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Background: ‘As the corporate parent of children in care the State has a special responsibility for their wellbeing ... That means being a powerful advocate for them to receive the best of everything and helping children to make a success of their lives’ (Department for Education and Skills, 2006, p. 31). The background literature outlines the positive impact that life story work can have for children in care, although there is only a small amount of published research to support these claims and to date no research which explores both carers’ and looked after children’s experiences of engaging in collaborative memory work which forms an important component of a child’s life story. Aim: To explore the experience of foster carers and looked after children in carrying out collaborative memory work using the memory store approach and discover what their talk could tell us about how using the approach had affected: the carer-child relationship, child’s self perception, aspects of the child’s thinking and learning and their emotions. Sample: Five carers who attended the memory store approach training and volunteered to take part in the research and four children in their care who also volunteered to take part. Method: Two-three months after a one day training course for carers in using the memory store approach, semi-structured interviews were carried out with the five carers and a board game session took place with each of the children to explore their views. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to guide both the data generation and its subsequent analysis. Findings: The talk of the carers and children suggested that using the memory store approach has a number of perceived benefits, emotionally, relationally and in terms of the child’s self perception and learning. A memory store approach model was postulated on the basis of these findings. Conclusions: Using the memory store approach (or similar) should be a statutory requirement of foster carers, not only because of the potential benefits outlined in this study but also because of the ethical necessity to safeguard the memories of a child’s time in care. Further research would be helpful to explore the general uptake of the memory store approach following the training as well as wider research into the experience of children undertaking particular forms of life story work with social workers/other professionals. The study also highlights the utility of games in research and educational psychology practice.

This work analyses working hours, childcare support, wage inequality and windfall gains. In Chapter I, I test whether family-support policies play a role in explaining variation in working hours across countries. I analyse childcare subsidies and family cash benefits and I distinguish between people with children and people without children. Childcare subsidies should increase working hours in the economy and these effects should differ between parents and nonparents. I test this using household data for a set of European countries and the US. Empirical analysis, however, does not support the family-policy explanation. The effects of the policies on working hours are weak and insignificant. Furthermore, I do not find evidence for the expected differences between parents and nonparents. I conclude that family policies are not helpful in explaining the variation in working hours across countries. In Chapter II, I argue that rising inequality in offered wages lowers average working hours. If the labour supply is concave in wages, the aggregate effect of the decrease in working hours of low- paid workers is greater than the increase in working hours of high-paid workers. Furthermore, due to low market opportunities, some of the low-paid workers may leave the labour force and become inactive. Using the CPS-MORG data for prime-age men I find evidence in support of this explanation. After controlling for the average wage, wage inequality has a negative effect on the labour supply. In Chapter III, I investigate whether workers adjust hours of work in response to windfall gains using data from the European Household Panel. The results suggest that unexpected variation in income has a small negative effect on working hours. Furthermore, the empirical findings show that the impact of windfall gains is more important for young and old individuals, is most negative for married individuals with young children, but can be positive for single individuals at the age of 40.

This study examines three areas of child policy assumed by scholars and recent research to relieve child poverty; child benefits, child support and early childhood education and care (ECEC) from a children’s rights perspective by comparing Iceland, Norway and the UK, 1991-2011, asking when, if and how do children's rights emerge in these policies. These areas of policy provide a good opportunity to examine the tension between the child, the adult and the state. A new framework was created combining both children’s rights and child poverty theories with comparative analysis. The results indicate that when and in what form children’s rights emerged not only suggests a classification of the three states; Iceland an Equality-Integrity Rights based system; Norway an Integrity Rights based system; the UK a Family-Centred/Social Investment system. It also opened up an understanding of the three policy areas studied; that the triangular relationship between the state, parent and child is very important and policy specific. These results can help guide policymakers in their search for evidence-based policies, and the framework offers politicians, activists, researchers and social workers a simple, sophisticated tool to gauge children's rights in policies.

