ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces five building blocks for working with socially excluded individuals, groups and neighbourhoods. The five building blocks are: securing a basic income and basic resources for users and their families; strengthening social supports and networks; working in partnership with agencies and local organisations; creating channels of effective participation for users, local residents and their organisations and finally focusing on neighbourhood and community-level practice. The building blocks are generic they apply to social work with all groups of users. While social work is often, and rightly, described as individual and family-oriented, particularly in its approach to statutory work, it has to some extent taken a neighbourhood turn, particularly in relation to children's wellbeing, with the emphasis on ecologically based assessment, early years foundation and preventive services in general. The housing costs element of Universal Credit (UC) will replace Housing Benefit and be paid directly to tenants in the social rented sector rather than to landlords, with some exceptions.
