Description

Understanding the various definitions of poverty is a very complicated task, but this e-learning resource is designed to help you see beyond technical definitions and to understand how poverty changes people’s lives.

After looking at formal definitions in the introduction, you will then be asked to complete the phrase - 'Poverty is...' in a number of ways. You will then watch a group of family members who have experienced or are experiencing poverty complete the phrase.

You will be asked to compare your answers and reflect upon: a) the different aspects and implications of poverty and social exclusion on the day-to-day lives of families and b) how social workers may make judgements about people’s circumstances and behaviour.

Note: This resource contains audio.

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About the authors

James Blewett is a registered social worker who is Research Director and national chair for Making Research Count, the research dissemination network which in London is based at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Kings College London. After many years working in different posts of children's services James has taught extensively on social work qualifying and post qualifying programmes. As part of this work he helped developed a module with service users on the impact of poverty and parenting. James has written and researched around number of areas in children's social care including family support, child welfare policy and workforce issues.

Anna Gupta is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the Director of Post-Qualifying Studies in the Department of Health and Social Care. She was been the director of the successful London Post Qualifying Child Care Award at Royal Holloway for seven years and has developed the new Graduate Diploma in Work with Children and Families under the new GSCC Post Qualifying Framework. She is a qualified social worker with extensive experience of child care social work and management, including work as a children's guardian and expert witness in public law family court proceedings. She has published work on various aspects of child welfare, including on working with families living in poverty, childhood neglect and work with Black and minority ethnic families. She is currently involved in an evaluation of family group conferences for Black and minority ethnic families, and has recently completed a literature review on child protection systems and international adoption for the Children's High Level Group, a charity working with countries in Eastern Europe to develop their child welfare services.

Jane Tunstill is Visiting Professor and Children's Services Consultant at the Social Care Workforce Research Unit, Kings College, London and Emeritus Professor of Social Work, Royal Holloway, London University, where she established the Department of Health and Social Care and was responsible for professional and post qualifying social work education. Much of her research has been in family support and early intervention, and she has undertaken a large number of studies in both the statutory and voluntary sectors. Between 2000 and 2007 she was a Primary Investigator, (Director of the Implementation Module) of the DfES commissioned National Evaluation of Sure Start, responsible for the collection of national data on the roll out, service delivery and workforce issues. Her most recent NESS study is on the Safeguarding Activity of Sure Start Local Programmes and Children's Centres. Her published research studies include three consecutive Department of Health funded national studies, two on the implementation of the 1989 Children Act and one, a national study of the co-ordinating and networking activity of Family Centres, part of the Department of Health Parenting Initiative. She has undertaken a wide variety of commissions for the voluntary child care sector, including a mapping exercise of Family Support Services for FPI (Family and Parenting Institute); and a Cross Sector Scoping Study of the Family Support Workforce for CWDC (Children's Workforce Development Council).

In addition to undertaking research she is very committed to the need for imaginative and proactive dissemination of the knowledge base for children's services. She is member of the editorial board of Children and Society, and along with colleagues, was a founder member of the national social care dissemination project, Making Research Count, which now operates across England with a membership of approximately 250 health and social care agencies. She is a member of the Management Board of CAFCASS, in which role she has corporate sponsorship for research.

Acknowledgements

SCIE would like to thank ATD fourth world and its members who peer reviewed all the objects and appeared in the video’s giving their insight into living with poverty.

Please visit the ATD fourth world website to find out more about their work.

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