Pierson - Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion: Promoting Social Justice in Social Work

TACKLING POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

In our highly unequal Britain poverty and social exclusion continue to dominate the lives of users of social work and social care services. At the same time, spending cuts and welfare reform have changed the context within which services are delivered. The third edition of this unique textbook seeks to capture the complexity and diversity of practice relating to social exclusion as social workers adapt to this challenging environment.

Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion prepares practitioners to engage directly with the social and personal circumstances facing excluded individuals and their families. The volume:

explains the development of the concept of social exclusion as a framework for understanding the impact of poverty and other deprivations on users lives, and outlines five building blocks for combating exclusion in practice;

locates practice within social work values of fairness and social justice while acknowledging the many challenges to those values;

includes individual chapters on excluded children and families, young people and adults with chapters also on practice in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and rural communities; and

discusses inclusionary practice in relation to racism as well as refugees and asylum seekers.

Throughout, the book encourages students and practitioners to think through the range of approaches, perspectives and value choices they face. To facilitate engagement each chapter includes up-to-date practice examples, case studies and specific questions for readers to reflect on.

John H. Pierson has taught at Staffordshire University for twenty years and is currently Visiting Lecturer in the Creative Communities Unit at Staffordshire University, UK. He is the author of Understanding Social Work: History and Context and has co-edited the Dictionary of Social Work, among other works.

In a thought-provoking book, Pierson convincingly argues that social exclusion remains the sometimes ambivalent construct which connects the great majority of welfare service users who come to the attention of social services. Through intelligent case studies, astute theory and meticulous evidence Pierson highlights that social workers need to think hard about the impact which elevated levels of poverty, gross inequality and stigma have upon the too often constrained life chances of many people who turn to an increasingly fragmented social services. This book is a must-read for all students hoping against great odds to meaningfully support people within the seemingly postWelfare State.

Professor Malcolm Carey, Head of Social Work, University of Chester, UK

An excellent guide to social work practice and analysis: for students, educators and practitioners. It highlights the impact of poverty and forms of social exclusion on service users lives. It takes account of the harsh current context of social work. It shows, nevertheless, how social work that addresses inequality and engages cooperatively with service users, can contribute to fairer shares of social and material resources. Throughout, a realistic grasp of practice informs helpful case studies and exercises.

Eileen McLeod, Emeritus Associate Professor, University of Warwick, UK

TACKLING POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

Promoting social justice in social work

THIRD EDITION

John H. Pierson

First published 2001

Second edition published 2010

by Routledge

This edition published 2016

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2016 John H. Pierson

The right of John H. Pierson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pierson, John, 1944 author.

Title: Tackling poverty and social exclusion : promoting social justice in social work / John Pierson.

Other titles: Tackling social exclusion

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. |

Earlier editions published as: Tackling social exclusion.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041199| ISBN 9780415742986 (hardback) |

ISBN 9780415742993 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781315813967 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Social service. | Marginality, Social. |

Poor. | Social justice.

Classification: LCC HV40 .P535 2016 | DDC 361dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041199

ISBN: 978-0-415-74298-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-415-74299-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-81396-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton

For Frank and Kaz, with love

Without dignity our lives are only blinks of duration. But if we manage to lead a good life well, we create something more. We write a subscript to our mortality. We make our lives tiny diamonds in the cosmic sands.

Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs

CONTENTS

FIGURES

TABLE

I would like to thank Keith Puttick at Staffordshire University and Martin Thomas at Manchester University for reading portions of this volume as it was being prepared. They alerted me to needed changes.

I would like to thank Craig Cawthorne and John Webb for calling my attention to the work of Brightlife, a partnership for and with older people in Cheshire.

The book benefited from a paper by Adrian Randall on destitution among asylum seekers; I have tried to convey some of his passion and factual analysis of what happens to asylum seekers on the streets of Britain.

Families learning together is a vital approach to tackling exclusion. On this important subject Keith McDowell, head of the Knowsley Family Learning Service, provided me with material on the work that his team undertakes in disadvantaged areas of Liverpool. He and his colleagues deserve immense credit for their achievements.

I owe thanks to my longstanding collaborators and friends Terry Philpot, Simon Ward and Bob Maclaren for our running conversations on politics, social policy and machinations inside universities. To these I add the name of the late Paul Boylan who, over the course of the dozen years as my colleague and friend, proved to be a fount of fresh and committed approaches to work with children and adolescents.

I would like to thank the team at the Malpas Youth Centre: Eric Beak, Sally Sharp, Penny Davies, Steven Schrimshaw and Margo Webb, for our years together working with young people and our discussions of adolescent behaviour along the way.

The librarians at the community library at the Bishop Heber High School secured a wide range of publications from near and far for me. Would that everyone would be so lucky to have a library like this on their doorstep.