March 2016 – Comment and analysis

Life Chances: Co-written re-imagined welfare utopias through a fictional novel

Posted on March 22, 2016May 2, 2023 by policystudies

Dr Debbie Watson, Reader in Childhood Studies discusses an innovative research methodology in this blog piece for the Sociological Review. This is part of their special issue on the relationship between sociology and fiction. With colleagues from the ‘Life Chances’ research team, Debbie describes how the project has been using fictional methods to co-create a fictional novel with community volunteers to better understand life on low income for children and families.

The Life Chances project is part of the ESRC funded Productive Margins project led by Professor Morag McDermot which has a number of themed co-produced projects with academics from the universities of Bristol and Cardiff working with a number of grass roots organisations and volunteers to enable new forms of engagement and to challenge regulation of people’s lives.

Read ‘Life Chances: Co-written re-imagined welfare utopias through a fictional novel‘

Why inequality matters

Posted on March 21, 2016May 2, 2023 by policystudies

Tessa Coombes, PhD student in the School for Policy Studies, former councillor, ex-policy director at Business West, and part-time blogger discusses why inequality matters, following the screening of a new documentary at the Bristol Festival of Ideas.

“The people will always forget” was a significant line in the documentary The Divide which I saw this weekend as part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas. In the film the line refers to the belief repeated by those to blame for the sub prime mortgage crash in the US, the bankers and financiers, who led us into the Global Financial Crisis and then expected us to bail them out. It’s an assumption that one could well believe our politicians make on a regular basis when taking some of the decisions they do – it’s ok they’ll forget about it when it comes to voting! It’s also an assumption that means we fail to learn from the mistakes of the past and that potentially stops us from addressing many of today’s issues and concerns. Which brings me to the subject of this discussion – the increasing levels of inequality in the UK and the growing divide between top and bottom.

The Divide catalogues the stories of different individuals in the UK and US just trying to get on in life. It highlights all too easily the increasing divide between those that ‘have’ and those that don’t. It illustrates the growing extent to which many of us are perhaps mistakenly driven by money and consumerism, by keeping up with our peers or striving to do better than them, and aspiring for things that are, in the end, unlikely to make us any happier. The main message of the film is based on the book “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, first published in 2009, but becoming ever more pertinent as time goes on. One of the most important points that the book makes is that inequality affects all of us. The problems are not just confined to the poor, the effects are seen across all aspects of society. Income inequality is a social pollutant because it spreads and everyone is worse off in a more unequal society.

The film illustrated many relevant issues that we are beginning to see the impact of in the UK, but in this post I’m just going to pick up on a couple of them that I think are becoming ever more relevant, that is, the impact of zero hours contracts and the growth of gated communities.

The use of zero hours contracts has become more prevalent in the UK in recent years across a range of sectors. Whilst some in government have tried to argue that it suits both workers and employers, the human impact of these contracts is illustrated particularly well by the film. If you don’t know how many hours you will be working in any particular week how can you budget for rent, food, bills etc? Imagine the levels of stress this type of contract could impose on you from day to day. You don’t know when you will be needed or for how long, so you don’t know what time you need to go in to work, if at all. You don’t know what you will earn in a week, so how can you plan ahead? The insecurity and uncertainly this creates is huge. Imagine having to live with that, even as a single person, but what if you have children and have to plan for their lives too, how does that work? In New Zealand this form of contract has been banned altogether (by a centre-right government), perhaps we could learn something from them?

The concept of gated communities has been around for some time now, with many more at a massive scale in the US, but something that is also creeping into the UK. In the US it’s a way of creating a sanitised community, where white people can feel safe surrounded by other white people, protected by armed guards at the entrance to their ‘community’. The community in the film had its own golf course, lake, play areas and parks and was characterised by large individual houses in their own plot of land. It’s a community that to many would look and feel like ‘prison’ but which in the US is something to aspire to. In the film these places came across as very exclusive, a place to live where people felt safe, but also where people felt isolated. There was in fact little sense of community in evidence, with estate agents promoting the place as lovely and quiet and where you won’t see your neighbours. That’s not a community! In the UK these types of gated community are happening, not on the scale of the US, but they’re there to make people feel safe, so people can surround themselves with other people who have money and status. To me it would feel like a prison, where you have to sign in visitors and go through guard gates just to get home, and where the diversity that makes our communities so rich and fascinating is totally missing. Let’s hope we choose to learn less from the US and focus more on the innovative and creative approach of our European and Scandinavian neighbours.