The development of Sure Start Children’s Centres was at the spearhead of New Labour’s efforts to support vulnerable children and families in order to eradicate child poverty. Children’s Centres were expected to provide integrated services for children and families in order to ensure that every child mattered. These Centres required a new kind of leadership which was different from that found in individual professions such as education or health but has been relatively unexplored. Through studying the life stories of seven Children’s Centre leaders from a specific local authority, some insights are given on the leadership context in which they operate; the approach they take to leadership; and how their personal and professional biographies have prepared them for this work and enabled their success. The study concludes that the context is unique because of the widespread uncertainty about the purpose of the Centres, the adversarial relationships with the Local Authority and the dilemmas of working with a wide range of stakeholders. This has led to the presentation of a competitive, almost heroic, stance. Deep seated beliefs in social justice coupled with a rebellious nature have been essential in providing a foundation for the authentic leadership these leaders present. Their experiences of early work in non-traditional environments with other agencies have prepared them for and excited them about the Children’s Centre leadership role. The Sure Start environment provided them with the opportunity for autonomy and being able to design provision which matched their concerns for social justice and allowed them to make a real difference in the community. The thesis challenges the ‘new paradigms’ of distributed leadership spreading from educational literature to the early years. It suggests that these Children’s Centre leaders see themselves as mavericks who achieve results for their communities through autonomy and freedom.

This document comprises three papers: a systematic literature review (chapter 1), a bridging document (chapter 2) and a piece of empirical research (chapter 3). The systematic review focuses on whether and how family resilience can be enhanced through support interventions within the community, taking a mixed-method approach to reviewing findings from seven papers. Community interventions were reported as having a positive impact on family resilience, well-being or functioning within the sampled studies. Components of successful interventions described within the papers were assessment, concrete services, educational services, emotional support, and social or community support. Consideration was also given to how support was put into practice and the theoretical approaches underlying the interventions. However, it was noted that a majority of the studies reviewed used narrow quantitative outcome measures; highlighting the need not only for consideration of wider outcome measures when evaluating impact, but also the need for a qualitative approach to provide richer data on how support is experienced by the families themselves. This led to a piece of empirical research on parents’ experiences of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), a framework for assessing and supporting children and families with additional needs. Parents from three families were interviewed on their experiences and a broad approach was taken to allow findings to be grounded in the interview data. By examining parents’ narratives of CAF meetings and the implicit role expectations for both parents and professionals within this process, the possibilities for learning and enhancing relational agency were highlighted. It was suggested that parents were expected to take on a professional-like role and experienced new language demands in engaging with the CAF process. In meeting these demands, parents’ faith in, and reliance on, professional expertise decreased. This was taken to highlight parents learning and developing relational agency through their interactions with the collective knowledge and expertise available within the CAF process. The tentative understanding of parents’ experiences developed through their narratives emphasises the importance of recognising the experiences of families within models of interagency learning and the need for professionals to consider how to integrate this understanding into their practice. ii A bridging document explains how the findings of the systematic review led to the development of the research. It details the theoretical and epistemological underpinnings of the research, providing a critical justification for the methodology adopted. It also provides greater detail on the methods applied in the research, considering critical ethics and reflexivity.

This research explores outcomes for 31 children in 17 families, from parenting assessment work undertaken by the author in her role as an independent social worker, for a local authority between 2006 and 2008. The data collected in the course of the work was used in order to identify themes and patterns across cases, to form an understanding of the common difficulties faced by families in complex child protection cases. The assessments were followed up with interviews with the social workers to find out what had happened to the child or family. The themes arising from these two sets of data are presented as case studies, highlighting common themes about the psychodynamic factors affecting decision making in child protection work and the emotional impact of the work. The study describes a process whereby the social worker can lose sight of the child’s needs due to the overwhelming needs of the parents. The findings advocate a process of containment through a model of reflective supervision, which takes account of the emotional impact of the work, bringing the child back into focus whilst not losing sight of the parent’s needs. A process of reconnection with the tragedy behind the cases is also described. This study demonstrates how difficult it is for one lone social worker to keep the parent and child’s needs in mind and therefore advocates for a team approach to complex child protection work.

