Family and Parenting SupportMary DalyConceptualisation/perspective

Trends/findings

Analytical Framework

Key Questions

•What are the main lines of development/trends of family support and parenting support and what are the aims and modalities?

•What are the underpinning rationales as well as the connections to other policy areas?

•What or who is driving developments?

Analytical Complexities

• How are both family and parenting support to be defined and demarcated from each other as well as from other policy domains?

• How can they be compared across such a wide range of countries?

• How does one determine what is new here and what are developments an evolution of?

The possible aims are:

• compensating for the costs of children;

• reducing poverty faced by families and children;

• promoting children’s well-being, development and rights;

• supporting or otherwise affecting fertility;

• changing employment rates;

• changing the nature and extent of gendered practices, relations and inequality;

• address family problems or ‘problem families’

Towards a Definition

• Family support is:

• both a way of working with families and a philosophical approach that recognises and seeks to bolster the strengths and functioning of families

• Parenting support is:

•Oriented to parents and how they execute or perform their parenting role;

•Has as a primary aim to increase the parents’ resources (broadly defined) and competencies.

Methods and Data

• Literature and document review

• Case studies of 10 countries– Belarus, Chile, China, Croatia, England, Jamaica, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden

• Database assembled from UNICEF country/regional office feedback (33 countries)

Main Trends (1)

• Family support being developed in two main forms:

• a) through services – especially social, health and psychological services to families

• b) through reorientation or establishment of cash payments to families

• Both are driven by concerns around child protection and the recognition of family weaknesses/strengths

• Variation is widespread however but fairly widely the focus is on ‘problem families’

Main Trends (2)

• Parenting support is also quite extensive

• It takes two main forms:

• Education/information

• Health – family visiting

• It mainly comes from the early child development thrust but is also furthered by a child risk perspective

Drilling down further

• Family and parenting are providing a focus for innovation and policy development within and across countries

• They sometimes are being developed together but in other cases are separate

• Difficult to see a clear theoretical base to the developments

• The extent to which provision is formal depends on the general stage of development and the nature of family

• .A struggle between universal and targeted but targeting is winning

• More multi-dimensional or inter-linked approaches

4 Lines of Analysis

•Underlying philosophy/values

• The main drivers and actors

• The main aims and modalities

• Impact and outcomes

Analytical Framework 1

• Family:

• a source of problems and also solutions (responsibilities)

• Material and other challenges, relationship problems

• Child

• Inadequate child ‘performance’/development

• Child risk/child well-being

• Parents:

• Parental skills, competences

• Parental dysfunction

Philosophy and

Underlying Values?

Analytical Framework 2

• The role of social and demographic challenges and their interpretation

• Changing perspectives around children

• The international agencies

• Experts/professionals – and the belief in evidence

• State actors - particular kinds of politics/political agency

• Community actors

Drivers/ Actors?

Analytical Framework 3: Aims and Modalities

• Formal or informal

• Targeted or universal

• Ways of working (top down or bottom up)

• Degree of intervention

• Single or connected set of interventions

• Embeddedness in policy and law

Key details of

provision?

• Social work and counselling services

• Home visiting (health focused)

• Community supports for families

• Cash transfers /public works

• Child protection measures

• Education provision around parenting

Main Expressions

in Policy?

Analytical Framework 4

• Child focused:

• Emotional and behavioural

• Educational

• Reduced risk

• Parent focused:

• Skills, knowledge and competencies

• Orientations and attitudes

• Emotional, mental and material resources and well-being

• Family focused:

• Improved stability and functioning

• Improved material and other resources

• Better integration/less isolation

Associated/Expected

Outcomes?

Where are the knowledge and information gaps?

• A theory of change

• Gap between statement of intent and reality

• Tracing and identifying and measuring outcomes

Explanations for Cross-national Differences

• 1. The perspective on and organisation for child welfare and welfare system more broadly

• 2. Stage of development of the state and public support systems

• 3. Prevailing approach taken to family (including legal and cultural approach)

• 4. The professions and professional philosophies that are dominant

• 5. The ‘problems’ or ‘needs’ that the provisions are meant to address