This point on who we learn from is an interesting one, which was picked up during the discussion with Kate Pickett after the film. It seems the devolved administrations of the UK are more likely to look to Scandinavia, The Netherlands and Germany for inspiration, when it comes to tackling inequality, than the UK Parliament as a whole, where sadly, all to often we look to the US for ideas.

That is the US where health and social inequalities are worse than anywhere else and where income inequalities are at their most extreme. There are many lessons to learn from elsewhere but let’s please make sure we are looking in the right direction. For example, in Utrecht, in the Netherlands, they are looking at paying citizens a basic income and in Bhutan a Gross National Happiness Framework was introduced to replace measures based on GDP.

“Inequality destroys empathy” that’s why whilst inequality does of course matter, it doesn’t matter how you achieve greater equality. There are a range of many different measures and policies from across the political spectrum that can work. The key is to do something about top and bottom levels of pay to create greater income equality because as Kate Pickett put it “every action we take individually matters and can make a difference”.

Daryl Dugdale, Programme Director of MSc Social Work in the School for Policy Studies reflects on teaching and learning in the field

Posted on March 14, 2016May 2, 2023 by policystudies

International Social Work Day- Promoting the dignity and worth of people; A social work educator’s Perspective

In celebrating International Social Work Day it is important that social work students experience dignity and self worth in the delivery of social work education. I should declare at the outset a vested interest in this issue as Programme Director of an MSc Social Work course at a Russell Group University. My responsibility, alongside that of my colleagues, is to ensure we deliver a rigorous learning experience so we can optimise the chances of developing top quality social workers. This of course is no easy thing. As Jonathan Dickens has acknowledged, the complex and contradictory roles and responsibilities associated with social work means “that change is always a work in progress and never a task achieved” (p22, 2011). How do we respond to the individual challenges and complex needs of our service users in what is a constantly changing environment? There are challenges for all practitioners in responding to increased volumes of work, whilst experiencing reduced capacity, during a period of near constant agency reconfiguration, and at a time of austerity. Additionally these challenges exist when there is significant political and academic discussion surrounding the future of social work as a profession and debate around the best methods of delivering social work education.

I have a responsibility to ensure the students’ learning environment models best practice and introduces skills to support behaviour expected in their engagement with their prospective service user groups. The learning experience of the student group must promote dignity and provide examples of self-worth; failure to do so risks these qualities not transferring to their practice.

Attempts to fulfil this aim are supported by ensuring the structure and content of the programme has at its core the ‘three Rs’, the student experience must be Robust and Reflexive with opportunities to develop Resilience – these are foundational to the programme.

Robustness is ensured through immersion in the latest research and opportunities to share innovative practice. We consider our programme to be research live and practice near. The students are taught by academic staff who are all involved in undertaking research. The areas of research address the broad spectrum of social work including mental health, learning disability, children and families and gerontology. Students are able to access up to date research messages and debate cutting edge methodologies both of which help inform the development of their practice. This supports Croisdale-Appleby`s suggestion that social workers be acknowledged as social scientists. This research robustness is further enhanced by close collaboration with partner agencies. Practitioners are actively involved in the design and delivery of all elements of the programme. In addition the programme has a very active Service User Carer Forum group who ensure lived experiences and the importance of power are shared with the student group. This promotes healthy discussion and debate around the professional role, the relevance of social work values, and intersections of oppressions. It also asks fundamental questions on what constitutes ethical practice. The collaboration between academics, practitioners and service users ensures students are able to draw on a broad range of knowledge and experiences to help inform their professional judgements. It is important professional decision making doesn`t rely on instinct but has a robust evidence base at its core.

