ac.uk
Katie Hollingworth
Affiliation:
Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education E-mail: k.hollingworth@ioe.ac.uk
Grace Spencer
Affiliation:
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney E-mail: grace.spencer@sydney.edu.au
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Abstract

The policy rhetoric of the UK Coalition government's ‘Troubled Families’ initiative, and that of New Labour's earlier Respect Agenda, share an emphasis on families’ responsibilities, or rather their irresponsibility, and their financial costs to society. Giving children a chance of a better life coincides, in this framing, with reducing costs for the taxpayer. The research reported here was based on a national study of Family Intervention Projects (FIPs), funded by the UK government between 2009 and 2012, beginning under New Labour, continuing over a period when the FIP programme was discontinued, and ending after the Troubled Families programme had begun. The research involved over 100 in-depth interviews with stakeholders, including service managers, family key workers, and caregivers and children in twenty families, to consider critical questions about the kinds of trouble that families experience in their lives, and how they are recognised in the policy and practice of intensive family intervention.

Keywords

Familysupportinterventionparentchildhealth
Type
Themed Section on Intensive Family Support Services: Politics, Policy and Practice Across Contexts
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 2016 , pp. 275 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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