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Developing congruent children's services to improve child well‐being
Author(s) -
Axford Nick
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
child and family social work
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.912
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1365-2206
pISSN - 1356-7500
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2008.00579.x
Subject(s) - poverty , congruence (geometry) , psychology , service (business) , child poverty , social work , social exclusion , social psychology , quality (philosophy) , sociology , public relations , political science , business , epistemology , marketing , law , philosophy
This paper explores whether different concepts of child well‐being call for different ‘service styles’ and, if so, whether these styles can dovetail together to form a congruent pattern of children's services. The first part draws on the distinguishing features of five approaches to conceptualizing well‐being – need, rights, poverty, quality of life and social exclusion – and their empirical manifestations (‘conditions’) to identify different emphases or ‘styles’ in service provision. The second, more discursive part of the paper explores potential contradictions between these service styles, for example, between needs‐led and rights‐based approaches or between policies to tackle poverty and combat social exclusion. The third part examines whether and how such contradictions can be minimized to achieve greater congruence and discusses the need to consider the orientation of children's services in respect of interpretations of child well‐being.