Reflexivity is the second R and fundamental to social work learning and everyday practice. The students are told on the first day of the course that on completion in two years there is an expectation that there will be a change in how they understand the world and how they understand the construction of knowledge. I acknowledge the process of learning is deskilling and by definition a painful experience. The use of reflection is a vital tool in the social workers toolkit. Pedagogy informs the variety of teaching styles on the programme and opportunities to engage in group work informed by an enquiry and action learning approach helps facilitate the reflective process. It also ensures the students take responsibility for their own learning. The act of reflection is further influenced and supported on placement by quality supervision, peer support, and additional training opportunities. I expect space for reflection to be a fundamental right for all practitioners and this opportunity should begin at the qualifying stage.

Resilience, the third R, is crucial to practitioners being able to sustain themselves in what is an increasingly challenging practice environment. It helps amongst other things to protect against experiences of vicarious trauma. The emotional component of the social workers role demands all students develop emotional elasticity. It also requires the student is able to develop strategies to help self-manage. This might include developing strategies for chairing difficult inter-professional meetings, communicating with reluctant children or adolescents, developing rapport with adults experiencing mental unwellness, or identifying best ways of de-briefing after a challenging home visit.

The three Rs exist as a golden thread fundamental to the design and delivery of the social work programme.

During this period of rapid and significant change there is I believe a real risk to the golden thread. Whilst engaged in celebrating social work in its international context, recent developments in England suggest dangers are afoot. I have anxieties that the Rs may be lost or at the very least diluted, which may impact on students’ experiences of dignity and worth.

I`m not so arrogant to assume there is only one way to deliver social work education, nor would I suggest the structure we have designed is necessarily the best example. However recent changes to how social work education is being delivered does concern me. Fundamental to this concern is the rapid rise of fast track programmes, and there are number of reasons why:

• First of all the proposed numbers involved. One third of the 4,590 social work graduates (2013-14-figures from HESA) undertook post graduate social work programmes. The proposed advance of fast track programmes both Step Up and Frontline aim to train 950 students by 2019. This figure constitutes two thirds of the current post graduate figure. This proposal will have a significant impact on those research intensive HEIs who currently run social work programmes.

• These changes appear to be ideologically driven with a lack of robust evidence to support the assumption that this method of delivering social work education adds value to that which currently exists.

• The focus on children and families work and the move towards specialism puts at risk the benefits of the generic programme. It is a generally held view of social work academics that the generic programme offers the best opportunity for social work students to appreciate the wider social context of family and human development as a whole life course.

• The fast track programmes with their significantly larger bursaries offers a financially perverse attraction to applicants. This creates a two tier application process with those traditional programmes having their bursary allocation squeezed. There is no guarantee that the fast track programmes will attract the best possible candidates with their mix of social care and life experience, all key to supporting the development of well rounded practitioners. In addition there are questions around diversity. In targeting high performing undergraduates there is the potential risk that the fast track programmes attract students of a certain age, class and ethnicity. This will impact on the makeup of the social work profession moving forward, which will further impact on the experiences of the vastly diverse service user groups.

• Squeezing the learning into a fourteen month period places significant pressures on the student. The complexity of the social worker role demands time is taken to help form effective links between social work theory and practice. There are dangers this pace of learning will result in knowledge deficit. This runs the risk of practice becoming overly bureaucratised, target driven, and risk averse. This manifestation mirrors weaknesses in current practice regimes. The result may be paternalistic practice that pathologises service users and fails to acknowledge the impact of the wider social and political context. The danger is such an approach risks creating an ethically naive profession, where principals of social justice are deemed a luxury rather than a fundamental human right.

