Social care is currently undergoing a transformation, driven by Government policy, and key to this transformation is giving greater choice to service users. This vision of choice is based on a market model of competing service providers; such a model can be difficult to implement in rural areas where problems of space, time and access hamper service delivery. This raises the question of whether policy is biased towards urban areas and highlights the important role that geographical gerontology can play in developing more person-centred social care policy and practice. This consumerist vision of social care has also fuelled a theoretical debate which underpins this research. The market model of choice has been located within a wider discourse which regards the self as a rational, self-sufficient individual. An alternative discourse has been posited from a feminist ontology in which interdependence and co-responsibility come to the fore; such a discourse emphasises the personal dimension to social care practice. This project forms the research component of a professional doctorate in occupational therapy and is concerned with the self-expressed views of rural older people in relation to the above social care theory and policy. Taking a phenomenological approach, a narrative methodology was used to interview 11 older people who live in rural West Northumberland. Participants' narratives concerning social care re-affirm findings from previous gerontological research which assert low expectations, self-sufficiency and the crucial role of human relationships. Although at a superficial level, 'choice' is not a term participants relate to social care, it is revealed that they do make choices on a daily basis both in relation to social care and their home situation, but choice is a complex and ongoing process rather than a one off event. It is suggested that the way participants situate themselves within their network of care and their geographic location helps them to maintain coherence in their personal identity. The concepts identified above are used to develop theory from a postmodern and feminist perspective in the areas of social care and geographical gerontology, forming an original contribution at the interface of these two domains.

Adult safeguarding guidance in the UK highlights the importance of fully engaging adults at risk in all areas of safeguarding (at both a strategic and an individual level). However, research has suggested that the level of involvement is low, both regionally (in the North East of England), and nationally. This thesis presents an exploration of the involvement of older people at both a strategic level (within local decision making on policy and practice guidance), and an individual level (within individual safeguarding investigations), with the aim of contributing to greater knowledge and understanding of this area, and developing indicators for best practice. The research applied a qualitative approach, informed by critical realism, with data collected in two local authorities in the North East of England. Data collection methods included interviews and observations, as well as the compiling of related policy documents. Participants included key stakeholders in adult safeguarding; social workers, members of the Safeguarding Adults Boards, family members, and advocates were all interviewed as part of the research. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. Through this in-depth exploration a theoretical model of the involvement of older people in adult safeguarding was developed. The emerging model provides a deeper understanding of involvement in adult safeguarding by highlighting key factors which both help and hinder involvement. The model reveals the complex interplay between multiple factors impacting on the involvement of older people in adult safeguarding which include, for example, the individual circumstances of the older person and the environment within which adult safeguarding work occurs. The importance of establishing a clear role and remit for involvement in this area is also demonstrated with reference to established models, and the manner in which involvement is constructed within adult safeguarding policy and by key stakeholders. The outputs from this project include contribution to the current discussion in the areas of service user involvement, adult safeguarding, and social work policy, practice and research.

The fastest growing family type in the UK is the stepfamily with social parenting an increasingly normal practice. Parenting policy and practice, which has increased exponentially over the last two decades, has historically been modelled on the biological nuclear family model with marginalised families the main recipients. The possibility that parents in marginalised stepfamilies might have separate and discrete parenting support needs to biological parents seems to be overlooked in policy, practice and research. Rather, the historical legacy of deficit, dysfunction and a ‘whiff’ of poor parenting in marginalised stepfamilies lingers on. The focus of the research was to determine marginalised parents’ perceptions and experiences of parenting in their stepfamily and their parenting support needs. An interpretivist research paradigm with an inductive research strategy was utilised, based on a situated methodology, which was a pragmatic approach to gathering a sample of marginalised parents, who are often difficult to access. Theoretical sampling elicited fifteen parents from ten couples. The choice of loosely structured in-depth interviews enabled previously silent voices to be heard. Thematic analysis of the data revealed accounts that were interwoven throughout with strong moral undertones which seemed to categorise their lives. The parenting issues were different and more complex than those they had encountered before. The parents adopted biological family identities, but these didn’t fit with their social roles and often rendered them powerless in their relationships with stepchildren. This appeared to have a cumulative effect which impacted on the already fragile couple relationship. Despite the parents easy articulation of the parenting issues there was a contrasting unease and ambivalence in discussing parenting support needs. Parenting support seemed to be an irrelevance that could be disregarded. Ultimately the moral significance of the parents marginalised class positions appeared to be central to their lives, which has important implications for policy and practice.

