The Bridge calls for new thinking about how the state engages with its citizens, citing the transformations wrought by technology in informing, enabling and empowering such citizens. For the last decades we have been thinking about how the state engages with multiply deprived families where there are concerns about child protection and have become convinced of the urgency of developing a more socially just settlement. We would suggest that if the Bridge is to offer hope to all our citizens, then there needs to be fuller discussions about those most impacted by a toxic intertwining of power and inequality.
Little attention has been paid by any government in recent decades to the evidence that shows the systematic relationship between deprivation and coercive state interventions with families. In 2013, for example, a child in Blackpool had an 8 times greater chance of being in out-of-home care, than a child in Richmond Upon Thames, with relative deprivation as the major causal factor .
The State, under New Labour, did invest heavily in support to deprived families while apparently content to let inequality run unchecked. Wilkinson and Pickett, among others, have alerted us to the consequences of unchecked inequality for a range of ‘wicked issues’ and overall levels of trust in societies. The consequences for relationship between professionals such as social workers and families have been less well explored but we would suggest distances between social workers and families grew and were intensified by service designs that removed workers from neighbourhoods and situated them in remote, central offices. Thus, they often became ‘distant strangers’ visiting communities they knew little about and entering families’ homes to conduct formulaic enquiries about risk.
New Labour developed a panopoly of command and control mechanisms using targets and timescales to regulate the work of child protection professionals. In turn, practices with families were often characterised by authoritarianism, lacking a commitment to participatory approaches and our research evidence suggested service users were frightened by complex intimidating processes. The Coalition has unravelled some of the regulation but has ramped up the risk averse rhetoric, hollowed out support services and, with the promotion of adoption, legitimated an individualised project that involves ‘rescuing’ children from their impoverished parents.
We consider an incoming government needs to face up to some stark choices. Should resources be invested in propping up an ethically problematic settlement that is premised upon rescuing child casualties of inequality or are there other possibilities? We suggest that there are, indeed, such possibilities to be found scattered through our society. These foster the relational ties of kin, friendship, place and community as key contexts for the resolution of children’s needs and support families to demand and engage in more participatory models of decision making. However, such possibilities are fragile and marginalised. They need support if the opportunities celebrated within the Bridge are to be truly available to all.
While I strongly agree with the broad thrust of the case made in this comment, I am not clear how it relates to the content of The Bridge.
The main point of The Bridge is that modern communications technology gives makes possible new forms of radical discourse. I am sure that is right even though I think that the claims made in that publication lack any clear critical basis.
BR, KM & SW are right to point out that the general social background of massive social inequality imposes very strict limits on what can be achieved by support mechanisms for dealing with problems of deprivation. But how does this relate to the case made by Neal Lawson and Uffee Elbaek?