Family Hubs and the vulnerable care ecologies of child and family welfare in austerity
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5286435 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tom Disney (0000-0002-6080-7709, Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing Northumbria University Newcastle upon Tyne UK, corresponding author), Steve Crossley (Department of Sociology Durham University Durham UK), Hannah King (0000-0002-5066-5815, Department of Sociology Durham University Durham UK), Josie Phillips (Department of Sociology Durham University Durham UK), Ian Robson (0000-0003-3477-8710, Social Work, Education and Community Wellbeing Northumbria University Newcastle upon Tyne UK), Roger Smith (0000-0003-4720-0280, Department of Sociology Durham University Durham UK) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 191 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geographical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/geoj.12505 |
| OpenAlex | W4312180118 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 38 |
This article takes an ecological approach to examine the legacies of austerity for local authority welfare systems in England and the implications for families seeking to use these services. Programmes of Early Intervention or Early Help that promote 'resilience' amongst marginalised families and reduce future dependency upon state services have been advocated consistently in the UK, currently intensifying with a period of welfare retrenchment and restructuring. Many programmes and approaches being promoted prioritise a discourse of individual or familial responsibility and seek to deflect attention away from structural and environmental changes that have taken place. We explore local authority family and child support services as relational care practices that have been fundamentally reshaped through austerity, and in doing so we seek to shift the conversation from individual responsibility to systemic and collective vulnerabilities. Drawing on the concept of 'care ecology' to conceptualise local authority Early Help services as 'carescapes', we focus specifically on the changing context of 'Family Hubs', and the fragmented nature of service provision. As with any ecosystem, care ecologies are constituted by interconnected and interdependent actors, processes and systems. Damage to them produces unintended consequences which exacerbate underlying 'vulnerabilities'. We explore this as a legacy of austerity, noting that this has resulted in forms of socio-spatial distancing from care provision for families, disrupting protective networks and support systems. We argue that local authority support services would be better focused on systemic and collective vulnerabilities rather than individual responsibilities in order to provide meaningful support to families
Agency (philosophy · Austerity · Economic growth · Economics · Ecosystem services · Interdependence · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Restructuring · Social science · Sociology · Unintended consequences · Welfare · Ecology · Healthcare innovation and challenges · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Social Work Education and Practice
Circles of care
Small acts, kind words and “not too much fuss”
Offline
Social policy 3e
Living and Feeling the Austere
Between “Families in Trouble” and “Children at Risk”
Let’s stop feeding the risk monster
Emotions, affect and social policy
Early help and children’s services
Retrenched, Reconfigured and Broken
The Legacy of Austerity
Unpacking ‘family troubles’, care and relationality across time and space
Enacting parenting policy? The hybrid spaces of Sure Start Children's Centres
Facilitating access to services for children and families
Living austerity urbanism
From Sure Start to Children’s Centres
Participatory action research
Distancing and limited resourcefulness
Anticipating service withdrawal
Stasis disguised as motion
The right to be weary? Endurance and exhaustion in austere times
Coping with the Cuts? The Management of the Worst Financial Settlement in Living Memory
Landscapes of care
Towards geographies of child protection
Cities of care
Recognising the Time-Space Dimensions of Care
Spaces of care in the city
Responsibility, resilience and symbolic power
Disability, Oppression and Violence
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 8 |