Housing and related services (HRS) were developed as part of the deinstitutionalisation movement, as alternative accommodation arrangements for people living with mental health problems. Despite this movement starting over fifty years ago there are still many approaches to HRS, and no clear model of best practice. Furthermore, even with an extensive evidence base and many reviews of HRS, there is still no agreement on what a successful HRS organisation and service look like. The purpose of the study was to re-evaluate the area of HRS, working inductively rather than imposing parameters on the subject. The aim was to capture the experiences of HRS stakeholders in order to gain a richer understanding of how HRS are delivered and received in practice. A Case Study approach was adopted using an organisation that has provided HRS for people living with mental health problems for over thirty years. The stakeholders who constituted the participant group were tenants (service users) and staff (support staff, housing staff and executives on the board of trustees). The study was guided by a Grounded Theory framework, and the stakeholders participated in interviews, joint interviews and a focus group. The results were broken down into change, factors affecting HRS, and a conceptual model which formed the basis of substantive theory of HRS. A Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS) was undertaken to explore previous literature in HRS. The results explore descriptive information, ambiguity, black-box evaluations and theory driven evaluations in HRS. Together the study findings and the CIS were used to construct a conceptual framework which can be used to understand the processes and outcomes in HRS. Future work is needed to establish cause and effect of identified factors, but the work of this thesis makes important progress in critically exploring the area of HRS.

The Coalition government’s (2010-2015) programme of public sector reform and austerity resulted in fundamental changes to the orientation of community development in England. This thesis investigates what happened to community development in England during this five-year period and its implications for professionals, volunteers and local people involved in community development processes. A post-structuralist discourse analysis methodology was operationalised and the empirical work consisted of 20 interviews with key social actors involved in community development processes in a case study local authority in the north east of England. Using post-structuralist discourse analysis, the transcripts were analysed alongside 54 key texts including: discourse by political and policy leaders, national and local policies, and academic debate. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating how the Coalition programme silenced community development as a distinct and legitimate practice, and re-shaped it as social enterprise, volunteering and community organising. The empirical findings establish four available discourses of community development. Yet, the hegemonic Enterprise discourse totalised the policy landscape and ‘othered’ community development as a bureaucratic, top-down, inefficient and ineffective relic of the previous New Labour government. In conjunction with the public sector cuts, this resulted in the decline of the community development worker subject position in England; with community development professionals increasingly nudged to adopt the subject positons of social entrepreneurs, professional volunteers and, to a lesser extent, community organisers. Local people were similarly nudged to volunteer in community development, social enterprise and community organising processes; and more skilled volunteers encouraged to take on professional responsibilities unsalaried. These findings suggest that the silencing and re-shaping of community development as social enterprise, volunteering and community organising is a ‘new’ permutation of neoliberal hegemony to roll-out citizen responsibilisation where local people provide community services rather than ‘relying’ on state intervention and resources. This thesis concludes that the Coalition programme exploited the ambiguity of community development and, in doing so, exposed four historical problems in the community development field. To protect community development from future attacks, this thesis proposes a genealogical post-doctoral study to unearth these problematic roots to then cultivate a community development free of such underpinnings.

England and Wales have the same criminal justice system, but devolution in Wales has created some differences between the two countries. In Wales all child and young person related services, with the exception of youth justice, are devolved to the Welsh Government. It is claimed by some that devolution has resulted in youth justice policy in Wales diverging from that of England. This is because of the Welsh Government’s adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been incorporated into its domestic legislation. This is not mirrored in England, as the UK Government’s youth justice policies during the New Labour period have been characterised as punitive, risk-led and managerialist. Although attitudes and approaches changed during the Coalition Government’s administration, the fundamental features of the system have not. Youth justice in Wales has been described as taking a ‘children first, offenders second’ approach to children and young people in trouble with the law, which by inference suggests the opposite for youth justice in England. The purpose of this study is to examine whether there is a different youth justice in Wales. This was done by scrutinising a range of evidence that included the policies of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and the Welsh Government and the interface and relationship between them, to determine what youth justice in Wales looks like and how it compares to youth justice in England. This was supported by an analysis of YJB data about the operation of the system, which disaggregated information about Wales from national statistics, to establish if outcomes for young people in Wales differed from their counter-parts in England. Finally, the perspectives of practitioners in two youth offending teams in England and two in Wales were explored to establish what their practice cultures looked like and the extent to which practitioners had similar or different views about how the system should and does operate, whether a ‘children first’ philosophy is dominant in Wales and how this relates to the policy positions of the respective governments.