Welfare & benefit systems

An exciting and timely book documenting the transition to motherhood over generations and time.

Despite the high aspirations of young people from disadvantaged communities, they face barriers that are frustrating the realisation of their educational ambitions. This book analyses the ‘left-behind’ phenomenon and explains how denied educational equality undermines social cohesion and what we can do about it.

Over the last three decades Britain has witnessed an unprecedented rise in the number of people receiving welfare benefits that has provoked fears of a growing underclass and mass welfare dependency. This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the reasons for this growth and subjects notions of welfare dependency to empirical test.

Providing fresh insight into child sexual exploitation (CSE), this book uses the voices of children and young people who have experienced sexual exploitation, and the practitioners who have worked with them, to challenge the dominant discourse around CSE.

This book considers the implications for practice of the 'Every Child Matters' (ECM) agenda for working with children, analysing the key issues from the perspective of the different professions that make up the 'new children's workforce'.

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

Exploring the untold experiences of family members and friends caring for the children of female prisoners in England and Wales, this book analyses the complex challenges of the ‘family sentence’ they serve and the realities of their disenfranchised status in society, policy and practice.

Research into minimum income standards and reference budgets around the world is compared in this illuminating collection from leading academics in the field.

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the landscape of voluntary action. This book provides an overview of the constraints and opportunities of mobilising voluntary action across the four UK jurisdictions.

This book, the third in Martin Powell's New Labour trilogy, analyses the legacy of Tony Blair's government for social policy, focusing on the extent to which it has changed the UK welfare state.

Four years after the publication of the influential Munro Report (2011) this important publication draws together a range of experts working in the field of child protection to critically examine what impact the reforms have had on multi agency child protection systems in this country, at both local and national level.

This book presents new empirical research about in-home child care in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, three countries where governments are pursuing new ways to support the recruitment of in-home childcare workers through funding, regulation and migration.