It is important on this day that we acknowledge all those involved in learning the craft of social work as well as those delivering social work education. Social work “promotes social change, problem solving in human relationships and ensures the empowerment and liberation of people to enhance wellbeing” (IFSW 2011). This task is both complex and messy. The act of delivering social work education has many challenges, Wenger (1998) suggests that “learning is the engine of practice and practice is the history of that learning”. The suggestion is people’s learning and the environment in which it is experienced influences what they become. I suggest the principles and structures of the fast track movement offer potential dangers to social work education and the qualifying experience. There is a risk that a learning context is being created that negates the long history of research messages relating to social work education. There is a need for this debate to be amplified and the discussion should be informed by robust research to ensure the student social worker experience is maximised. There is a need to ensure the three Rs remain a fundamental part of any social work programme and aren`t replaced by the three D`s, risk of dilution, the risk to diversity and the risk from dogma.
Dickens, J. (2011) Social Work in England at a Watershed—As Always: From the Seebohm Report to the Social Work Task Force British Journal of Social Work Vol. 41 p22

IFSW. Ethics in social work, statement of principles. Available at www.ifsw.org/f38000032.html
Wenger, E. (1998) ‘Communities of Practice. Learning as a social system’, Systems Thinker, http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml

Growing the conversation: how to make Bristol a Child Friendly city

Posted on March 7, 2016May 2, 2023 by policystudies

Debbie Watson reports as The Bristol ‘Child Friendly City’ Network ran the first Child Friendly Symposium as part of the 2015 Thinking Futures festival.

Inspired by global UNICEF guidelines, the Child Friendly City’s Network aim is to bring together a wide range of partners to campaign strategically and deliver grass roots projects that support child friendly environments. The Child Friendly Symposium brought together around 20 children and young people, as well as 80 adults who worked for and with this demographic, from all over Bristol.

Mayor George Ferguson opened the event and emphasised the need for cities to actively consider children and young people, whether in urban planning decisions, allocation of community resources or in the respect afforded to our youngest citizens. He said: “A child-friendly city is a healthy, happy, liveable and playable city”.

The symposium then saw short presentations delivered by Bristol academics: Dr Angie Page on children’s activity levels and public health outcomes; Dr Helen Manchester on a project which explored young people’s cultural engagement in Bristol; and Dr Debbie Watson on a project which co-developed research capability and awareness with Room13 Hareclive children and artists.

But the main event saw child-led participatory activity to engage adults in the room. Together they made creative banners, highlighting what needs to change in Bristol for it to be truly child friendly. These banners were then showcased, sharing many powerful and provocative messages.

Giving young people from Room 13 Hareclive, Hartcliffe and Felix Road Adventure Playground, Easton, a contributing role in the symposium was an important statement of intent. Harnessing this potential is what Child Friendly Cities (CFC) are all about, holding true to the principle that ‘if a city is successful for children it will be successful for all people’.

“The Thinking Futures Bristol Child Friendly City Symposium was a great opportunity for us to bring together representatives from different backgrounds in the city to share an equal platform: children and young people, academics, organisations working with children and young people, arts and cultural organisations, Bristol’s mayor and Bristol City Council officers.”

We heard compelling arguments from different perspectives – research, local government and children themselves – about why it’s so important for Bristol to be more child friendly. Children and adults identified key calls for change in the city such as ‘free bus travel for children’, ‘safer streets’ and ‘believe and trust in us’, which we all endorsed. It was good to see children and young people, many of them from more disconnected parts of Bristol, sharing thoughts and ideas with academics and practitioners, and vice versa.

This event in partnership with the University of Bristol really helped to raise the profile of Bristol CFC and to consolidate and move on our agenda within the city. We’re excited by the possibility of further collaborative work with academics.” – the Child Friendly City network.

The event is part of a wider strategy to grow the conversation in Bristol, beyond immediate partners and interested parties. Already, impact can be seen across the city through press releases, media coverage, and new partnerships. Bristol and other cities have already been in touch, with potential collaborations stretching as far as Sweden. In late February these interested parties came together at a seminar hosted by Cardiff University’s Children’s social care research and development centre (CASCADE), opened by Dr Sally Holland, the children’s commissioner for Wales.
Ongoing local campaigning includes: a proposal for research impact funding to tackle one key issue with children in the city; organising a young people’s Mayoral hustings in May; and an international conference hosted in Bristol, for the city to truly lead on child friendly policy and practice.

For more information:

Towards a child-friendly city

The Child Friendly City network consists of University of Bristol academics and grassroots organisations Architecture Centre, Playing Out, and Room13 Hareclive.

Debbie Watson is Reader in Childhood Studies in the Centre for Family Policy and Child Welfare.