Families as a resource in the work with disadvantaged children and large institutions

Veronica Barenstein and Ema Genijovich

Chapter 9 in Handbook on Child Poverty and Inequality, 2025, pp 141-158 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Families living in poverty are already disempowered. Generally, social services enter the family with the goal of being helpful, but they bring their own ideas about what is best for the family and often, without intending to, further disempower the family. In this chapter, we present our approach to working with children and families in crisis and consulting with the institutions that serve them. This approach is strength-focused and uses a systemic orientation that views the family as a resource. We describe how this shift impacts the workers’ stance in connecting and working with the family and explore how this includes giving a voice to the children. We illustrate the work with several vignettes. We suggest directions for further work and program development. In conclusion, we believe that this shift is still necessary in our helping institutions, such as child services and the mental health system.

Keywords: Systemic approach; Family focus; Humanistic Relational Approach; Disadvantaged children; Social services; Multidimensional poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781802200423
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