This thesis reports on a case study undertaken within a Local Authority’s Children and Young People’s Service. It focuses on the learning of front-line staff learning during induction. Whilst practice-based learning, particularly during induction, is embedded into roles such as Teaching or Social Work, there has been little research into other similar professionals engaged in caring for children and vulnerable families in the public sector. The thesis seeks to fill that gap. It explicitly seeks to understand induction from the perspective of inductees, something that mainstream management research on induction does not focus on. In addition, the thesis is set within the context of financial austerity and cut backs in the public sector in the UK, and offers an insight into how this affects learning within the organisation. The case study involved inductees and first-line managers. Data was collected through a daily ‘learning journal’ that inductees completed, and semi-structured interviews with both inductees and managers. This data was examined with the help of literature on work based learning, new managerialism and austerity. It drew upon Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, doxa and illusio as a framework to help understand the context and the data. The thesis reports on how the perceptions and practices around induction emerge as rooted in hierarchical relations between inductees and managers, with the assumption that managers would - and should - lead on what is learnt and how, during induction. One effect of this is that prior experience and knowledge, particularly around softer skills and unaccredited informal learning, appears devalued. Coupled with the new managerialist ethos and the pressures that accrue during a period of recruitment and resource freezes that typify ‘austerity’, the effects on both the learning environment as well as understandings/assumptions about induction learning are of concern. The thesis examines these factors in some detail and ends with some brief thoughts on how induction learning could be improved in the short and longer terms.

This thesis aims to identify factors that have supported childminders living in rural English local authorities in achieving ‘outstanding’ home-based childcare. The Childcare Act 2006 legislated for the integration of childminders into the English education system through the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage in 2008. Since 2005, childminders have been judged against the same Ofsted criteria and standards required of all early years providers. In 1999, the New Labour government announced a commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020. Parents in employment were regarded as vital to the reduction of poverty, and along with nurseries and preschools, childminders were essential for ensuring sufficient childcare was available to meet parents’ needs. Childminders have been portrayed as offering inferior provision. Research has shown that it is high quality early years provision that enhances the lifelong chances of disadvantaged children. A mixed method survey was used. A questionnaire was sent to all English local authorities. ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted reports of childminders in the rural local authority with the highest number of ‘outstanding’ judgements were analysed, as were those of the 55 ‘outstanding’ childminders with whom telephone interviews were conducted and who lived in 18 rural local authorities. Findings identified vastly disparate support for childminders, both between local authorities as well as between providers within the same local authority. A structured local authority network, incorporating quality assurance, was most effective in supporting childminder progression; however, the study found most childminders have limited or no access to networks. Childminders report their childminder colleagues, qualification training and previous experiences offered most support. This study provides a perspective of childminders which has hitherto been lacking; that of articulate, educated, reflective, committed professionals. The study shows that proposed changes for childminder regulation and inspection are premised on false claims and show a disregard for international research and policy.

Parents’ ability to access good quality information is the lifeline to good family outcomes, just as access to good quality childcare offers a child the best start in life. Pioneering information seeking behaviour study in the field of childcare, this research identifies that family outcomes are determined by their information behaviour, demand on systems, social networks, information sources and other symptomatic influencing factors including trust, quality, cost, staff, time and values. The research builds on existing theoretical approaches by integrating a multi-theoretical approach to facilitate a comprehensive analysis of parents’ childcare information-seeking behaviour which reveals that the childcare information-seeking process is characterised by information behaviours such as sense making, information authentication, information berry-picking, and in some cases information avoidance based on parents’ experience, system complexity, or family values. Identifying patterns of childcare information-seeking behaviour, the research builds a model that reflects the four categories of information sources parents consult or engage with during the period. Recognising the major barriers to information seeking, the research accentuates the critical success factors required to improve parents’ experience when looking for childcare to inform future policies, practice and development.