"Problem families" and the post-war welfare state in the North
      West of England, 1943-74
Creators: name: Lambert, Michael
Publisher: name: Lancaster University
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Social Work
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Troubled Families
subject: Problem Families
subject: North West England
subject: Welfare State
subject: Public Health

description: This thesis examines the discourse, policy and intervention surrounding
      ‘problem families’ in post-war Britain from 1943 to 1974. Its contemporary
      salience is provided with comparisons of the Coalition and Conservative
      Governments’ Troubled Families Programme launched in 2011, committed to
      turning around the lives of Britain’s 120,000 ‘troubled’ families.’
      Current historiography has emphasised its discursive formation in
      constituting an ‘underclass,’ linking it to the pathologisation of the
      behaviour of the poor. This thesis explores the operationalisation of the
      label by the state, and the processes of identification and intervention
      pursued to produce the desired outcome of self-sustaining citizenship. The
      principal source for the thesis are the surviving 1,817 case histories of
      1,702 mothers and their children who attended the Brentwood Recuperative
      Centre for rehabilitation as a ‘problem family’ from 1943 to 1970. The
      North West provides a regional and local focus, as statutory and voluntary
      organisations operating within the county and boroughs council boundaries
      of Lancashire and Cheshire sent 1,196 of the 1,817 cases, permitting a
      closer scrutiny of the meaning and application of the label. Supplementing
      this archival source are the case paper and committee file evidence and
      minutes of the statutory or voluntary agencies which referred the
      families. By linking records of the mothers who went and the individuals
      who sent them, the process by which certain families were identified and
      the legitimation of their intervention, permits a deeper exploration of
      the conflicting roles of welfare and the state in post-war Britain. The
      reconstruction of this process of identification and intervention is
      undertaken on three interconnected levels. Firstly, the personal encounter
      between the family and the official, considering the role of professional,
      ideological and local discourses in singling out families for
      intervention. Secondly, the role of the local authority and council in
      structuring social service policies which framed the personal encounter
      and the workplace culture of officials: what Lipsky terms ‘street-level
      bureaucracy.’ Thirdly, the relationship of this pattern of personal and
      local practice to central government, national discourse and other
      ‘problem family’ policies in authorities beyond the North West. This
      demonstrates not only the need to return the state to analysis of the
      welfare state, but also that common experience and understanding of the
      welfare state is mediated through street-level bureaucrats and the subject
      of official discretion, rather than simply in legislation. Ultimately, the
      ‘problem family’ should be seen not as the preserve of a handful of
      experts, but embedded in the operational implementation of family welfare
      policy and practice across post-war Britain.