Children’s Charities in Crisis. Body, Alison
define ‘good’ parenting?
The voluntary sector’s role in preventative services for children and families
Suggested as naturally having sympathies with children and families defined as ‘in need’ or ‘at risk’ (Morris et al, 2009), the voluntary sector is automatically set from a mission and moral viewpoint to want to respond to these welfare issues (Billis, 2001). However, theories and research around the voluntary sector’s role in the provision of prevention services for children varies between the recognition of them being well placed in order to engender trust and community engagement, to the voluntary sector as an agency of social control and coercion.
Labour’s policy for transforming the delivery of the public services throughout the late 1990s and 2000s increased the involvement and prominence of the voluntary sector. The consequence of this transformation was a rapid and considerable expansion in the number of services and goods purchased or commissioned from the voluntary sector, resituating the relationship between the state and the voluntary sector. As Blake et al (2006) identified ‘the relationship becomes characterised by the prescription and targets set by central government departments’ (Blake et al, 2006: 26). There are concerns that this relationship leads voluntary sector organisations to being resource led rather than mission or needs led, with organisations compromising values in order to win contracts. Nevertheless, the voluntary sector has historically had a significant role in the wellbeing of children since the Victorian era, for example, with charities such as Banardos, which was founded in 1867 after an outbreak of cholera killed 3,000 people, leaving thousands of children homeless and orphaned (Morris et al, 2009). Labour’s commitment to increase this significance of the voluntary sector within child welfare services saw voluntary sector organisations increasing their contribution to statutory children’s services on a variety of different levels. This included the direct delivery of services to children and their families, advocating on behalf of and supporting work with children, and facilitating participation with children and their families in consultation processes (Kellett, 2011).
As previously mentioned, the Children’s Fund programme, launched in 2000, was one of the key Labour initiatives which widely promoted partnership working with the voluntary sector, and ‘created a test ground between the voluntary sector as well as the statutory sector to provide preventative services to overcome the effects of poverty and disadvantage’ (Artaraz et al, 2007: 307–308). Ring-fencing a large proportion of the funding to commission services from voluntary sector organisations, there was an entrenched assumption that locally placed voluntary sector organisations would be best suited to deliver these types of services at a community-based level. While there is evidence that the voluntary sector can offer a more accessible service to children and families through engendering more trust than state interventions (Artaraz and Thurston, 2005) research into this area is limited. Undertaking a critical analysis of the ‘child rescue’ paradigm in the context of voluntary sector delivery of preventative services, Artaraz et al (2007) found that there exists the assumption that voluntary sector organisations are the sole service providers of prevention services. However, they go on to argue that this was a misconception, ‘resulting from the perception of the flexibility, capacity and fluidity of the sector to ‘venture into new frontiers’ (p 308).
Therefore, the state hopes to capture this uniqueness through partnership and multi-agency working. However, their examination of the evaluation of the National Children’s Fund programme revealed that this is not necessarily the case and remains more of an expectation than a reality (Morris and Barnes, 2008). The evaluation of the Children’s Fund programme identified that while families found the services delivered by the voluntary sector to be accessible, parents were concerned about lack of ongoing support and there was little evidence of multi-agency working. This suggested that the ‘relationship between risk and protective factor and long-term outcomes for children remains unclear’ (Evans et al, 2006). Evans and Pinnock’s (2007) research also suggested voluntary sector organisations delivering community-based interventions were more likely to adopt ‘single-dimensional’ approaches and often neglected to engage holistically with children’s family or work with other professionals to address wider needs and concerns. This led to projects tackling behaviours, attitudes and capabilities in individual children rather than adopting a holistic, community-based approach to build more supportive social environments. This single-dimensional approach was also highlighted by Middleton’s (1999) study, within which she carried out a series of semi-structured interviews with voluntary sector organisations providing preventative services for children with disabilities. Middleton argued that the rise of the contract culture, partnered with the targeting of services was reinforcing the separation of minority groups from wider social groups and was thus viewed as reinforcing social exclusion rather than tackling it. Furthermore, Evans and Pinnock (2007) argue that the often short-term nature and inconsistency of funding can lead to mistrust in sustainability and engagement. Morris et al’s (2009) study examining the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund supports Evan et al’s research (2006), suggesting that though policy shifts have required local authorities to commit to greater integrated working and joining up of services, the voluntary sector’s role in the delivery of these preventative services has been somewhat inconsistent:
At times, the history and experience of the voluntary and community sector in developing and delivering prevention has been recognised and valued. But other developments have – on occasion almost simultaneously – rendered the third sector vulnerable and dependant on the goodwill and accessibility of local mainstream providers. While the voluntary sector can argue a long history in seeking to meet the needs of children and families at risk of social exclusion, its capacity to influence and inform statutory providers has waxed and waned. (Morris et al, 2009
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