Welfare & benefit systems

Drawing on interviews with key international informants across 16 countries, this book examines how child support systems often fail to transfer payments from separated fathers to mothers and their children. It identifies how the gender order is entrenched through child support failure and offers possibilities for feminist reform.

Focusing on three key areas: prevention, support and investment, this book argues that tackling poverty and financial insecurity through well-designed social security systems could offer a new focus for improving our collective mental health.

This timely book explores the role played by faith-based organisations (FBOs), which are growing in importance in the provision of social services in the European context.

The central interest of this innovative book is the role and significance of family in a context of poverty and low-income. Based on a micro-level study carried out in 2011 and 2012 with 51 families in Northern Ireland, it offers new empirical evidence and a theorisation of the relationship between family life and poverty.

As the new Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service takes over responsibility for the work previously undertaken by family court welfare officers, the experiences of the parents and children reported in this study will provide an invaluable service user perspective for the benefit of policy and practice.

This book explores the complex relationship between family change and public policy responses in EU member states and candidate countries. It combines broad-brush scrutiny of demographic trends, policy contexts and debates in contemporary European societies with a fine-grain analysis of the attitudes, perceptions and experiences of families.

In responding to the needs of working parents and employers, the Government has introduced legislation which encourages family-friendly initiatives to be determined jointly and voluntarily between employers and employees. Focusing on the key sector of financial services, Family-friendly working? reviews how companies are handling this process..

An exploration the phenomena of contemporary fatherhood, this book presents the current state of knowledge on father involvement with young children in six countries: Finland, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, the UK and the USA.

In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, the UK and the US demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in Nordic countries through family and social policies, and how these shape and influence the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods.

Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores the dynamics and diversity of men’s caring roles in low-income households at various stages of their lives. It sheds light on men’s participation in care and the factors that affect it, including class, culture, work and the impact of austerity.

Drawing on case studies of 12 primary schools and early years settings across England, this book explores how food banks operate for families facing financial insecurity operate and how they affect children’s participation and wellbeing. It explores the major policy decisions that needs to be made to support families.